Don’t postpone joy.

I saw this quote on a bumper sticker on January 1st, during my road trip to Virginia. It seemed like a good mantra to start off the new year. That bumper sticker was a reminder to be unafraid to pursue happiness, to embrace every day and find the joy in it, and to keep positivity at the forefront of the mind.

2020 is my first year as a real adult. I am no longer confined to the role of student, pushing off everything, including my own mental health, for the sake of academia. I see this transition as an opportunity to make changes that benefit me. Now that I don’t have to scrape together pennies to afford my coffee addiction or hope for 5 hours of sleep a night, I can make positive changes in my adult life. It’s called self-care. Look it up.

This year, I’ve concocted 5 resolutions to help me become a healthier, happier, and more fulfilled version of myself.

1. Practice daily habits.

Every day, I intend to follow these 5 daily habits to work towards goals that make me happy. I’m not perfect, and I’ve already done my fair share of missing things sometimes. But I’m allowing myself room for error as long as each day, I wake up and try again. My habits include:

• Duolingo: My French is getting rusty and I don’t want to lose a language I dedicated years of my life to learning. Even just a couple lessons a day keeps French fresh in my mind as I work my way back to competence.
• 1 Second a Day: My cousin, Thayer, introduced me to this app, where every day you capture a second of video. Each second is meant to demonstrate a moment of joy in your day. Then, you can string together all your seconds and watch them as a video to remind yourself of the happiness you’ve felt. I think this is a good way to embrace joy by finding gratitude in every single day.
• Read a chapter: I miss reading for fun! It can be hard to balance reading with other life responsibilities, but I figure a chapter a day is a manageable way to get back into the habit and fall back in love with books.
• Exercise: I like to be very conscious of the way I talk to and about my body. In the past few years, I’ve gained more weight than I intended. While I still love myself and my body, I know I could be doing better by her. I don’t need to go on a diet or lose tons of poundage at once to feel happy. Frankly, I think that’s a pretty solid way to be unhappy, and as I said before, we are not postponing joy this year. But a little exercise a day, even if it’s just taking my dog for a long walk or doing 20 minutes of yoga at home, is a way to be kind to my body without sacrificing joy.
• Track calories: Again, I am not trying to be fixated on my weight. Most diets lead to eating disorders, and an obsession with what I’m eating is not something I want to focus on. But I want to be more conscious of my meals to make sure my body is getting good nutrients and not getting progressively more unhealthy. I do have a calorie goal for each day, but if I don’t meet it, my main goal is to just be honest with myself about what I’m eating, or I’ll never get anywhere with tracking my habits and treating myself better.

I keep these habits listed in the Reminders section on my phone, under a list called “Daily.” They pop up every day to remind me to complete each one. I also have a few other habits I’m working toward that aren’t daily. I’m aiming to read my tarot once a week, usually on Sundays, as a way of preparing my energy for the coming week. I also have bimonthly reminders for blog posts and video posts to keep my creativity up.

2. Draft 2 of Entrenched – and more?

If you hadn’t heard by now, I wrote a novel! This project was for my Honors Program capstone. My novel, under the working title Entrenched, tells the story of 3 people whose paths cross during WWI and the lessons they learn as a result. To learn more about my drafting processs, you can watch my Capstone Chronicles on YouTube; I’m currently still editing and posting videos from this past year.

I have boasted a few times, usually for my Fun Fact About Me on the first day of class, that I’ve written 3 first drafts for novels. This project makes my fourth, or one could argue its a redraft of one of the original 3. But despite all that writing, I’ve never submitted a novel for publication. I’ve gotten close, even written a few query letters in my day, but never pressed send on any of them. My excuse has always been that the writing wasn’t quite ready, the story wasn’t in its correct form and would need to be reconsidered, reoutlined, rewritten. While that excuse is grounded in truth, given that these 3 novels were written in high school, it doesn’t change the fact that I have not sent a novel out, I have not gotten published, I have not taken the next step.

All that changes this year. First, I want to apply the edits and suggestions from my capstone committee to Entrenched and get a solid second draft. But after that, I have to dive into the real world of writing, the business side. I have no timeline for this process. Maybe that’s a good place to start. I’ll keep you updated on the progress.

3. Just create.

Perhaps my favorite part of graduating is that I finally have time to create again. Part of that is writing, which is why I’ll be able to focus on Entrenched. But another dimension is the ability to create videos and blog posts again. I love being able to share my experiences as a reader and writer and person through creative outlets. It doesn’t matter to me if I have 56 subscribers or 33 followers. As long as I am creating something I can be proud of, I am content. And maybe, by creating more regularly, I’ll be able to grow my following and online presence as a writer. As a treat.

4. Value time.

I’ve always had a complex relationship with time. If I think too hard about it, I find the concept to be arbitrary and fluid. Time passes, but the way we measure it is just made up. This subjectivity causes me to do things like stay in bed until 5 minutes before I need to be somewhere, because I seem to think time’s nonexistence means it will bend for me and I will get where I need to be without being late. This, of course, is never the case.

It will come as no shock to people who know me, but I am perpetually late. This has gotten progressively worse over the years, and it’s become a pretty embarrassing habit. I had grown accustomed to my shame, when I spoke to a professor about my constant lateness. He told me he had the same habit and that he combated it by getting to places excessively early instead. While this was not really something I could ever image myself doing, his next comment spoke to me. He said he hated being late, because it suggests his time is more valuable than another person’s.

This struck me. How presumptuous of me to make people wait on me, as if my time is somehow more important than theirs? I’ve decided to work to fix this habit by altering my perception of time. It’s proving a difficult process, but every time I wake up and need to be somewhere, I reiterate to myself that time is measured, not fluid, and it has value. Slowly but determinedly, I’m working to have a better relationship with the passage of time.

5. Become an imperfectionist.

I’ve been a perfectionist my whole life. As a student, I almost never answered questions or spoke in class because I didn’t want to be wrong. When I try new tasks or skills and they don’t come easily to me, I don’t like them. I often procrastinate things out of fear of failure. So many times, I’ve started things, messed up a little, and quit entirely because now the thing is imperfect.

As an adult, I’ve become rather inhibited by this quality. I find myself needing to be seen as an educated person, as someone who knows what she’s doing. This means I have a difficult time asking questions or admitting inability because I don’t want to be seen as an idiot. As I feign knowledge, impostor syndrome sets in.

So I’ve decided to be an impostor. I’ve decided to ask questions, admit failures to both myself and others, look like an idiot if I have to. This is why I’m allowing myself leniency with my daily habits and calorie counts and deadlines. I do not have to be perfect at everything I do! It is more important to do things imperfectly than not at all. As long as I am trying and making progress, I am doing enough. I’m working to be patient and honest with myself as I learn and grow. I’m becoming an imperfectionist.

And those are my 2020 resolutions! Do we think I can meet them? Let me know what you think of my goals and what some of yours are.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!