Resolutions

Every year, all across America and other parts of the world, people take the new year as an opportunity to reflect on how the last one went and promise themselves they'll make changes in this one. We call this process "resolution making" because the idea is that we *resolve* to change something. And all through Christmas we make jokes about how unlikely we are to keep those little promises to ourselves.

Resolution making has always been an especially difficult point for me. I don't like to make promises that I'm not sure I can keep and so the very idea of saying "I'll exercise every day this year" simply doesn't click right with my brain. Because of that, I've never made any real resolutions. Oh, I'll joke about losing weight or say something abstract about improving myself but until this year, I had never actually resolved to do anything.

As I mentioned before, this is my year. I decided that my rather incredible lack of self-discipline required some work; what better way to work on it than to commit myself to something that wasn't going to be easy or comfortable but was still possible? With that in mind, here are the things I've resolved for this year:

• I will exercise 6 out of 7 days a week throughout the year.
• I will walk the hill at least twice a week.
• I will read 50 books this year.
• I will be sure to keep up on all of my CORE habits every day.
• I will read my bible and journal every day.
• I will read a devotional every day. 
• I will volunteer whenever possible.

Those are just the concrete ones, I have a bunch of abstract ones but those I'm not sharing (so there!).

You must understand what a huge step for me. I don't usually commit to much of anything if I'm not absolutely sure that I'm going to be able to do it. My word, is one of the most precious things I have and I place great value on my accountability. Yes, when it comes to insignificant things (product of the week, anyone?) I tend to flake out and it doesn't bother me. But an actual commitment is different. So, this is a big step for me. 

Obviously, there are some words or phrases you might not understand. For example. CORE is a set of habits my mentorship group hast determined are key to success. They include things like reading a positive-influence book at least 15 minutes a day. The hill is the hill that is right before my home. It's a big hill, and for someone who gets winded going up a flight of stairs it's an incredibly difficult hill. These pictures don't even do justice to how steep it is. 

 This is a side view of the bottom half of the hill, it gets steeper after that.

<-Bottom half of the hill and the top half of the hill-> 

My house is way up at the top of that picture.

So walking the hill isn't just going for a stroll, it's serious cardio and I feel like I'm going to die every time. But at least Dearest does it with me. 

My devotional book this year is one I got for Christmas from an aunt:

It's a pretty good book, I'm enjoying it because it's cute.

So what are your resolutions?