A Fresh Start...

It’s the end of the first day of 2013 and it turned out to be an odd one. Yesterday I was so excited for the New Year – for the realm of possibilities just on the horizon. Today I woke up with a headache (not a hangover headache, I didn’t even bother to drink last night) and a really bad attitude. Matt and I annoyed each other all day, ate too much, watched too much TV and didn’t accomplish any of our exciting goal-setting and budget-revising we had planned for the day. 

But at the end of this day, we made amends and although in some ways I wish I could have a re-do, the nice thing is that we get one every minute of every day. We don’t have to wait for the New Year! 

This leads me to my “resolutions” for 2013: 

I aim to not write off attempts at greatness because of momentary or even monstrous failures. I love the idea of a clean slate and starting over, but too often I give myself a free pass to wallow because I fell short. An example of this might be if you decide to try to lose weight and eat too much one morning for breakfast, instead of taking that as a reason to give yourself grace and start over right away, we often say that we have ruined everything and wallow in that same repeated behavior for the rest of the day. You get a re-start button any time you choose it and I so badly want this year to be a year that I am kind to myself, give grace to myself and allow God’s love and tenderness into my reality. 

I also aim to spend more time being quiet and listening for God’s voice in my life. He is speaking all around us – through the Bible, through our friends, families, neighbors and through our circumstances. I realized this year that I was way to busy with the comings and goings of life to hear as often as I'd like.

I want to be more social. I don’t have a huge amount of friends and I often long for a few more close ones nearby but then at the same time, I can easily just stay in and do my own thing. The friends we do have mean a great deal to us and whether being more social means more time with the ones we already have, or investing in some new relationships – either way it means stepping out of my comfort zone and giving more time to friendship. 

There are obviously a bunch of tactical goals like – be on time for work more consistently, get to the gym more often, don’t get caught up worrying about dumb stuff, pay off debt, but overall I want this year to be a year of joy and kindness – that I display to others and get to experience myself. I spend much too much time trying to have everything perfect and all in all I want to make sure I’m living that abundant life instead of a perfect one! 

What are your goals?? 

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