Don’t end up like this on New Year’s!
In recent years, the timing changed, becoming a few stolen hours on the first or second of the month. The journaling remained, but the huge list of resolutions morphed into a sheet of more specific goals, with tangible steps on how to attain those goals.
This year to celebrate 2015 (Wow!), I’m going to dedicate most of January 2nd to recounting, dreaming and planning. I’ve already filled in the days of each month on my erasable year-at-a-glance calendar, created and installed a huge cork board to serve as a wall of inspiration and reminders behind my new standing workstation, and I have task sheets pinned up for my next three novels. The 2nd will find me—journal, Polestar planner, new gorgeous pen, and wine close at hand—on the couch, mapping out the months ahead.
I realize this all might make me sound a little OCD, but I find the acts of looking back, considering the present, and contemplating the future very helpful. Sometimes it’s a little bittersweet, but mostly I find a lot of joy and rekindled ambition and motivation. I tend to be someone who beats myself up for never doing enough. Taking stock of accomplishments and met goals helps me shut the mean voices up.
So what about you? How do you plan to ring in 2015? If you’re going to some big bash or having a cozy house party, I’d love to hear about it . . . but what I’m really asking is what you’re going to do alone, on your own, involving your head, heart, and thoughts to celebrate a brand new year? Are you a resolution maker? Do you journal and/or do some sort of reflection on the year past and what you’d like to see in the twelve months to come? Is there something specific you’re planning to tackle this year? Please share a line or two. Hearing other peoples’ hopes and plans often helps clarify and motivate my own.
And whatever you’re aspiring toward or pursuing—and however you’re celebrating—I wish you the patience, strength of conviction, and sense of humor to see it through. May 2015 be wonderful for you in every way.
And don’t go out looking like this. You have to smile, at least!
p.s. This my 200th blog post. Crazy, hey? And a wonderful thing to celebrate in its own right. 🙂
Author Ev Bishop: page-turning stories about family, friends, and finding your true home. 
Happy 2015 to you, Ev, and congratulations on your 200th post! I love your tradition! And your blog! And your books! I can’t wait to read the next one!!!
I have a couple of goals this year, other than my writing goals (since I set my annual writing goals in October). I want to make my office more user friendly, which means a big cork board (with driftwood trim) for my story index cards, blinds so I don’t have to wear my garden hat while I write in the afternoon, and a “Do Not Disturb” sign for outside my door. I’m looking forward to doing them, one by one. 🙂 So cool that you too have a big cork board! They are such a great tool!
LikeLike
LOL, Ang–and thanks so much for the kind words and congrats. 🙂 🙂 Your enthusiasm is very touching–and catching! 🙂
I love your goals–super doable and inexpensive, but that will go a long way to making your lovely office even more efficient and productivity-enhancing. 🙂 It’s super cool that we’re both doing the big cork board thing. I was just talking to another author who installed one recently too. Apparently they’re the newest old tool for writers this year. (And a side note on that: I love the driftwood frame idea, too. I haven’t framed mine yet, but plan too . . . with something black. 🙂 )
AND I WANT A DO NOT DISTURB SIGN TOO–I’m actually thinking of getting one of those cardboard clocks businesses use to say when they’ll next be open. That way people will know when their next window to harass me is, heh heh. 🙂
Thanks so much for popping by and have a fantastic, dream-filled and dream-met 2015!
LikeLike
I’ll enjoy everyone else’s enthusiasm, but I don’t do resolutions, kinda like I don’t do diets, although this is a great moment in the year to reflect and plan and dream. I’m just such a hibernating sort of person that my only dreams this time of year are of hot chocolate… Thanks for all your posts, Ev, they’re thoughtful and of course the pictures are quite interesting… Just wondering who ate that last gingerbread woman?
LikeLike
Ahhh, Susan–hot chocolate! 🙂 It is a lovely thing, as is reflecting, planning and dreaming. And I get the “don’t do resolutions/don’t do diets” attitude . . . I guess my change about that and New Year’s seemed to be that all my resolutions seemed based on things I didn’t like about myself that I resolved to change immediately. Tomorrow. 😉 😉 I find it better for my life to focus on the things I have done, enjoy doing, want to do.
Thanks for the kind words about my column. I’m glad you enjoy it–and the pictures. 🙂 And lol re: the gingerbread woman. Probably one of my daughter’s friends, or one of her teachers. 😉 She made a crazy amount of ginger people one year and decorated each one differently, but equally hilariously. Her friends each got a plate, as did her teachers.
LikeLike