New Year’s Resolutions and the Tail End of January

Remember the resolutions you made a month ago? How are you doing on them — are you still going strong? Did they fizzle and die right away? Or are you somewhere in between, struggling along, weighed down by the cold and dark and sheer endlessness of January? That last one is where I’m at right now. My goals for this year have to do with making space — clearing out physical, mental, and time-filling clutter so I can refocus on what’s important to me. The very first step in that goal was to spend more time writing. Instead, I’m spending less time writing and more time…renovating my house? I’m doing a writing challenge that involves twice-weekly check-ins on my blog. If you read those posts, you might notice a lot of what sound like rationalizations or excuses. I’m busy with Real Life. I’m not writing a lot but it’s quality over quantity. Renovations also relate to my goal of “making space”. But all of that is deliberate.

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Year of No Fear: Ice Skating

All my life, I’ve been held back by fear – fear of failure, fear of injury, fear of the unknown.  When I thought about it, I realized that most of the circumstances in my life that I don’t like are due to those fears. So, I decided that 2014 would be my Year of No Fear.  I posted a manifesto recently.  Fellow Turtleducker KD Sarge has joined me.

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Getting a Boot to the Butt

I’m not really a New Years’s resolution sort of person. Somewhere, sometime, I read an article that said you shouldn’t try to make life changes on certain days–new year’s, Mondays, the first day of a month–because you tend to build up too much anticipation and are more likely to fail. Plus, trying to make more than one change at a time can be overwhelming. That being said, I am embarking on something new. The new year thing is pure coincidence.

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Breaking the Hermit Habit

  I’ve often wished to be a hermit. Have you ever read My Side of the Mountain? It’s about a boy, tired of living in a cramped apartment with too many siblings, who runs away to upstate New York to live on the family land his father has told him stories of. He makes a home inside a huge tree. He raises a hawk and teaches it to hunt. Man, just hook up wifi in that tree and I’m there.

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Resolutions, Wild and Not

  Ahh, the turning of the year. Tis the season for dissecting the year past, and planning the year ahead. Cynicism, guilt, hope, and optimism make an unlikely mix at this time of year. Everyone is looking back, or looking ahead, or both. Kit Campbell can’t believe 2013 is gone. Erin Zarro has some big dreams for 2014. Siri Paulson is on vacation. Me? Well, I’m living up to Kit’s proclamation that creative types get a little wild in the resolution department. I’m resonating with Erin’s rejection of fear in the new year. Mentally I’m vacationing with Siri. Ahem.

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