HELLO 2018!

Resolutions never work out, do they?

Statistically only a small percentage of us keep to our resolutions, and the rest fail in misery or dwindle somewhere along the way.

There are mainly two reasons why New Year Resolutions go down in flames;

1. They are too ambitious (eat oats every morning? No way that’s going to work out)
2. They are too generic (“To be happy”. “To forgive more”. Resolutions need to be measurable!)

Some people feel that New Year Resolutions are superficial, and that’s completely understandable. But I honestly love it. For me it is never so much about the new year, the birthday, the anniversary… these are just dates, after all. What appeals most to me is that they are physical milestones. They allow me to keep track of time. Have I been using it wisely, now that a year has passed? If I haven’t, how can I change that for the next  cycle?

2017 had been a lot of things to a lot of people. Some of my family, friends and loved ones had divorces, found someone, had miscarriages, had babies, got a promotion, ventured into new careers, near-death experiences (stuck at the Turkey airport during a military raid!) and traveled to exciting places. 

In general 2017 had been generous to me. Some things didn’t go so well but a lot of things were amazing and beautiful and unforgettable. However, 2017 was also a heavily scheduled, goal-oriented, intense year. Therefore, for 2018, I plan to live it as loosely as possible.

That isn’t to say that I don’t have goals for 2018. Rather, I want to give myself a lot of freedom to create, explore new things and have minimal expectations with everything in general. I think it will be fun to try and spend this year living a little more spontaneously than usual, and to approach things with a lot of curious enthusiasm. After all, people say expectations are the deterrent to gratitude - I'm curious to see how this works out. I hope to publish my second book soon, but I don’t want ‘soon’ to be rigid – I find that this tampers with the creative process. At the same time I am also looking forward to try a lot of things I have never done before. So I’m instructing myself to try 5 different, new things this year. I’m not sure what they are just yet, but I am up for recommendations!

What have you got planned for 2018? Exciting things I hope!

My other resolutions are: Stop biting my nails, learn at least 5 more songs with the ukulele, see someplace new once a month (even if it’s in the city), master a handstand (this didn’t materialize last year), learn 3 more fish recipes, try kickboxing.