It me!!!
It’s been quite a while since I’ve blogged. It started to feel like a job for me, and I felt pressure to write, even when I didn’t feel like it. In addition, I always want to put out worthwhile content, so half-assing it didn’t seem like the right choice either. This is an outlet for me and when it wasn’t fun anymore, I needed to curb it temporarily.
Anyways, I’m back and I’m here. I’ve stop-ed-black blogging. I needed to miss it to come back to it with authenticity. So here I am.
It’s the start of a New Year and I’d like to blog 1-2x/month. It may be more, it may be less. I hope you’ll take a read at the topics that interest you.
The focus of this blog will remain health and fitness, but with the addition of mindset and wellbeing. I’ve posted on these topics before, but I’ve truly had an incredible year and a half of learning, growing, self-reflection, and soul-searching. It won’t be easy to put into words, but it is my goal to share some of what I’ve done, as I have never been happier in my life and I truly believe that I’ve figured out the “formula” to happiness. I hope to share as much of that as possible to help you find that place of being/living.
2018
While last year was full of ups and downs (both personally and for our country/society), it was a fantastic year for me. I grew as a person, I made new friends, I traveled all over the place, I went to see a LOT of live music, and I said YES a lot. <—I’ll do an entire post on this.
My resolutions this year are quite different than in years past. I am constantly working to better myself: learning more, becoming more proficient at various skills, finding what makes me happiest, being a better person, getting stronger (physically and mentally), and so on. While I have several goals in the works (that’s a year-round thing for me), there are a few things I’d like to focus on in 2018 and they all revolve around self-care and giving.
My 2018 New Year’s Resolutions
–Less time on social media, texting, emailing, etc. This means not bringing my phone with me everywhere I go. It also means not replying right away or jumping at the sound of a notification. It means not aimlessly browsing through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter when I’m bored. There are so many other things I could be doing with my time. While most of my work revolves around social media, emails, and the like, this isn’t going to be easy, but setting some boundaries for when I’m working vs. just passing time is going to be the big difference for me.
–Steam Room Life. I am pretty sure when I announced this goal on Instagram, everyone thought I was joking, but I’m not. And the reasons for it are actually pretty impactful in my life (blog post on the little things is forthcoming as well…). There is a steam room in my apartment complex and occasionally I’d go there in the evenings or after a workout. I noticed that when I went in the steam room for 10-15 minutes, showered, got ready for bed, and laid down, I felt really relaxed. I noticed that I slept better as well. A deep, refreshing sleep that is hard to come by for me. So yes, one of my new year’s resolutions is to sit in the steam room and/or sauna every night before bed (unless I’m going out or out of town of course).
–More writing. I love writing. While I haven’t been blogging, there are probably 100+ Notes in my phone and in Google Docs that are just my thoughts that needed to get out. Some are intellectual, some are stories, some are nonsense. They all helped me release something though. I truly believe that our creative thoughts must be released from us in some way: through playing music, writing, singing, talking, etc. If we don’t express those creative thoughts, they sit in us like rotten nails. One nail isn’t felt much, but several rotten nails is dead weight that we end up carrying around.
–Relax more & flip my stress upside down. I take on a LOT at once. If you know me, you know I’m always working and adding more to my plate. I get stressed out, anxious, and sometimes it’s enough to paralyze me. I’m really focusing on taking care of myself this year. When I’m stressed and anxious, just taking 5. I try to be really efficient and not waste time, but if time is spent recharging my brain, it’s well-spent and worth it. More beach walks (with NO phone), more staring at the boats on the water. More deep breaths. More looking at whatever is stressing me out and flipping it over into the positive aspects. Is it a learning experience? Is it making me stronger? Is it forcing me to think outside the box? Is it actually a good thing for me? And lastly, if it’s toxic, what can I do to remove it?
-Travel. This is always a goal of mine. I went on 18 trips in 2017 and I plan to increase that this year. Learning how to travel and get your work done, workouts in, eat well is a skill I feel I’ve mastered. I learned by doing (that’s how I’ve learned most things, actually), and will also write a post (or posts) on this. Either way, I plan to go to: Chicago, NYC, Oregon, Alaska, Switzerland, Germany, Czech and/or Poland, Hawaii, Banff and more this year. I’ve already booked Chicago, NYC, and Maui. It’ll be a wild ride, but THIS is something that fills my cup, so I make it a priority <—-more on that in another post
–Add. Add positive people, positive experiences, and positive environments into my life. The negative shit will fall by the wayside out of default.
–Give back. I’m going to be doing a few different things this year to give back to the community. Some will involve dog shelters, some will involve helping people through the power of dogs. I’ll share more on this later on, but I’m excited for a few different things I’ve got in the works. I have way too much good in my life to not be spreading it around. I’ve given to charities in the past, but I want to do more.
-Continue saying Yes. I’ll likely keep repeating this phrase on all platforms for as long as I live, as it was life-changing for me when I truly started adopting the phrase. “If you’re going to regret something, regret doing it.” I can’t stress enough how much this mentality will improve your time on this Earth. Saying YES, going for it, doing it, experiencing it. Regretting only that you DID something, and not that you DIDN’T DO something. The power of this style of living isn’t shown until you actually start living it. Reading it and envisioning it don’t work. It’s like a sports car with a dead battery. You know it can go fast and do a lot, but until you’re driving 110 mph down the freeway and feeling the adrenaline pumping through your body, you didn’t actually understand what it felt like. When you DO start living it, it’s power is so huge that you can’t believe you’ve lived any other way for your entire life.
I’ll leave you with this video that I’ve shared several times on my Facebook page. It encapsulates the essence of this phrase and if it doesn’t bring a tear to your eye (a happy tear, a regretful tear, an anything tear), then you might be dead inside.
