A New Year

I wonder how many blog entries posted today have that title.

Last year, around this time, I made a list of things I wanted to improve or "restyle" (get it? the title of the blog...ha ha.) about myself. It was a pretty good list, comprised of things like keep a gratitude journal, take better care of my body, and have an improved relationship with my Father in Heaven. After reading through the list today, I noticed I had made only minor improvements on some of the items and none on most of the others.

"What?!" I said to myself, "I've had an entire year and I've made practically no progress in becoming the person I want to be! Something has to change."

So, here I am, ready to make some changes in my life. Not just the things from my original list, but also my approach to achieving them.

First I had to look at last year's list to determine where I went wrong. I noticed something right away. My list was very vague and too long. I tried to do everything at once without really knowing what exactly it was I wanted to do.

I decided to make more specific goals and to simplify my list. Here's what I came up with. The items on my list fit into one of five categories: Spiritual Improvement, Talents, Physical Health, Service, and Other. What if, every month I focused on one goal from each of those categories? So far, so good. Moreover, I would need an incentive to keep me going, basically, a way to be accountable. I typically have a problem with making goals and flaking out, so I decided to write this blog to keep track of my progress. I've never really written goals down before and I'm using the S.M.A.R.T. goal guide. It's something I picked up while in college. It makes you look at your goals and see if they are good goals or not. Here's what the acronym stands for:

S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Attainable
R - Relevant
T - Timely

That's as far as I'm going to go into that. I'll let you figure out how to apply it to your own goals if you don't already.

After looking through my areas of focus I decided on one goal from each category. To save on time, I'll just give the bare bones of the goals. They are as follows:

Spiritual Improvement
Scripture Study
Spend 20 minutes a day studying the scriptures
Have scripture study once a week with my roommates

Talents
Piano
Learn two new songs a week
Practice 30 minutes a day 5x's a week

Physical Health
Exercise
30 minutes 5x's a week
7,000 steps a day

Service
Be a better friend
Smile at everyone
Listen to and care about what people say to you

Other
Keep my room clean
"Tidy up" every night before I go to bed
Vacuum once a week

Yes, I know. This is all stuff I should already be doing. That's why I'm going to start now. I hope this blog will help me to stick to it and restyle myself into who I want to be.

Oh, real quick before I go, there's one more thing. I'm a librarian and I read lots of fiction, but I'm not generally huge into nonfiction. I would like to change that, so another goal I have is to read one nonfiction book a month. I'll let you know next week what the title is for this month. I have to do a little research first.

Congratulations for making it all the way through my post! If you aren't asleep yet you'll just have to try counting sheep or listening to some harp music. Sorry.

Gloria