Feeling Empowered, for a Change

For those of you who may of missed it, we are now into 2007. A new year for most people is an opportunity to outline the areas of our lives where we feel we could be doing better, the areas we'd like to actively work to improve over the upcoming year.

I don't usually get too excited about resolutions and to this point in my life have not really participated in the cult of the New Year Resolution.

This year is looking pretty good though and I guess I'm pumped about it. It seems to be ripe with opportunity, with untapped potential and I'm feeling like maybe, just maybe I can set some goals this year and take advantage of this positive energy.

So, for this year I've taken a look at the areas in my life that I know I can do better in and I'm hoping that just the act of saying them out loud and recording them here might prompt me down the road to self improvement and actualization.

1 ~ Weight Watchers. So far, I know this is working for me. And it works even better when I actually stick to the program. I've grown lazy when it comes to recording my food intake, drinking my water and have become entirely apathetic when it comes to those unknown foods (it's really easy to 'forget' to record food when you know you don't know how many points it was worth). The holidays have not been kind to me and I need to get back on the boat. This is a BIG deal and I am determined that I am going to lose a significant amount of weight before I become pregnant.

2 ~ Doing my best at work. It is sometimes easy to slack off in my position, but I have realized that if I am going to use the position as a launching pad for future government jobs that I need to work as hard as a I can and I need to do that all the time. I need to be giving this job my all right now. I'm only going to develop my professional skills as much as I 'want' to. I know that. I need to push myself to do things I don't really like doing. Presentations is a big thing--I don't mind them really, but I certainly don't go looking for opportunities to present. And I need to. I am also going to be supervising a practicum student until April and I'm really nervous about that. I know what it's like to be a student and have really poor leadership. It's difficult to learn and you feel as if you are wasting your time. I don't want to do that to this guy. He deserves the best I have to offer him and he will get it.

3 ~ Increasing activity level. There are a couple of aspects to this. Resident Manservant has plateaued with his weight loss. He dropped nearly 30 pounds within the first 2 months and has been steady for the past 3 weeks. I need to start being more active. It's part of the program overall, and I've been entirely neglecting it. I don't know what we are going to do exactly. We have discussed joining a gym together, we also were doing aquafit classes together for a time. It seems to be easier if we are doing things as a couple, so we need to focus on finding things that work for both of us.

4 ~ I want to read more. In the last month or so I have picked up a couple of books that have been laying around for some time and have actually been reading them! I'm horrible for this. I see books that I think I'd like and I buy them, but never seem to get around to reading them. I've nearly finished reading a novel that I started on Boxing Day and have been fondly reminded of how much I enjoy reading. I never seem to have time. But I would like to start making time. I miss it.

5 ~ Planning for Success. For me this a broad statement relating to both my weight loss, but also to financial stuff. We've a wack of debt that we need to work more effectively at managing. We have already discussed some of our options with our bank and are planning to visit to go over them in more detail. For the next several months I am hoping that both of us can curb our personal spending and and work down the debt as much as possible before we refinance. Planning for continued success is an idea that I'm slowly coming around to. It doesn't happen accidentally--either gaining or losing. Planning meals, planning shopping, planning for eating out--these are all essential to our continued success.

6 ~ SEX, SEX, SEX. We don't have nearly enough of it. When we do, it's amazing, but we are generally pretty lucky lately if we are able to get to it twice a week. AND THAT'S NOT ENOUGH!!! But let me tell you, since Resident Manservant has dropped his weight, it is so much more amazing that I want it all the time.

7 ~ Relationship stuff. I think we have learned a lot in the last year on how to be a better couple, but I'm sure there is still a ton to learn. I have realized what it means to work as a team, to act as a team, to support each other as a team. But there is always room for improvement.

8 ~ Spirituality. Resident Manservant has already spoken to the path of the year, and I hope that we can continue down this path together. And maybe this time we can be a little less side-tracked and much more focused.

9 ~ Ab work. This one's kind of silly and fits into the general fitness idea, but I'd like to focus on gaining abdominal strength. I have done this in the past by doing as little as 15 minutes of ab work before bed in the evening, along with my stretching. I'd like to do this 3 evenings a week.

That's my list. It's long. I do think though that we have done a lot of work already that has primed us to start working even harder now. This doesn't seem that overwhelming after all.

Totally doable, right?