For 2012 I Resolve ...

I've been thinking the last week or so what I wanted to work on this coming year. A new year means new challenges, new goals, and potentially a new start for me. So far, I don't have much that I really want to work on. There are the typical things - exercise more, watch what I eat, etc, the sorts of things that everyone resolves to do. And I do have those - I would like to get into much better shape, and to eat healthier. To be more healthy overall would be great and it is one of my goals for the year. But I don't really feel that I have any huge overarching goals this year.

Many of my goals/desires have to do with being a more creative person. I have the art project that I mentioned in my last post - My 365 Project. The goal of the project is to improve my artistic talent, as well as to have a constant source of output for my art. Although, it's two days in and I haven't yet started on any of the images (I am currently experiencing some computer complications that are making things slightly more difficult than anticipated, hopefully the issues will be resolved within a week or so).

I want to write.

I want to get my personal website up and running.

I hope to start on some of my long-running writing and comic projects, specifically Tankyuu, Tribe, Truth, and Kyoot!.

I would like to improve my sewing ability, probably by making tons of plushies and dresses. I would like to start selling handicrafts on the internet - potentially through Etsy or some similar service/website.

Other aspects of my life I would like to change are simplifying and living a more minimal lifestyle. Tene and I have discussed moving into a smaller apartment, and I think it would be a good change. I would like to be less of a consumer and more of a creator overall, and so I would like to get rid of our extra "stuff" - and get rid of the space we use to store that extra stuff.

I want to be a better "rat-mom."

I want to be a better friend, and I want to socialize more. I had started doing more near the end of last year, but then things went sideways and all my good intentions got ignored. I want to meet new people and do new things.

There are other things I want as well - again, I would like to be healthy and have a good life. I want to bike more, and I want to go outside and enjoy the outdoors more. I want to read. I want to keep a well-organized home. I want to figure out vermicomposting and have my little patio/balcony flower garden.

In short: I guess my goal for 2012 is: I want to live a better, fuller life by living more simply, more creatively, and more socially.

Making Changes

My project has fallen by the wayside as I've slipped back (two steps forward, one step back, right?) and returned to being who I don't want to be, but who I naturally tend toward. It's unfortunate, but true.

I'm going to keep trying, and I'm hoping February will be better for me, but I can already tell that the way I was going about my project was completely wrong for me.

I was trying to follow the example of Gretchen Rubin, whose book The Happiness Project got me thinking about my own happiness and prompted me to begin this project in the first place. I think that this is why I've had a lot of trouble. I was ignoring my own strengths and weaknesses and trying to force myself into a spot that was unnatural and inherently difficult for me.

Like only focusing on certain goals each month. Yes, this is a good way to lay groundwork, and is important, but when I had a chance to begin Crossfit courses (and join a gym) for a reduced cost I deliberated instead of jumping at the chance. I wanted to put off beginning on energy-related goals until February, and now that it's almost February I find that I may have to put off some of my energy related goals anyway, because of some health problems that have cropped up (TMJ specifically; I do not feel that I can safely begin a month-long Paleo diet and high-energy exercise routine while being limited to a mostly, if not completely, liquid diet). Also, putting goals off until some arbitrary date in the future made me feel less excited about them by the time I got to enact them.

So, from now on I'm going to add goals as I think of them. Each month I'm going to spend extra time thinking about and working on specific tasks (as I've been doing), but I'm not going to ignore or forego goals just because "it isn't time yet."

I'm also going to look at my goals not so much as something to be achieved - so not so much like goals - but more like habits that I'm trying to learn and ingrain in myself. I think that changing the end point to something that really isn't ever complete from something set in stone is a good idea for me. It fits with my desire to always be improving and making my life better, and I believe that I will feel less of the failure-guilt if I don't do well for a few days - because for some reason there seems to be a difference between failing to maintain a habit and failing to reach a goal. Both are failing in their own way, of course, and I fully admit that this is mostly buggering about with semantics, but failing to maintain something sounds and feels much less dour and permanent than failing to reach something.

Pits to Fall In

It has been 20 days since I started my happiness project. I've run in to a decent number of pitfalls in that time - more than I expected to run in to, and in some ways more than I was prepared for.

I found that my enthusiasm for my project waned quickly, and it has been difficult to stick to my goals. This isn't the first time I've felt this way about making changes to my life. I often talk about seeking for change or improvement - which, on an intellectual level, I do want and desire to strive for - but, to be completely honest, my natural disposition tends more toward stagnation and the status quo. Change is very difficult for me to accomplish - it always has been. I blame it on my inclination to remain the same, which I don't yet know how to overcome. Perhaps striving for personal improvement will always be a struggle for me.

I've also had a very difficult time working on what seem like relatively simple goals - a problem which has an overall discouraging affect on me. Even simply tracking my time or my progress on my goals has been a difficult task to consistantly follow through with. 20 days in and more than once I've wanted to throw my arms up in the air and give up.

I've started trying to make some changes to how I do this project, but most of them haven't helped much. I'll talk about those later.

Reasons

I became interested in doing a Happiness Project for myself when I started reading (I honestly got to Rubin's first month and had decided that I was going to do a Happiness Project for myself), and I became interested in the book when it showed up in my Amazon search while I was looking for something else (can't remember what that was, though).

For the last five or six years of my life I've been identifying as "depressed" - I've been letting my clinical depression rule my life, and I've allowed myself to be too paralyzed by anxiety to overcome that.

I decided to start my own Happiness Project in the hopes that I can finally start truly living my life, not just watching it pass by me as I let it slip through my fingers.

So, I'm starting this project - it's like a year-long quest: Achieve Maximum Happiness. I'm nervous, excited, and really looking forward to it. The failure-option for this plan is really not that bad (the current status quo is maintained), and the success-option is one of the most important things I can do in this life (achieve happiness and contentment).

I only have ideas for the first two months, and that is as far ahead as I'm planning right now.