It’s that time of year when we all decide this is gonna be the year we get our s$#@ together. Good for you. Good for us. But holy crap is it overwhelming! Where to begin??

1. Money – I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Pay attention to where your money is going. There are lots of programs that’ll track this for you – Mint, CoPilot, a lot of your online banking apps will track this and give you some insight into where your money’s going. Make sure your money is going where you want it to and you aren’t, like me, accidentally spending an extra $200 a month on buying pre-packaged pasta salad from the grocery store because you’re physically incapable of bringing leftovers from home…unless that’s an intentional choice.
2. Health – I started tracking my calories again this month (myfitnesspal is my go-to but I’ve seen a lot of other great trackers out there.) Moreso as a test than anything else. I wanted to be sure that what I think I’m eating is about what I’m actually eating. I’ve been adding more protein to my overall diet and I wanted to track the effect that’s having on my energy and hunger and nightly chocolate cravings. I don’t know anything about diets or nutrition outside of what the average lifetime yo-yo dieter learns, but it’s been helpful for my energy and stress levels so that’s huge!
3. Exercise – I’m a runner and have been training for an upcoming marathon for a few months now. I track my runs and my progress and my heartrate. It’s exhausting to even think about processing all this data. There are apps for that too. For years I just used an app on my phone (mapmyrun, Strava) to monitor my mileage. Then I got a fitbit, then an apple watch, then a Garmin watch. They all track mileage and play music and help me pay attention to my pace. That’s literally all I care about. The point of this is find something you like and keep doing it. Accountability trackers – like just a calendar that says did you do something today or not – are pretty helpful in this regard. So are challenges with groups of friends, family, co-workers. There is nothing like an intraoffice step challenge to get me working from my treadmill desk. Find something that works for you in your current phase of life and start with that. Don’t go zero to sixty. Go zero to one. Nobody’s watching, nobody’s judging, and you’re killin’ it compared to everyone that’s NOT doing it. Something > Nothing.
4. Future Planning – Another moment for Mom’s best sayings: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I don’t know about you all, but I’ve got big goals for the next couple years. I’m terrified of them all. That’s the point of big goals! They should be daunting. They shouldn’t be things you’re sure you can accomplish. But they should be things you dream about. I dream about freedom and flexibility. This blog is part of my journey to that. I’m insecure as all getout about this. But I’m doing it. Because we all start somewhere. And starting is important. We can do hard things, but we have to plan and start. What is step one for your first big goal? Is it just sitting down and planning a process? Is it setting a timeline for completion? Is it even just identifying what you want to accomplish? I like to mix in big goals and little goals. And then I break them all up into super simple tasks so I can cross off a lot of things on my todo list and not lose moment. Do NOT underestimate the satisfaction of crossing things off a todo list. Whatever your process, I encourage you to take the time to focus on what you want to do in the next year and identify the process to how you can do it. It’s a lot easier to do something when you’ve developed a concrete plan to how to accomplish it. That plan may sit and wait for years. But having the plan makes it that much less overwhelming to start.
5. Mental health – How you doing? We survived the holidays and all the big feelings and challenges they bring along. We’re in the New Year New Me phase. How’s your spirit doing? Are you fresh and revived? Are you drained and need some self-care recovery time? Are you glad to get back to your normal routine? Wherever you are, I encourage you to document it somehow. Whether it’s a journal entry, or a note on your google calendar, or a facebook post about how today was a good day. It’s important to document your good and bad days so you can look back and reflect on what triggered good days and what triggered bad. Try tracking it for a month and see if you notice anything. I notice when I didn’t sleep well I’m closer to the mental health edge (duh). I notice when I don’t eat enough to recover properly from my long runs I’m tired and my emotional reserves are not particularly full (another duh). I’ve gotten better – but am still not good – at recognizing how my mental health is doing and working to identify why. Sometimes it’s a short term issue – eating or sleeping better – and sometimes it’s a longer term issue – an unresolved issue at work or in a personal relationship that’s eating at me. Identifying the issue is a huge component to keeping that mental health a bit more solid.

I don’t know that I could keep any of this stuff up on a daily basis for an extended period of time. But I like paying attention for fixed periods to get a baseline. I won’t be putting my daily expenditures into a budget sheet for the entire year, but I’ll be updating our monthly expenses at least quarterly so we know where we are. I won’t be using a food journal every day for more than a month, but I like to do it long enough to see what I’m doing and what effect it’s having on my body and well-being. Journaling is hard for me, but I always feel better when I’ve gotten things off my chest and processed them. There are definite days when I haven’t made time for a run or it’s raining and gnarly outside and I don’t want to take the dog for a walk. But I try.

The key to all of this bettering ourselves is to try. We don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to beat ourselves up if we completely implode and don’t meet our goals. We TRY. We strive to be better versions of ourselves, however we define better. It’s positive change in ways we want to change. That’s all. Focus on what you want to do or improve. Take a tiny step in that direction. And then another. And keep trying.