New Year’s Resolutions for 2015

2013-12-26 08.40.00

  1. Make my health my first job, I’m in the fortunate position that I’m financially able to make recovering my health my first job, but intellectually this has been difficult to come to terms with.  Last year I made some steps in the right direction, this year I’m going to double down on achieving it.  This means doing the hard work on my body and mind to make them strong and resilient, eating right, yoga being grateful and meditating, but it also means being kind to myself and spending time relaxing, learning and in flow.  Hopefully if I do this ‘first job’ right, I will do better at my second job too.
  2. Live a more balanced day, I’m very pleased with the morning routine that I’ve developed.  I get in a lot of movement, stretching, relaxation, socialising and reading, but this balance is elusive in the afternoon and evening.  I typically spend 4-5 solid hours working and then I’m so exhausted that I hardly move for the rest of the day.  I know this is bad for me, I know that when I’m on holiday and move throughout the day that I’m much better.  This year I’m going to work on balancing my whole day.  The idea is to make sure that morning, afternoon and evening all have a balance between work, relaxation, reading, socialising and movement.  In practice this means getting out of the house late afternoon and mid evening, to go to the health club, or to a cafe, or just for an evening walk or cycle.
  3. Swim in the morning, for me there’s no better way to start the day than a swim, Jacuzzi and sauna, that is unless I’m tired, stiff and sore.  It’s a vicious circle though, the less I swim, the more it hurts when I swim.  I need to get back into a virtuous cycle of improvement and that means morning swims.  It also means some physiotherapy on my shoulders as I can’t swim more than a length of crawl at the moment.
  4. Get my 25 year old body back and keep it, given all of the focus on health in my life it really is ridiculous that I’m over weight and under-muscled.  Well perhaps not, every time I have a flare I put on 2-3 lbs which takes me months to loose, if I have more than a flare every 2 months I never loose the weight and it gradually builds up.  Muscle wise it’s been hard to motivate myself to workout regularly enough.  I have a cunning plan now though, high intensity exercise, done infrequently, complemented by intermittent fasting.  I’ve booked my induction session at the gym …
  5. Spend more time with family and friends, take opportunities to be more social, left to my natural inclination I would avoid social contact and then be depressed by the lack of it.  When I push myself to do more of it I invariably end up being pleased I made the effort.  This year I’m going to make more of an effort.
  6. Learn to travel light and cheap, I like to travel, but I travel with a lot of stuff and I travel expensive (cars, hotels etc.).  This year I’d like to learn how to travel light and travel cheap.  I don’t have the details worked out yet, but I have the direction and some ideas.  As I wind down to a lower standard of living in retirement this is going to be important, it’s also important from a sustainability perspective.  Much of the problem is going outside my comfort zone and doing something new, which I have no problem doing in my professional life, but struggle with in my personal life.
  7. Start to draw again, as I move in the direction of a simple life I’ve come to appreciate many simple pleasures and there can be none simpler than drawing.  I used to draw quite a bit in my twenties, but the arrival of children put an end to it.  I have the time now to start again, all I need is the determination to push through the early learning phase when everything I draw is embarrassing.  Debbie bought me a fantastic work book, designed to restore that confidence, for Christmas.

The picture at the top of this post is another St Annes’ winter sunrise, taken just over a year ago on my birthday, from Granny’s Bay at Fairhaven.  I’ve written this post in the Beach Terrace Cafe after a 19 hour marathon stay in Blackpool Victoria hospital with Jennie, I got home at 5am, Debbie is there now.  I’m very thankful to have the beach and cafes to restore me!

Steve Richards

I'm retired from work as a business and IT strategist. now I'm travelling, hiking, cycling, swimming, reading, gardening, learning, writing this blog and generally enjoying good times with friends and family

1 Response

  1. January 1, 2016

    […] searching makes it worth the effort.  Last year was a time of significant change for me and my resolutions reflected that, this year is more about fine tuning, working on things that have annoyed me for […]

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