I know that I’m a little late, but I wanted to
wish all of you a blessed, prosperous and healthy new year! Over the past
several days, I’ve been reflecting on the ups and downs of 2016 and I’m
currently working on my list of goals for 2017. I’m really hoping for some big changes in the
new year and I wanted to share a few of my goals with you here on the blog.
Put God
First: All
Christians face the challenge of maintaining spiritual focus. This physical
world can be distracting and it often takes us on a path different from what
would benefit our goals as Christians. I will continue to work on drawing
closer to God by putting him first. I
plan to schedule some time each day to focus on reading the bible and
meditating on the passages I’ve read. I
also want to get more involved in my church by taking an active role in a small
group and by volunteering more with different service projects in the
community.
I continue to struggle with this goal each day, but
I have to remind myself to trust God and surrender my fears to Him. I know that the more I do it, the more I’ll
notice His work in my life, which will strengthen my faith and inspire me to
keep making my relationship with God first in my life.
Travel: One thing I didn’t get to do a lot of last year
is travel for fun. I travel every week
for work and while I love my job and all of the perks, the traveling back and
forth gets a little draining after a while.
On my down time, I just want to relax in my own apartment and stay
close to home, but that’s no way to live. I need to just suck it up and make
time to explore new places again. So I’m
currently planning a trip in the Spring to visit my cousin in London and I’m
eagerly planning a trip to Morocco with my sister – I’m really looking forward
to both of these trips.
Buy a Home: Lately I’ve been
obsessed with watching HGTV, picking out furniture and adding new pins to my
Pinterest page for the new home that I haven’t bought yet. Can any of you relate? Another
reason that I didn’t travel too much last year is because I was planning on
buying a home. However, my plans fell through unexpectedly, so home
buying was delayed to this year instead.
Hopefully by the end of the year, I’ll be in my new home.
Get Healthy: Like everyone else in the world, I’m
going to focus on getting back into shape.
I’ve been on a downward spiral ever since Halloween and the pounds slowly
continue to creep on, so I need to change that ASAP. I’ll start eating healthier and utilizing the
21-Day Fix system to eliminate the crappy foods I’ve been eating lately - goodbye french fries, brownies and cookies! I also plan to add more weight training to my
already existing workout routine. I’ll
start off by lifting weight at least 2 days a week – I don’t want to go too crazy
just yet.
Start Running (Again): This goal is part two of the Get Healthy goal
above, but I felt that my running journey needed a separate entry. I have to admit that I haven’t been running
as much as I used to over the past few years and I’m not really sure why. Overall, I think my body and my mind just
needed a break from all of the training and races that I completed in the past. But now I feel like I’m ready to get back on
the pavement on a regular basis. For now I’m aiming to run three
days a week, in addition to my other workouts. I’m pretty confident that I can
stick with it, because it’s not too much running for now. Eventually, I want to challenge myself to add
a few more half marathons under my belt by the end of the year.
Well there you have it – I tried to
keep it pretty short and manageable. Do you all have any New Years
resolutions for 2017? What are they and do you think you can accomplish all of
them? I think we can do it. We just need to
remember: It is
better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great
leap forward only to stumble backward. ~ Old Chinese Proverb
Well, here’s hoping that 2017 is way
better than 2016!
