New Year's Resolution: The Year for Me

For the past two years, I have blogged and filmed a video about what my New Year's resolutions will be.  I'm not going to lie, many of them have been surface level resolutions. Read one book a month. Be more active. Write one positive thing a day. Yeah, those are fine resolutions, but I don't think I really cared about them.  I was too busy with school and work to leisurely read one book a month. Some days I felt too lazy to be more active. There were many days where I had to force a positive thing to write about. Every other resolution just fell by the wayside, my interest in them basically nonexistent. Overall, the resolutions I was making didn't feel right for me. For the past two years, I have felt like I had to have a laundry list of resolutions that would improve my life in all aspects of it.  I felt like I had to make these resolutions because that’s what you do when you go into the new year, right? You make all these goals that you’ll work tirelessly to achieve? As much as I tried to convince myself I wanted to,  I knew I wasn't really ready mentally to make a change to be a better me.  Not a real, significant, true change. I wasn't in the right headspace to see where I could improve and better my life. Everything was clouded. My heart wasn’t fully committed to these goals I had put out there so I just didn’t really care. I made the resolutions, but deep down I knew that if I didn’t accomplish them, it wasn’t going to bother me.

2016 has kind of been all over the place for me. I've had some amazing highs - traveling, graduating college, getting my first "big kid" job - but I've also been dealt some crippling lows - we'll save those for another day - that made the year a bit of a cluster. I felt like there was so much of a back and forth that I was becoming mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. I didn't even realize it, but I had been compromising who I was for other people and not allowing my voice to be heard. Months and years of this all came to a head this year. After a particularly bad bout this spring, I decided that I needed to gain better tools on how to deal with my emotions and a better grasp on what in my life was putting me in such bad mental spots. I was sick of being in such a low spot and I knew that if I didn’t want to stay there, I had to do something. I decided that it was finally time for me to address what wasn't working in my life and work towards a better one.  And I have to say, it was the best decision I ever made for myself.

I had a hard time at first asking for help. I had a hard time taking that step to discuss my ups and my downs, trying to figure out how deep rooted thoughts or past actions were affecting me. I started this process during the summer, but really started putting in the effort and the time in the fall. And from this, I have started to gain a better idea of the person I am and the person I want to be. I’ve learned so much about myself that has not only benefited me short term, but that will also stick with me further down the road. Don’t get me wrong, not every day is sunshine and daisies.  I still have bad days where I feel like I’ve made no progress at all.  There are times when I feel like the whole world is against me and that I have nowhere to turn.  But no matter what, even during those down days, I still know that I’m going in the right direction.  I know that I’m having more good days than bad now, which is a relief, and I know that I’m truly putting in the effort to have a more consistently positive mindset.

That all being said, instead of really making concrete resolutions, I have decided that for 2017, I will be focusing on myself and making this the "year for me".  No "I'll do this..." or "Maybe this will work for me...", just "Focus on myself."  For so long, my priorities have been rooted in other people - whether that is constantly putting others before myself or needing validation from people to reaffirm that I mean something to them.  It's been years of putting myself on the back burner and watching myself slowly deteriorate in my well-being. It’s been exhausting for me and those closest to me. I’m done feeling like my entire being is caving in and that I can’t bring myself out of the dark holes I can sometimes dig myself into. So I’ve officially dubbed 2017 the “Year for Me”. I’m going to pursue new hobbies, new relationships, new experiences, while also continuing to surround myself with people who are such positive aspects of my life. I want to try new things, I want to find what makes me happy, and continue to grow. For the first time in a long time, I have a sense of optimism about what’s to come.  I genuinely want this next year to be better than 2016 and that drive is what makes me excited.

I'm very much looking forward to what 2017 has in store and I'm excited to share my progress through this blog and my videos. I've got a suspicion it's going to be a pretty damn good year.

Feel free to check out my video about my New Year's resolution here.