🎊 Happy 2025 - Goals for the New Year
I'm not really one for New Years Resolutions, but I think I'm going to make an arbitrary list of things I can try to work on over the year. But before I do that, I do want to acknowledge some things I consider successes (and just life events) in the last year.
So here's some highlights from 2024!
- I got engaged! To the love of my life and the man who always makes me smile and laugh. (Sorry, had to say something corny, I think it's required.) Dane and I do not have a wedding date set yet, but currently looking at possibly springtime next year (2026.) 😊 I'm sure I'll talk more about it when we get closer to the date.
- I quit World of Warcraft (again.) I'd picked up Wrath of the Lich King intending to enjoy the nostalgia of it for a month of two and quit, but then I... accidentally usurped a guild and felt obligated to lead it. If I hadn't met some genuinely fun and awesome people I don't think I would have stuck around the whole expansion, but I did. When Cataclysm approached, I had some people begging me to stay, but I had to take my opportunity to leave or I'd be stuck.
- Maintained my gym attendance. I didn't make it every week, but got pretty close to that! I switched trainers (since my first trainer had to leave town for family reasons, apparently) and my new trainer is a great dude.
- Saw Staind and Seether in concert, who were both new on my list. Seether was... they felt uninterested in being there, didn't talk to the crowd barely at all. Staind was awesome and I'd love to see them again.
- My handwriting has gotten better. Since picking up fountain pens, I've been writing more in general, but I've also been making an effort to practice cursive since the first time since elementary school.
Goals for the new year
Returning to my webcomic
This is the big one.
When I started my hobby blog on Blogger last year, I tried several times to make a Hobby Intro post about my webcomic, Blitz Phoenix. But every attempt was scrapped for feeling stilted and forced. Maybe it's hard to talk about it when I feel guilty for not keeping up with it much in the last few years. Honestly I haven't drawn much in general since I picked up Warcraft, even though it's been several months since I've even thought about it. Some video games really kill the desire to draw for me. I did manage to get back into traditional art (mostly acrylic painting), but many things were difficult in terms of wanting to do anything.
My goal last year was to return to regular posting and more art in general. I failed that, and the goal is continuing into this year.
Thoguh I'm giving up on writing an introduction post. Instead of doing that, I'll just say this: I have a webcomic called Blitz Phoenix. It's a superhero/superteen storyline, and you can read it here. I've been making it for over ten years now! At the moment, I recommend following it via RSS, as I can't guarantee a post every week - though that's the goal.
Health improvements - more gym time and fixing my diet
So while I did maintain my gym goings last year, I did dip in how much I've been going. With my first trainer, I think he did a really great job of subtley incouraging me to come into the gym more. we'd meet once a week, and he'd asking me how many days I came in the week before (after seeing him.) If I didn't hit the number he wanted, like let's say twice, he'd say "I'd really like to get you to where you're coming in three times." And that would be the end of it. One of those "oh man I feel bad for letting him down" sort of things.
My new trainer, while great, doesn't do this. I've realized I was using that as my motivation and now I need to readjust my brain to motivate in other ways. Still working on it but I have some things I'm trying, so maybe I'll talk more about them later.
But the other thing I'd like to do better with is my diet. I suck at eating and always have. Recently though I've gained weight, and am maybe 10-15 pounds overweight - but it's not muscle, it's fat. So I want to lose some of it and make sure I'm going in enough that I'm gaining the amount of muscle I'd expect. I'm not trying to look like a body builder, but it would be cool to see more of my muscles in the mirror!
And more than that, my doctor told me my cholesterol is high, so I'm trying to introduce more healthy greens into my diet. I'm slow with finding recipes though, and need to make a list or methodology to get easy healthy meals for myself prepped. Meal prepping in general might be a good idea. I have some recipe books and guides that I'm planning to read.
Reading more
I've talked about my reading before, and my list of books I want to read for the year (here!), and I really want this to be a more passive hobby for me where I just pick up a book as one of my regular "I'm bored and want to do something" activities. Instead of just watching youtube, which I've always preferred youtube over most every other form of watching things, but this last year I really leaned into it. And my recommended videos have kind of... deteriorated into garbage. So I'd rather pick up a book and read something I enjoy than just mindlessly consume another video.
It'll be better for my attention span anyway. I'm also hoping to get back to drawing little bits during these moments, which I used to do a lot. But like I said, my desire to draw went away. It's starting to come back and I think these habits will help.
Meditate more and journal
I got into meditating in 2020 and I know it helps me a lot, especially with my emotional control and reducing daily stress. But I don't always remember it's a thing I can do, haha. So just trying to remember to do it and actually doing it every day is a good goal to have. Even five minutes a day can make a difference.
I'd started to combine meditation with journaling, by doing an exercise where I meditate for a few minutes, remember the random thoughts my brain throws at me during my focus time, and then writing about them once I'm done and trying to analyze them.
You know when you lay down and your brain brings up something from 10+ years ago that you wish you hadn't said or done? Or some nasty comment someone said that ruined your day, but ultimately means very little? I feel like taking the time to actually write out the random thoughts and how I feel about them helps to silence them. I could pace around my room, thinking of the perfect comeback I should have said at the time, or I can acknowledge how I felt to allow my mind to let go of the event all together and forgive it.
At least, that's what I think is happening. I haven't been to therapy. But! It's been helping me. And keeping a paper journal is great - I have a place to dump the weird thoughts my brain comes up with that really shouldn't go onto the internet because I might regret others seeing them one day. Sometimes you write something down that you think you believe, because the idea has been bounding around in your head for a while, only to realize as soon as you let that thought out to be seen or heard by someone else... that you don't. It's a bad idea. But for some reason, you don't realize this until you put it in front of someone else. Turns out, that "someone else" can be a paper journal. It works just the same, except that you don't sound like a jackass as much.
Pretty normal
I think it is a pretty standard list of goals, but my own perspective is what will decide how I go about it if I want to succeed. So writing these down I think is good for me. I have a few more personal goals that will make it into my journal and not the internet, so I won't be going into detail here.
Anyway, happy new year again. Make some plans so you can get through the monotomy of January, haha.