Looking Ahead: My 2024 New Year's Resolutions
Beyoncé, Lemonade
The first blog post of the year! And what better way to kick-off the year than to start with the age-old “New Year’s Resolution” post. I know what they say about New Year’s Resolutions… that it’s hard for people to live up to these grand ideas as time passes, then you get bogged down with seeing yourself as a failure for not sticking to them. I am not going to dispute that.
Experts do offer this piece of advice: make resolutions that are specific. If you can do this, then the chances of you sticking to your resolutions are significantly higher. Experts also advise sharing your resolutions with others; by speaking them into the universe, the chances of you holding yourself to them are now even higher. With those two points in mind, here’s throwing my 7 hopefully specific-enough New Year’s Resolutions into the universe (aka. sharing them with you). There’s nothing over the top on the list; just things that I believe will help me live my best life and be my best self. Hopefully, it will inspire some resolutions for you, too.
1. For my diet, Eat Less Sugar
I don’t have the healthiest relationship with food. Especially when I’m stressed, I very much eat my feelings, with my choice of poison being anything sweet. Cookies, cake, even coconut water; you name them, I’ll devour them. With 2020 being an extremely stressful year, this meant that I consumed more than my fair share of sweets in the last 9 months.
The moment of reckoning came during my annual physical, when I was told that my blood sugar level is now pushing the ceiling of the normal range. Damn.
At the end of the day, I want to be able to process stress in healthier ways (i.e. taking a walk, journaling, or working out). So here we go, eat less sugar. Does dark chocolate count (I think not)? Oh God… this is gonna suck.
2. For my body, Do Yoga Daily
I’m not sure how many of you feel me on this, but working from home all day from my dining room table and chair has really torn my body a new one. I’ve never experienced consistent lower back pain as I do now, and my shoulders are basically always tense. The ergonomic footrest, ergonomic seat, ergonomic back cushion, and the ergonomic keyboard have all only improved things by the margin (you’re welcome, Amazon).
As working from home continues into the new year, I realized that I need to be truly committed to stretching daily to take care of my body responsibly. I’m only 31, and I’m already aching here and there… I can only imagine how much worse my body will feel if I’m not proactive at protecting it.
Just 30 mins daily. I think I can swing that.
3. For my health, Get 8 Hours of Sleep
I am a big believer of sleep. I always get so excited when I get a good sleep score on my Fitbit (like a true nerd). Sleep is key to our physical and mental recovery. REM sleep, for example, has shown to play an important role in mood regulation, learning, and memory as your brain processes and consolidates information from the previous day so that it can be stored in your long-term memory. Yeah, I need as much of that as I can get!
Whenever I get a full 8 hours of rest, I always get through the day easier and more alert. I am also in a much better mood on those days (to my husband’s delight). Pluses all around!
4. For my mind, Drink Less Alcohol
Just when you thought eating fewer cookies was gonna be the hardest thing on my list of resolutions... here comes drinking less alcohol. Why oh why does alcohol have to be bad for us?!! Because in so many ways, it’s soooo wonderful for us!!
Same with the cookies thing, the honest truth is I use alcohol as an escape. I use it to de-stress, and I need to stop doing it before it becomes a solidified habit. Again, I want to be able to process stress in heathy and constructive ways. I will ALWAYS support having girls’ night with a bottle of wine (or two) and having a nice glass of wine with good food. It’s the drinking alone during the week on my couch that is not doing me any good (unfortunately).
So, here we go. 2024. Less wine. GOD GIVE ME STRENGTH!!
5. For my growth, Read More
This resolution is on my list every year. It’s also the one I fail most miserably at, always. Why can’t reading be easier, darn it? I was able to pick up working out consistently over the years, but have made basically zero progress on reading more, to my own dismay.
My strategy this year is to give myself an achievable goal: 1 book every 3 months. That’s only 4 books for the year! I’m also going to pick books that are relevant for my wedding planning business (I.e. business books); hopefully, I will be more inspired to read them this way. Fingers crossed, people. Fingers crossed.
6. For my productivity, Wake Up with the Sun
I hope I’m not the only person that likes to sleep in whenever I can. Isn’t it part of human nature to want to do that?!
While I have accepted that I will never be a morning person (aka. someone that likes to wake up early, ugh), I’ve also come to recognize that there are lots of advantages to waking up early, including simply having more hours in your day. Especially over the weekends, when I’m waking up at 10 or 11am, I miss out on so much time! Time that I could be writing more blog posts, watching Netflix, or going for a walk with my dog. Basically, more time to enjoy my life! So, here’s to waking up early every day.
7. For my soul, Be More like Beyoncé
Last but not least, this year, I would like to be more like Beyoncé (hence the picture up top). Of course, it’s Beyoncé we are talking about here; we are lucky if we can get close to being 1% of her magnificent. But that’s my exact point - I just want to be 1% like Beyoncé.
This year, I am going to try and ask myself the key question “what would Beyoncé do” whenever I’m in a pickle. For example, if something is taking longer to manifest than I expected, I will remind myself that Beyoncé was in Destiny’s Child for TWELVE years before flying solo! Whenever life throws me lemons, I will remind myself that life threw Beyoncé some serious Becky with the good hair lemons, and she freaking made Lemonade. Whenever I think life is too hard, I will remind myself that Beyoncé rehearsed 8 long months for her Coachella performance, eating no bread, no carbs, no sugar, no dairy, no meat, no fish, and no alcohol. Damn B, Damn!
Yes, this year, I will remind myself to be more patient (as difficult as it will be), to turn challenges into opportunities, and be unwavering in my hustle. I am going to take care of myself in the best ways, so that I am both mentally and physically able to live my best life. Here’s to manifesting some Beyoncé energy for all of us. Let’s slayyyy 2021!