Setting Intentions for The New Year

The end of the year is often an incredibly busy time for everyone with the holidays and the start of a new year. People travel, they see family, and they get caught up in whatever the season brings them. There’s nothing wrong with getting wrapped up in the holidays, but as we enter the new year it is important to give credit where credit is due. 

What have you done with your year? What have you accomplished? What changes have you made? 

I have a lot to be thankful for this year, as I have written in previous blogs. Since 2022 I’ve made some real changes in my life and I’ve made big decisions about my future. One of those big decisions, believe it or not, started with the revamping of my blog. I have written more this year than I did in 2021 or 2022. During the pandemic, I spent a lot of time writing my book and I got very far in the story. This year I spent less time working on my book and more time working on other projects. Before I decided to revamp this website, I hadn’t written a fiction story since I’d graduated college. It felt nice to tell other stories and to enjoy the mental task of character building, world building, and storytelling. 

My book sat on the back burner for much of this year. Toward the beginning of the year, I began to feel less like it was my art and more like it was keeping me shackled to my depression. Recently, I’ve made a lot of inner decisions about what I want my book to be and what I want to say with it. After making these decisions, I was able to rewrite parts of it and begin editing once again in hopes of getting it published soon. I beg my friends and family to keep me accountable; ask me when I’m getting the book published, ask to read it, ask me how it is going. It is not an easy project to work on, thus it is one I often try to put off, but it is important to me.  

I’ve learned a lot about myself in the past year. There is a lot I need to work on. I’ve learned this year that I am not an amazing planner like I thought I was. While I like to have a plan when doing anything outside of my routine, I am atrocious at making plans on my own. There was a lot I wanted to do this year that simply didn’t happen because I failed to plan. It didn’t help that we’ve been working on our house for over a year and finally got moved in back in August, but I failed to commit on ideas and plans I’d made with my friends. I didn’t see them as much as I would have liked to this year. 

I’ve also learned that I’m often not the best friend. I get into my own world, get caught up in the things going on around me, and I forget to reach out. Something I’ve started trying to do in order to better myself and the quality of my friendships in the past year has been trying to reach out to people more or having a scheduled time to spend time with my friends. All of my friends at this point are long distance friends, with the closest one still living two and a half hours away. I’ve been trying to call my sister more and have real conversations with her and I feel like that has made our friendship and bond a lot stronger. I’ve been trying to involve my friends more in my everyday life by sending them Snapchats of things I’m doing and keeping up-to-date with their lives. I’m not always the best at staying in contact, but it’s never because I don’t love my friends. I’m just not always the best communicator. 

My best friend, Julianna, and I for the past year have talked almost every Thursday night. Thursdays are my favorite because I get to talk to my best friend and watch reality TV. I feel like our friendship has become a lot stronger in the last few years as well as we’ve navigated through times of tremendous joy and major let downs. I am always thankful to see her and hear her stories on Thursdays. 

One of the only pictures I've taken this month, featuring Gertie and the big mirror.

I’ve really put a lot of work into myself in 2023 and I hope to keep improving in 2024. I’m going to commit to plans with friends and see more of them. I’m going to take more time for myself and give myself a lot more grace in the coming year. I’m going to write, read, and love. Typically, I don’t like to make resolutions for the new year; no one ever sticks with those. But I have things I want to do for myself in the new year, things that I feel will improve my quality of life and make me feel like I am actually living. 

I challenge you, reader and friend, to use the new year as an excuse to better yourself in any way. What can you do that will change your outlook on life this year? Maybe it’s as simple as wanting to try new recipes in the new year and committing to trying all of them out. Perhaps, similarly to me, there are people in your life you want to be closer with; be close with those people. If you never travel, but would like to, take the time to make that happen. I, hopefully, will be doing the same. There’s no harm in having intentions, even if you don’t follow through. Tell people what your intentions are so they can hold you accountable. I was talking to Taylor the other day and we both agreed that next year we would see each other on our birthdays and that we would go to the renaissance fair together. These are plans we had made in 2023 that we failed to commit to, but we both intend to make happen in 2024. 

I hope you all enjoy a safe and merry Christmas, and the joy and warmth it brings into your home this holiday season. I hope you make time for friends and loved ones, and really appreciate the light they bring into your life. Enjoy the coming of the new year and the restart it provides.