2015 Goals

2014 was an incredible year filled with numerous milestones! This past year I graduated from college, started my first full time job, got married, and my husband and I bought our first house. 2014 was the best year of my life and for that reason part of me has been sad to see this year end. At the same time, however,  this year I'm excited to see myself develop and grow into the roles that I acquired during 2014 (employee, homeowner, wife, etc.), and look forward to focusing on the resolutions that I have set for myself. That said, in 2015 I have 3 main things I want to focus on: 

Resolution #1

In past years, loosing weight always appeared on the my New Year's resolution list.  Not that I have ever had an excessive amount of weight that needed to be lost, but I've always had a little weight I'd like to shed and muscles that I would like to be more toned. This yearly resolution, however, would lead me to being fixated about the number on the scale for the year and by the end of the year I would feel disappointed in myself because I didn't meet the unrealistic goal that I had set for myself at the beginning of that year. This vicious cycle of being unrealistic and disappointed has occurred year after year, and this year I'm finally putting a stop to it. This year I'm replacing the resolution of loosing weight with focusing on taking care of my body. This includes maintaining a healthy weight, but it also includes many other things that are just as important that I hope to work on:

• Sleep more
• Drink more water (I drink way to much diet pop, especially coke zero)
• Get more used to silence. I stimulate my brain way to much especially with Instagram and the show the Good Wife and I need to reduce it for more own health and sanity. 
• Laugh more, it's good for the soul!

The most important thing that I want to nip in the bud this year in terms of taking care of myself is my unhealthy eating habits of not eating enough during the day which leads me to eating like crazy at night. I don't do this on purpose, I just forget to eat.  Putting my body through starvation mode during the day is both very unhealthy for my body but also for my weight, because when the body goes into starvation mode it stubbornly holds onto weight. I plan to change this habit by doing the 28 day Fast Metabolism diet (Link to Book).  The idea behind the metabolism diet is that you eat more, 5 times a day to be exact, and by eating more it increases your metabolism which is key in loosing weight. Although I do hope to shed the few pounds I gained since my wedding during this diet, my goal is to maintain this eating habit after the 28 days are done, get used to incorporating healthier meals into Paul and mine's life, and stop fixating on the number on the scale.

For people who are more interested about the diet,  the diet is broken into three phases during the week. In each phase your body is exposed to different foods with the goal to kick your body out of the habit of holding onto weight. Here's what you get to eat during the week, (Phase 1 looks most appetizing to me!)

Phase 1 (Unwind) : Monday & Tuesday 

Phase 2 (Unleash) : Wednesday & Thursday 

Phase 3 (Unleash): Friday, Saturday & Sunday

 I'm only on day 1 of this plan, so I will have to let you all know if it works. If you would like to read more about, here is the link to the book (Link to Book). If anyone has tried this, I'd love to hear how it went in the comment section below! 

Resolution #2

In 2015, I plan on focusing on quality versus quantity with the hope of spending and wanting less.  There is no denial that I constantly want things and have a tendency of buying things that I don't need. I came to the realization two years ago with buying clothes, that I would buy way too many things that I didn't actually love or need.  I would always end up at the sale racks at store and find myself justifying buying things because of the immaculate sale that I was getting, but often times wouldn't end up using the items for months on end or never at all. After buying a house, I realized I was doing the same thing with home decor items. I was getting so anxious about having a completely decorated house that I was buying things like crazy, but after a week of buying something I was already thinking of what to replace it with. That said, this year I'm focusing on quality versus quantity and buying things that I know I'll want for a long time. The way I plan to achieve this is by monthly budgeting. By giving yourself a monthly budget of how much you can spend on extra things, ( clothes, home decor items, make up etc.), you begin to be a lot more selective on what you purchase. You begin to prioritize what you really want, and are able to pass on the things you don't really need.  I had success with this when I did it for clothes, so I hope to have success with it with buying things for the house. My clothes and house items budget is the same budget, but lately I have had no desire of buying new clothes so my budget will go to home items. I plan on also keeping a spreadsheet and visual documentation of each months purchases so that I can keep track of what I bought each month.

Resolution #3

This year, I plan on trying new things and learning a lot about myself. The last four years of my life in college, I worked part time managing two E-commerce websites and was busy with school so I didn't spend much time trying new things and broadening my horizons. About two months ago this rush of curiosity came over me and now I can't seem to stop wanting to try new things and learn more about topics I didn't used to be interested in. If someone would of told me a year ago that I would be building a coffee table and had my own blog, I would of laughed and said there is no way. So with that, I hope to continue exploring this year, try new hobbies, embrace being young and take advantage of this time in my life where I'm able to try a lot of new things.

I look forward to what 2015 has in store for this blog and all my house projects that I have planned, and am so thankful for all of you who read along! I have a lot of blog ideas prepared for this year, but I would also love any suggestions or requests for future blog posts any of you might have! I hope you all have a great 2015 and would love to hear what your New Year resolutions are in the comments below!

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