When I thought about this today, about who I want to see in myself in a year, three words came to mind.
- Pretty
- Healthy
- Comfortable
For this specific post, I am not focusing on my career. Those aspirations will be another post for another time — though honestly if I can focus on attaining the above, surely these will help me perform on the other front, too.
In the past I've had posts where I've written about what I want to see for myself for the year, and I used many, many words. But don't be fooled, even though these are just three, they are filled with lots of reasoning and thoughts.
For Pretty- I have struggled for the last five years to not only just like myself but to not hate the woman I see in the mirror. I am tired of hating myself. I am tired of thinking I'm the ugliest thing to walk the earth. I want to start loving myself. This word goal is more for the outside of me than the inside, but I don't think of this as vanity. I don't want to be the most beautiful woman that ever lived. I just want to love myself. I want to like what I see in the mirror. I watched a video by Patrick Starr where he made-over a woman. It brought me to tears to see how much this woman was touched when she got to see herself after the makeover. I think at the heart of every woman we long to be seen as beautiful. By others and by ourselves. This year I am going to pamper myself, talk positively to myself, and find styles that complement my body and I enjoy wearing. No more buying clothes off the clearance rack just because they're on sale—NO! Enough of that!
For Healthy- This word wasn't Healthy at first. It was skinny. And I said nay-nay. I'll never be skinny. I'll never be the size 2 I've always dreamed of being. It's not in my genes. And no wonder I feel so defeated, it's because I'm setting a goal in front of me that I'll never meet. So healthy is good. And healthy applies to both the outside and inside. Eating healthy, working out, but also changing my mindset- zen. I want to be zen and calm and collected. Immovable. I don't want to lash out when I'm angry or sad. I want to be confident in where I stand in Christ so that I am not easily offended by anything or anyone. I also want to be mindful of the environment, what I buy. According to the Council for Textile Recycling, the US generates 25 billion pounds of textiles per year, which is about 82 pounds per US resident. Of that 82 pounds, 15% get donated or recycled and a whopping 85 percent goes to our landfills. That 85% adds up to about 21 billion pounds of post-consumer textile waste (PCTW) per year. I want to shrink my footprint!
The last is Comfortable- Be comfortable. I want to be happy in my home, which means continuing the battle against hoarding and useless household items. I want to continue to downsize and donate more of my books (hail to Kindle, I absolutely love this device!), keep crafting my minimalist closet and use what I already have before buying more (ie lotions, makeup). This "comfortable" mindset also entails cutting back on social media. I deactivated Facebook a while ago. I don't use my Twitter. And I separated my Instagrams by creating another one solely for celebrities and bloggers I follow. This has freed me from being overwhelmed by standards I can't meet. I know, it's totally psychological. I can see pictures from people I actually know and then compartmentalize and jump over to the homes of perfect bloggers and celebrities and know that what they're sharing isn't real life for me. I also realized from making this separation is that people I know-know aren't actually posting as often as I think. I can look at my real people Instagram and there won't be an update for hours, which reduces the pressure of me having to have an amazing Instagram worthy life because the onslaught on photo reminders isn't what it was before- constant. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else and I guess it doesn't matter as long as I'm aware that it's helping me.
I wonder where I'll be in a year. Here's to hoping I reach my goals above. If I do, I'll be a better person for it.
