Here's what to expect

Every year, come January 1^st, people make these fun little things called “resolutions”.

An article I read today said the top 10 resolutions year after year stay pretty constant. People want to drink less alcohol, eat healthy food, get a better education or job, get fit, lose weight, manage debt and stress, quit smoking, be more green, save money, take a trip, and do more to help others, respectively. This same article states that roughly 45% of us make one or more resolutions each year. 25% fail to keep them past the first week. The number increases to 30% after the second week. 46% fail after the first month, and after the first six months, 64% have completely given up on their New Year’s resolutions. This means only 36% of resolution makers actually see their goals through.

Researchers think that the vast majority of resolution breakers don’t stick to their resolutions because they just make generalized resolutions. They have found that those who make explicit resolutions (such as “I’m going to lose 14lbs” or “I am going to save $5000 in six months”) are TEN TIMES more likely to achieve their goals than those who generalize (“I’ll try to lose weight” or “I’ll work on managing my money”). This is because the more explicit the resolution, the more likely it is to be treated as a goal, and when given a goal, it is instinct to try to attain it.

So, that is why I am not calling my plans for 2012 “resolutions”. They are goals, and I will achieve them. Partly because I am just that determined now, partly because my spouse and close friends are all on board to do it with me and motivate me, and partly because, well, I have no other choice. If JP and I want to continue with our big picture plans, things have to change. There’s no better time than at the start of a new year.

I plan to use this blog as a tool to stay focused. Whether anyone reads it or not, I am going to use it to talk about progress, setbacks, tips and tricks I pick up along the way, recipes, frustrations, and everything in between. If you read this, feel free to put in your $0.02 along the way- praise, chastisement, motivation, your own tips, tricks, and successes—it is ALL welcome. I’ll still be keeping my other blog, but it’ll be more about L and family events so those out of state and friends can still keep up with us. This blog is my big three life-changing goals for the year, and that only. Once this year is over, I’ll maintain this blog with the next set of goals.

My first goal, which I am sure is almost everyone’s, is to lose weight and get fit. Some people list these as two separate items, but to me, they go hand in hand. I don’t want to lose a bunch of weight the wrong way. Even when I was younger, and much, much thinner, I was unhappy with how I looked because everything was still flabby. I was what I affectionately call “skinny fat”. I could wear a size five, but my thighs and belly jiggled. That being said, I don’t want to be some kind of crazed body builder woman that is so hard and so militant that she can’t enjoy life. I think my next “pre-New Year” entry is going to be a bunch of motivational photos, so we can all be on the same page. I know in my old blog, I talked about weight loss but I wasn’t real with myself or anyone who read it. I was (and still am) so embarrassed about my weight and how I look that I wouldn’t tell anyone anything—I wasn’t real about the amount of weight I needed to lose, and I never told anyone (not even JP) my weight.

This blog is going to be different.

January 1, I am putting it all out there. I’m listing my weight (gulp), my measurements (double gulp), what size clothes I wear (cringe), and I will be posting a photo (sweet baby Jesus). I feel like in order to accomplish this huge thing, I have to be 100% out with it. No hiding behind the “I lost 2lbs this week” mystery. Two pounds brings you down to what weight, fat girl? Spill it! I also think it is more rewarding, and more motivating, to see it in actual numbers—there is a big difference between “Lost 2 lbs” and seeing the numbers drop from 190 to 188. Maybe I’ll even get really good at this blog thing and make charts and such. (Yea, right).

As far as this part of my journey goes, I am going to write about the ups and downs. I’ll be posting my weight, measurements, exercise summary, and food summary each week, probably on Mondays. In between I’ll post recipes of food I have tried, exercises I like (or don’t like but work), things that motivate me, and complaints (because there will be muscle aches and days where I drag my butt to the gym when I don’t want to go). In my first blog of the new year, I will be posting more specific goals, too. And, maybe not each week but definitely each month, I will post progress photos. I am well aware that I didn’t put this weight on over night, so it will not disappear overnight.

The second goal for this year is sort of related to (or at least will benefit from) the first. JP and I will, beyond a shadow of a doubt, get out of debt (or as close to it as humanly possible in a year) and save money. For this goal, I’m not going to put it all out in the open. I don’t think that the entire internet needs to be privy to every nuance of our financial status. Just know that we’re living comfortably now, (we’re not facing foreclosure or unable to pay our bills) but we’d like to make our cushions softer. We have some outstanding debts that we plan to get paid off this year, and we plan to watch our savings accounts grow. Since I won’t give absolute specifics, for this part, I will write mostly about how to carve extra money to pay on debts out of your budget, how we budget, tips we try to save money (what works and doesn’t), and things like that. Couponing, consigning, and yardsale-ing, bargain hunting, determining needs/wants—these will be the things I talk about. I will talk about some very specific savings plans we have, and some goals, in the first blog of the new year. (In case you haven’t noticed, that’s going to be my big “unveiling” day). In my opinion, eating better and saving money really goes hand in hand, at least, for us. We eat out all the time. We have long since blamed it on our schedules but we have had long periods where I’ve cooked and fixed lunches and it didn’t kill us. It’s just so much more convenient to eat out, and of course, who gets the healthy options? Not us!

Thirdly (lastly), I plan to get organized. This means a more streamlined, organized home, cleaning projects, and other things to make life easier. JP and I are organizing our health, and our finances, so it seems logical to continue the trend and organize our home (after all, we’ll be spending a lot of time at home not spending money). My house is in what I affectionately call a state of organized chaos. This means, if you called tonight and said “Hey! I’m on my way over to hang out”, I would spend the next 15 minutes throwing toys into toy boxes, tossing clothes into baskets, vacuuming up main rooms, and shutting a few doors. You’d walk in and think my house was presentable, and though you’d think that the doors were just shut because they were bedrooms and “private” it is really because they’re housing an explosion of crap I didn’t have any places to put. One of the things that most people would consider a benefit (but that I now look at as a pitfall) of not totally drowning in debt while not living on any kind of budget whatsoever is that we spent money on stuff with no regard. What this means is that we have accumulated a LOT of unnecessary stuff. We wanted it, so we bought it. This now seems ridiculous to the both of us, and we’re shocked at times at how much we have. Another downside is that our house is so cluttered sometimes that we think we don’t have something we need so we go out and buy it, only to find out that we did have it and just couldn’t find it. (boo!!) That’s going to stop completely, I hope, and so will the “Have you seen my {insert any item ranging from speed loader to t-shirt to keys to cooking utensil} here?”

A lot of the organization/cleaning ideas I have are pinterest inspired, and should even save us money (see how each of these goals relates to the other?).

I have always been told that if you’re happy with your home and how it looks, you won’t mind being there. If you constantly come home and look at clutter and junk everywhere, you won’t want to be home. I think that rings true for us, for sure. When our house is super cluttered and disorganized, I have noticed that we DO spend more time away from it. This is negative in several ways- first, we have a wonderful home and should want to be there, and second, if we’re not ever home, how will it ever get clean and organized? When we’re on our strict budget, we’ll be out running around so much less, and I want us to be happy and content in our home. It’s going to take a while to get it in organized order, but it can be done. I also want to finally get into a cleaning routine that doesn’t involve me working on every single room, doing every single chore, from 8 am to 9pm on a Saturday. I’ll be taking before and after photos, and letting you know how some of these pinterest projects work out (making my own swiffer pads and cleaning solutions, things like that).

It is my hope that this blog is what keeps me on track. I also hope that maybe, at some point, someone will stumble on it that needs help with some of the same things. Maybe I can inspire someone else. I guess only time will tell.