Resolutions -- or Goals! -- for 2012

It's that time of year again, and I have to assess 2011's goals and repurpose them for 2012.

Thankfully, this is not too hard to do, since I have been pretty steadily working on each of my 2011 goals and thinking a lot during the last week about how to revise them for 2012.

Here we go!

2011's goals were, as I took them in this blog:

1. Improve Overall Health
2. Change My Living Situation
3. Manage My Resources
4. Build a Better Community
5. See Creative Work to Closure

Health: This was only an okay goal, over the course of the year. While I worked on stabilizing my hormones and depression, I did not embrace exercise. For that reason, my weight and overall condition did not improve (note to self: it's true about exercise!). Positive outcomes: my depression is under control, my mood swings and other perimenopause symptoms are under control. My allergies/sinus problems flared up in the final weeks, but using a humidifier every night (!) as well as increasing my intake of H2O hugely improved that, rather than the OTC remedies I started with. Overall, I am in great health. Negative outcomes: my LDL cholesterol is high and not coming down, my weight is still over the line and not budging except bits and tweaks. I need to lose serious poundage and remember to maintain my health through habits of hydration, nutrition, movement, and meditation.

Living Situation: 100% improvement, maybe 150%. No more crackhead landlord, no more cracker box, reduced rent, more green space, and more light. Thsi one was a total success, despite sacrificing a good deal of savings on the 3-month overlap of spaces.

Resources: Time is a constant battle, between "shoulds" and "want tos." Yo, I'm human. However I did add the Rescue Time Robot to my desktop, and it tells me I am 79% more productive than average. So shut up, Critic's Voice! Money is another, different battle, but this year I did pretty well. I have a more affordable appartment (and even though I might only be saving $100/month, the happiness factor makes that huge). I rearranged my retirement $$ is a way that makes me feel more secure. I opened several successful venues of frugality for decluttering, including selling unwanted items. Energy is the real battle, and that's the 2012 focus.

Community: This, too, was a success. I joined a short story group of women I enjoy and while we've only met once, I look forward to more meetings. I opened myself to the performing community in town, and am building bridges there. I opened myself to the community on my campus, and am trying to open out of my division, my school, and into the university in a positive way. I need to set more goals here, however, and be open to groups of strangers.

Creative: This was a big success! I sold my first novel (coming out in June!) and have almost completed the second, which I am certain will be equally salable. I sent out my short plays in a month-long binge and have had one hit so far, and three rejections (so I've got a long way to go). It felt great, however, challenging myself to complete and submit projects.

Overall, 2011 was a good year in terms of my goals. I plan to build on that in 2012:

Improve Overall Health: not much change here in direction. However, I plan to focus specifically on maintaining good habits (like using the humidifier every night) while building new ones (like 30 minutes of movement every day). I'd like to add daily meditation and vitamins, but I think I'll be conservative in this area, since it is one that truly needs daily focus.

• January-April: make it a habit to spend 30 minutes every day in movement of some kind
• May-August: add daily meditation (which will work with my 2012 summer plans)
• Sept-December: add supplements and vitamins
• get a mammogram
• get a colonoscopy
• get a dermascan 

Living Situation: This is easy. Renew lease on apartment (i.e., don't move!). More, start researching the pre-fab house I love in detail through contacting the company and chatting with them. And start looking at the places I think I want to build it: Oregon, Northern California, and Washington are the three places I'm thinking about now. But they might stink once I look around. So... research.

Resources: As ever, my biggest battle will be managing time. I have come to hate scheduling and to-do lists. And yet.... I need a new car, I need a new mattress & box spring, I need to pay down (or off) my credit cards. All worthy goals, all hard to do at the same bloody time! This year I want to build on my basic foundations of frugal saving and repurposing and decluttering: I find that I am about done with the wholesale donations to Goodwill, etc., and while that is an easy and intelligent manner of getting things OUT OF MY HOUSE (and onto my tax savings) I must needs find other ways to open what one of my favorite blogs refers to as "additional revenue streams." And finding new energy is part of the Health intiatives above, plus the hormones.

Community: continued reaching out, across phone, email, work/personal connections to develop relationships with new people/groups as well as people I already like, love, and connect with.

• Habitat for Humanity: in the Dallas area
• Alum group: for connections and fundraising/support of current programs
• Short story group
• Theatremakers/academics/women in both

Creative: Here, I have very specific goals

• Finish and sell second and third novels
• Binge with short plays in February and Sept-Oct
• Journal daily: dreams, ideas, etc.
• Finish and send two reviews
• Finish and send encyclopedia entries
• Polish and send two articles (from ALA papers, 2011) to journals
• Present two-three conference papers (one scheduled, July)
• Blog daily (in either blog) and continue to post my own photos

Here is my overall goal for 2012: Make lemonade all year long, every day.

I am so tired of negativity, including my own. I really believe everything is an opportunity, seen in the right light. Context and response are everything... they can turn what looks like failure or an impass into something wonderful. Not to be goopy or stupid about it, but to stop letting myself define my view by others' vision. Ugh! Especially since I am butt-tired of the men in my life having stupid, negative, misanthropic outlooks anyway.

Oh, does that sound negative? Nope: it's all good.

At the end of Day Four: Snowpocalypse

Yesterday I:

• caught up on The Daily Show (3 weeks)
• cooked my favorite carrot soup
• washed dishes in dishwasher and by hand
• responded to email, including Facebook
• posted pictures on Facebook
• burned 15+ CDs into iTunes library so I can sell CDs
• culled out another 10 CDs for burning/selling
• approved new retirement allocation
• scheduled March payments for March bills
• scheduled transfer into savings of last week's grocery savings
• juiced 10 Texas red grapefruits slowly going bad on my dining room table
• blogged
• played with Jack
• rescheduled this week's friendly lunch, friendly dinner, and curricular events for for next week
• rescheduled doctor's appointment and lease-signing meeting
• continued to organize student project taking place in 5 weeks
• started next Goodwill bundle while also cataloging my current wardrobe
• organized year's savings plans through December 2011
• made a date for brunch tomorrow at my favorite restaurant, to signal end of Snowpocalypse
• resent manuscript+ in correct format (duh!)
• wrote 5 new pages of new manuscript!
• made pantry/freezer/fridge challenge for February 2011

Not bad for being snowbound, Day 4.

January 31 -- Check in with 2011 goals

 

1--Improving Overall Health: since 1.5, I've

• signed up for and am attending yoga classes weekly
• joined Weight Watchers
• added extra biking to weekly scheme... still working on that one!

2--Living Situation: very recently, it looks as if by March 1, I will be in a new apartment, owned by friends. The advantages include:

• 50% more space overall
• HE washer-dryer included
• an additional closet
• outside, enclosed patio space
• a bigger complex with more green space and no one looking in my windows directly!
• still within 3 miles of campus and nice biking routes as well as easy drive
• a swanky wet bar!
• less rent! (which will go right into the IRA fund)

This means 2011 goal #2 will be resolved by March, and in a way that will make me very happy. Amazing!

3--Managing my Resources: working on it. Since 1.5, I've

• organized specific daily times (3x daily) to check and send email
• cleaned out 3 email inboxes and unsubscribed from multiple 'new sellers
• focused my two-class-day weeks to allow 1 more day on campus for meet-and-greet with students
• reassessed/assigned my retirement funding and IRA for improved outcome
• continued to pay off credit card debt and not incurred new debt
• made one Goodwill run, mostly clothing
• bought no new books but downloaded free classics to my Nook (for 50 Books 2011)
• started to burn CDs to laptop/iPod for selling
• pulled out CDs, DVDs, and books for selling

4--Improving My Community. Since 1.5, I have

• reconnected with 2 friends via email; now sending weekly quick-touch emails
• made plans to visit one in march for long weekend
• this week, contacted 2 friends on campus for drink/dinner meetings
• connected a colleague into my divisional project and made a lunch date with her to talk about her project
• reached out to connect 5 artists from local theatre scene into project

5--Bringing Creative Closure. Since 1.5, I have

• started working on manuscript submission to publisher
• already writing a new novel
• started talking about a new on-campus project with one fo the colleagues I met this week
• organized, bullied, spear-headed departmental project (via creative management) so much so that colleagues who initially pulled out and forced me to redefine the entire program now want back in to play in my playground!

Lots of "start-up energy" and circumstances. Hopefully, this will sustain me through the coming two months (crazy period!) and then into summer. I am actually surprised at how much has bee started and accomplished in a short time.

2011 Goal #4: Building a Better Community

"Community" has come up several times during the last couple of "goal" postings. I have become more aware of my community as my primary external community--my work colleagues--has dwindled. Without going into melodramatic details, let me say that this community has dwindled through neglect (from leadership downwards), a lack of generosity, downright rudeness, and the 21st century malaise of "too much to do."

The problem here is not about others, but about myself: I have let collegial ties fade, neglected new ties, clipped old ones, and simply not worked to maintain friendships, familial relatonships, and networks.

Step #1 in this goal or intention for 2011: take the time weekly to contact friends, family, and peers via email, socal networks, phone, and plain old handwritten word. This doesn't mean everyone, every week, but certainly making the first move toward regaining or reafffirming ties. And for me, yes, this means a schedule of people to contact on a regular basis by one of the above methods.

I notice that I am so "electronic" and yet emails rarely carry any semblance of the enotional connection between contacts that voice or pen does. My students regularly query me about a brief email: the equivalent of "are you mad?" when I do not say more than "yes" or "no." Two students and I got into a hilarious (and eye-opening) discussion about that, including their suggestion that I include emoticons with every typically brief email. Something to give a temperature of the message, rather than a brief and bleak reply.

Relax: no emoticons for me, except perhaps in the most hilarious manner. But it did confirm for me that emotion and relationships aren't carried by emails, mostly. Only reactions, or facts, or information.

So phone (which I actually dread, mostly) and writing are a better basis for emotional connections.

Step #2: develop new, self-constructed communities. In other words, don't wait for opportunities within the structures I already belong to (My U or My Division, for example) but create new groups. For example, the women within my division could use a "night out" as a group, which may have nothing to do with work at all, but simply being women in a fairly patriarchal structure. Being colleagues with slightly different agendas than our male colleagues. Or a bi-monthly writing group embracing my former students who are in town and others, brought into the group by us. Again, this sounds so ambitious that my goal is to create one "developmental" event per month, starting in February.

Of course, this also appllies to my blog, as I write here and connect (I hope!) with other bloggers and readers.

Step #3: seek out new communities. Already on this, with my yoga class, which looks promising. I also want to consider working outside My U and giving back to the community (!) by participating in something like Habitat for Humanity, starting in March. And maybe... joining a church? I am not much for organized things (I am the product of two people who refuse to join organized groups--my youth was spent avoiding such things and, frankly, never quite fitting into them). While I love the ritual and ceremony of church services (I am in theatre, after all) and the power of the music, and I am a believer, I find the politics and daily practice of being part of organized religion annoying at best and hypocritical at worst. Hmm. No easy answer: just like most of life. But this month, just getting into yoga class is a good idea.

One change in my thinking that happened a couple of years ago was that I started questioning why I was connected to certain long-time friends. Was it habit? A real foundation of experience? Enjoyment of their company? Was the relationship growing or stagnant? In some cases, I found it to be stagnant. In others, the relationship seemed to be buoyed along by my emails, calls, and cards... but was not a shared or growing experience. I found myself examining all my friendships and rethinking the time involved. One friend, for example, who I admire and genuinely like never initiated contact by phone, email, or card; she in fact let me down rather spectacularly on a project we were developing, and never accounted for it. If I did all the work, we connected. If I did nothing, there was no connection. This kind of relationship brought about huge questions regarding my own balance and definition of friendship. It also pointed me toward finding new connections outside "work."

In the end, this is all about balance and bringing balance to my life, which is been dominated by my job for too long. The overall goal I want for this year, for 2011, is to be more engaged, more in control, and more rewarded by my own life... which can only be done by me. So community is, for me, another way of defining who I am becoming and what I want to do with my time (resource) and my future (health).

Step #1: reconnect with friends, family, peers regularly through email, phone, letters, and personal contacts.
Step #2: develop self-defined communities locally or by distance.
Step #3: seek out new communities and connect. This will need about three possibilities, because not every trial group is right.

2011 Goal #3: Managing my Resources

Again, this is an overlapping goal and intention: money, belongings, time, and even friends.

Money is easiest: paying off debt, shaping retirement funds more effectively, selling and donating unwanted things, and re-investing in myself more wisely.

Belongings means using the things I love often, giving away, discarding, or selling the things I do not need or use, and using Morris's dictum as a guideline... which will help eliminate impulse shopping and useless belongings. Keeping a minimalism guideline, I can focus on what I need and love vs. everything else.

And stop distracting myself with "stuff." Have I ever mentioned I love the TV show Clean House? (BTW, this is not my house, below!)

Time is the most important of all, really, and the key to everything. This includes setting boundaries for others and myself in "technology" time (like emails, internet, etc.) and establishing time for me to work on classroom work, scholarship, and creative work... a goal I always have.

Again: distractions. I'm reading Focus by Leo Babauta (free on the web here), which is a simple but powerful text on how to "focus in the age of distraction" (wow!)--it is helping me by identifying new sites of distraction, but also confirming what I already know (I don't want to be available 24/7 to electronic/digital devices, let alone people!) and there are strategies for creating effective boundaries. Time-wasters like mindless TV, video games, and reading admittedly trashy books--necessary in their own ways, but too big a portion of my time now--redirected to the 50 books I listed, my own creative and scholarly goals, and simply being more mindful. And yes, still enjoying "time wasting"!

Community is the big resource I want to manage (goal #4): I have work to do on this one. Honestly, I have trouble stepping into already-formed communities, like church groups. Since the community of my department at My U has dissolved, that internal community would have to be of my own making. Which means stepping up my own connections to chosen colleagues. More, it means identifying and creating my community among family, friends, and colleagues, including real and virtual communities. Community is a lot of work, both on an individual basis and a group basis.

As we get older, communities are tougher to find and maintain. I have noticed friends dropping out because of marriage, babies, moving, and even death. I have stopped talking to or connecting with people because of my over-involvement with work, time, or simply laziness. In this way, social networks like Facebook have actually improved connecting, because of the already-available platform for emailing notes and pictures, low-pressure ways of staying in touch.

But communities are a huge resource, especially for single people, because that maintains your health (according to studies) and keeps you involved and joyful. Like watching your money, it is important to watch your friends, family, and other social groups. More on this, tomorrow.

But managing my resources means being mindful of my resources--all of them--and balancing them, again mindfully. Being aware of the variety and strength of each one, and maintaining each one as well (for some reason, I just flashed on the medieval morality play EVERYMAN! And I am so a teacher!).

2011 Goal #1: Improve Overall Health

Sitting here with Jack this morning, drinking my coffee and writing this blog, I am really thinking about what this goal entails: physical, mental, financial, and creative health, in fact. Again, I am not using the word "resolution"; instead, I like goal or, yes, intention. Something to suggest the 12-month process ahead of me.

Physical: I have put on too much weight in the last five years, after several life upheavals. Sooooo, okay, time to dump it, which will definitely improve my mental and emotional health! And eventually my financial health, when I don't get the viruses and diseases flowing regularly through my department or worse things brought about by unaddressed stress and poor habits. I'd like to start by losing about twenty pounds, which would take me down to well below the weight gain.

This means more mindful eating--as a life choice, not a diet!--and being aware of my own metabolism which is SSLLLOOOOOOOWWW! It means being mindful of preparing ahead of time: breakfast, lunches, snacks--not just dinners. And being more mindful when I eat out: I love eating out, I love eating delicious, well-prepared food, and I sometimes simply love someone else cooking, cleaning, and thinking about meals. Eating out is so connected with friends, while my current apartment is not designed for entertaining friends, even one at a time (see goal #2).

And we all know food alone won't do it, not at my age, so movement of some kind every day is necessary. Necessary. Necessary. Which is normal for sensible people. And, joy of joys, that will require biking and walking to work... on errands... and signing up for a yoga class weekly (which I JUST did!). And it is possible that the yoga class will require biking to and from...

Mental health will definitely be improved by the increased physical movement, and by the subsequent weight loss. I am also going to change my own internal scripting: being more aware of how I talk to myself. For example, Friday I had scheduled a phone meeting, but left my phone in my car... and missed the meeting. I spent about ten minutes buffeting myself for messing up--and I realized that I do that all the time, when I am not "perfect." So rewriting those internal mental scripts is necessary. I called back and rescheduled the meeting--no sweat. I listened to what I was saying to myself (and how I was subsequently feeling) about making a small mistake... so I stopped.

That kind of self-talk is not only paralyzing, but ridiculous because it always make the incident seem larger than it is.

Creative health, of course, means continuing what I've been working on: writing everyday, and developing a process to make that as painless as possible. And I mean enabling myself to start everyday. As well as developing my interest in drawing with pastels and photography. Maybe even taking a class in one or the other. The writing has been delightful this past semester: productive and, again, emotionally stimulating. I've built early morning time into six days weekly for writing, including two days outside the house.

So:
Goal/specific: lose 20 pounds or two dress sizes.
Goal/general: improve physical stamina/endurance by adding daily movement.
Goal/general: change lifestyle and eating habits, including making it a habit to be prepared for weekly menus.

Goal/specific: change mental self-talk script to be kinder, gentler with myself.
Goal/general: set and accomplish creative goals weekly.

2011

Well, I took a small sabbatical from blogging for the holidays. I used the time to think about 2011 and what I hope to do this coming year, for myself and the world around me.

Sounds rather grand, no? But I realize that I need to start to connecting outside myself, to making a contribution and a community around me.

I also determined to make my resolutions more focused and specific, rather than general. In part, this means defining my resolutions more specifically than in previous years. Why not? I am also thinking about my resolutions as goals, rather than simply things not to do. Embracing the process, rather than solely the outcome.

1. improve my overall health
2. change my living situation
3. manage my resources
4. build a stronger community
5. see my creative work into closure

Looking at these now, my resolutions/goals sound sort of fuzzy, but I have smaller, more specific goals within each area.

For now, some pretty, pretty pictures of Paris in the snow.

These aren't my pictures, by the way, but culled from the web. Except the bottom one, which is a painting by Gustav Caillebotte.