Ten for 2010

 

It’s that time of the year again: the last days of a year where people come op with resolutions they intend but for the most part won’t keep. Now, I am certainly not against resolutions, even New Year’s resolutions. I am even one of those persons who will admit that she likes them haha! However, I don’t like goals that are not very specific and do not have a realistic plan on how to accomplish them. 

Foto found here 

So let’s review this year. Last year I wrote down some goals for 2009. How did I do?

• Take time for myself : Check. There is still a lot of room for improvement but I am getting better at it and feeling less guilty if I do nothing for a day. I also started to work out a lot more which is great me-time and excellent for stress release.
• Work on relationship with the Boyfriend : Check. You can not have a relationship if you don’t work for it. Even though we are crazy about each other, our personalities sometimes clash a lot, haha! But on the other side, we can have a lot of fun together too. The Boyfriend works regular day shifts now, which is a major improvement because boy, did I hate those night shifts, we hardly saw each other! We only had to get used to him having weekend on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, because those are working days for me. But we introduced date night again: every week we go and spend some quality time and do stuff that dating couples do. And I also have half a day off, so I planned it on a Wednesday.
• Win lottery because we have tickets: We didn’t…of course. But the Boyfriend always wants to play the End-of-the-year- lottery, so this year we have tickets again. The grand prize is 27.5 million euro, that is a lot of money!

Now let’s have a look at my list for next year. Since it is 2010 I wrote down 10 things that I want to do, start or improve in the next year.

1. Finish my thesis, while keeping my sanity that is. This will be my main goal throughout the year. It’s nice to have 10 things on your list, but you can only have 1 major goal, or nothing will come of anything. My contract ends on Dec 31th 2010, and if I don’t have it finished by then I am looking at some lovely volunteer work if I want my PhD degree. I already found a source of support to show me that I am not the only one here: www.phdcomics.com . But I am happy that my situation is far better than in some other countries. At least it is a paid job and it is more like you have 4 years to focus completely on your own project with some things on the side, instead of being your Professor’s slave.
2. Take it easy. Since I am going to be working hard, I want to take it easy in the rest of my life. This means making sure to get enough sleep and not trying to fit too many things in one day. Avoid stress (meditation, yoga?) and have fun! (hobbies, anyone?)
3. Move to a new house: we put the apartment up for sale about a month ago. We want to move to a nice house, with a garden in a quiet neighborhood. Because of point 1 and 2 we will carefully pick the house once we have sold our apartment. For example, we don’t want a house that needs major renovations right away.
4. Become a blood donor: Well, actually I already did this! Last week I signed up because I wanted to do this in the new year, but they called me really soon after, so yesterday was my first donation! I was really scared that I was going to faint. I am not scared of needles or blood, I just tend to get lightheaded they take blood, even if it’s just a few tubes. I was a donor 7 years ago and almost fainted during my first donation (after about 100 ml) and it took me quite a while before i felt well enough to leave the place. But yesterday everything went just fine! The nurse was really nice and chatted with me to distract me a bit. I felt kind of weak for the first couple of hours, but that was it!
5. The spiritual part of my life deserves some attention. I am going to spend some time meditation and musing, and getting more in touch with my chi. Don’t laugh.
6. Race. I want to run several races next year. There are a couple in May and September which I really want to do. But I hope to run more. I will focus on 5k’s, but I might, just might, do a 10k before the end of the year.
7. Read: I love to read, but do not spend enough time doing so. I intend to read for 15-30 min each night in bed before going to sleep to get into the habit of reading again.
8. Be social. Especially when I am busy and stressed I tend to hide in my home. This year I want to be better at maintaining contact with family and friends. I already wrote about this more specifically in this post.
9. Cut back on coffee. I made a lot of improvements in my health this year. But one thing I would like to change is to drink less coffee at work. I intend to take some herbal tea with me to work. What if I get sleepy? See point 2.
10. Nothing, nada. The neurotic obsessive compulsive person inside my head LOVES 10 for 2010. To teach that person a lesson I will leave this spot open. Another reason is that these are more than enough goals for me for now. I wanted to take it easy, remember? I can fill it up later this year if I feel it’s needed.
    But frankly, I am just out of ideas right now.

Tell me all about your resolutions!

Have a great New Year’s eve! I will be back next year.