I remember asking my Mom when I turned 50 what life was like for her at 50 and she couldn't tell me anything about those years. That bothered me just a little and so for the past few years I've been giving myself a new goal or challenge to record my years so that when I get to 88 years old, I will be able to remember my 50's and tell my kids what I did. My goal for my 52nd year is to be more connected with others' lives and be more aware of the lessons of life, the beautiful things of life and to focus on experiencing the year. The older I get I'm more aware of wasted time and I find myself just existing without memory of what I've done. 52 is my year to push myself to be more and do more. I plan to start this venture on the first day of October of 2011 and it will end on my 53rd birthday in October of 2012. Figuring that there are 52 weeks in a year, to keep up with the "52" items on the list (such as read 52 books) I will need to mark one off each week. By starting at the first of October I'm allotting two and a 1/2 extra weeks to cover those weeks when it's just too hard to complete everything. Sometimes I will be able to do something more than once a week so that will allow me breathing room as well.
I normally read about 40 books a year but I know I sometimes go for long periods without reading because life gets in the way. For the 52 goal here I am allowing myself to count bible reading as part of that reading goal because I don't want to put reading books as more important than reading the bible. So every 52 (different) chapters I read in the bible, will also count as one book.
For sunrises and sunsets I plan to pick one day a week to get up early and watch the sunrise and find quiet time in the evening each week to watch a sunset. This is something I love to do but I don't do it nearly enough.
Writing is another passion of mine so there are many items that will challenge me to write more often. Writing in either this blog or my personal blog at scrappyru.blogspot.com will all count towards my 52 blog posts. I plan to keep a journal of my 52 goals and hope to keep that current weekly as well as write in my personal journal.
For "52 awesome things to photograph" the awesome things will have to be 52 different things. 52 photos of my cute little grandson will not fulfill this goal although he will definitely count for one of the 52 awesome things.
Several items on the list deal with spending time either in giving gifts, corresponding with, thanking or just being with others. I think that sometimes I find myself too wrapped up in my life in my own little "me" world and I aspire to be more in touch with others and aware of how I can make a difference in someone else's life. I miss getting real letters in the mail and real phone calls from friends so I hope that if nothing else, writing more letters and cards will brighten someone else's day to get some cheery mail. I listed the letter writing and phone calls goals as 52 different people to receive these because I know it would be easy to just write over and over to the same people. My goal this year is to go beyond that and correspond with more people.
I've been feeling like technology is taking over the world and I waste way too many hours just mindlessly reading facebook or pinning on pinterest so I'm taking 52 days of technology free time. Hopefully with my big list of things to do I will find plenty to keep me busy without the internet and I will be all the better because of it.
It sounds a little contradictory to have "Reach my Goal Weight" and "No looking at the scale" on the same list but my goal weight won't be a number this year. I've realized that I sometimes sabotage myself by spending too much time looking at the scale. I'll spend several days being very good about what I eat and after not seeing the result on the scale that I think I should see, I will say to myself "why bother?" and I'll cheat a little here and there until I'm back where I started. By taking the scale out of the process I hope to just get myself to a healthy weight that feels good just on the basis of how my clothes fit and how I look in the mirror. That's all that really matters is that I feel healthy and love the way I look in my clothes. So my smallest clothes looking loose on me will be my indication that I have met my goal weight. Giving up colas for a year will be another step towards the weight goal and hopefully I'll see other benefits to giving up things that go fizz.
It will be fun to see what I can accomplish on my list this year. Some things will be easy to check off and others will take some work but I'll be happy with any progress I make. 52 @ 52 will start in 10 days. Looking forward to accomplishing my goals for the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment