As I sit here at the computer at waytooearly o’clock on the first day of the new year (Dear Kaitlyn’s first tooth, please go ahead and pop through and give me back my good sleeper), I am full of hope for the upcoming year.
Many of these hopes fit in line with the classic, cliché resolutions. I am ready to get more fit, excited to clean up my holiday eating and yet again am going to focus on drinking more water. However, I’m also drawn this year to a few deeper, more meaningful alterations to the way I do things currently. Instead of calling these resolutions or goals, I’ll consider these focuses for the year ahead.
Be proud of the things I put my time and effort into. I love some self-deprecation, but I often take things too far and sell myself short myself on accomplishments that I work hard on. For example, you should hear me try to explain this blog to someone at a social gathering. Oh, well, I kinda just write about food and life and stuff. See I used to be a health coach but now, well, I’m a mom, and I write about stuff on a website. No wonder people look at me with crazy eyes and why I just usually stick to saying I’m a mom. But I love this space. I put a lot of time and effort into it and am in awe of the community (ahem, you guys) that I’ve found. I enjoy working with some amazing companies and having something that is just mine during a time that so much of my day is committed to my girls.
But this goes beyond just the blog. In other things I do, I often undercut the work it took to get there by crediting good luck or a fortunate happenstance. Certainly those things can come into play, but if I’m putting effort into something, I want to be better at owning it.
Learn to accept a compliment. This is so incredibly simple in theory, but difficult in practice. It came to me the other day when I told Hailey how beautiful she looked in her dress. She smiled and simply said ‘thank you’ and went on about her playing. I’ve noticed she’s also done this when I acknowledge her hard work on a puzzle or compliment her on a drawing well done. Simple, right? However, when someone compliments me, instinct tells me to quickly justify it.
I could probably write many a blog post on this topic, but for brevity’s sake, let’s just say I want to work on saying thank you to genuine compliments without needing to explain why I don’t really deserve the kind words.
Grow as a person, not just a mom. Mom is one of my MOST favorite identities, but I need to be careful not to allow it to be my only one. Motherhood, while incredible, can be consuming and exhausting. It’s easy to lose myself in it some days and while I’m incredibly proud of my kids and love being mom, I know it isn’t healthy when all I have to discuss at a dinner party is nap times and teething solutions. I want to read, explore my personal interests and continue to grow as an individual while also helping my girls to discover themselves. How this will actually work? I’m not quite sure yet, haha, but I’ll report back!
Focus on my marriage. Spoiler alert, no rough waters at the Dixon house, but after spending the last 4ish years consumed with pregnancy, infancy and mothering two small children, I want to put some conscious effort towards David. You know, that guy that was there long before these sweet little girls were pulling on my legs? Yeah, him. I still like him, like, a lot, but I may not always be the best at showing it after days full of repeated storybooks and endless diaper changes. I’m grateful to be navigating this life with such an amazing man and want my actions to match my words.
There they are. Nothing like laying out some non-SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) for the new year, huh? Still, spelling out these areas of focus helps me to keep them top-of-mind, so we’ll see how it goes. Bring it, new year!
Do you have any resolutions or areas of focus you’d like to work on in 2015?
How do you hope to accomplish them?
The post 2015: Four Focuses for the New Year appeared first on A Healthy Slice of Life.