Happy New Years! Resolutions and Letting Go

First off, Happy New Years! I rang in the new year watching the fleur-di-lis drop in New Orleans, LA on ABC, at home with my pooches, listening to a gazillion fireworks go off around the city. (Earlier that night, I’d started watching The Walking Dead from episode 1 because I couldn’t remember what happened until Season 2, when I dropped off, and it’s a show I’ve been meaning to get back into.)

I’ve been giving a lot of consideration to what I’d like to accomplish this year. The thing I love most about New Years is that it’s a time to start over, with a fresh slate. As I said in my other blog post, 2016 was a year of transformation for my Lola Taylor pen name (new covers, new editing, new proofreading, new website, new formatting, etc.). Now that I’ve laid a solid foundation, I aim to make 2017 a year of growth.

NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS

I’ll cut straight to the chase and list mine.

PERSONAL

Lose my vanity weight (10 pounds) and get toned.
Eat healthier.
Exercise half an hour daily, minimum.
Make time to relax and recharge on my days off (to prevent burn-out).
Fix up our front and back yards (the back yard, particularly, is a disaster, thanks to two huge dogs).
Have date night with hubby once a week.
Visit my family in another state more often.
Keep a better budget.

CAREER

I have goals for my night job, too, but we’ll skip that here and talk about my writing career goals.

Write 1 million words by the end of the year (roughly 3k a day).
Be more active at marketing.
Learn more about running a small business.
Join RWA and start going to local chapter meetings.
Join more online writers forums and network and learn and grow.
Read, read, read. Challenge is to read at least 40 works of fiction by the end of the year.
Let go of self-inhibiting doubts and fears.
Get uncomfortable.

LETTING GO AND GETTING UNCOMFORTABLE

This is really what it all boils down to. Success, that is. I’m the type of person who would be perfectly content to sit in her comfort zone where it is safe. If you never venture into the unknown, you can’t fail, you can’t get hurt, you can’t humiliate or embarrass yourself.

But you’ll also stagnate. The key to growth is to let go of your doubts and fears and to embrace the unknown. In other words, you have to get uncomfortable if you’re going to change. And that’s what growth is. To grow means you don’t stay the same. You become something more, a stronger, better version of yourself.

When I reach the end of 2017 and I look back at today, I want to say, “Wow, I’ve come a long way.” Not “I wish I would have done more.” I’d rather try, try, try, knowing I’ve done my absolute best and being proud of my failures (and successes) than to live with the regret of knowing I failed myself by being too chickenshit to try. Because life is hard. It’s not getting any easier. To succeed at anything–whether that be learning to cook better, losing weight, quitting smoking, or growing a business–you’re going to have to try things you’ve never tried before.

Success means getting uncomfortable, of letting go of your “I can’t do its” and “It’s too hard” and any other number of excuses our fragile egos try to cook up. It means keeping the end goal in sight, believing in yourself, and acting in the face of fear. It means silencing doubt and having the courage to fail. Because if you’re not willing to fail, then you’ll never succeed.

I have a keychain I bought off Etsy that brings me great joy and serves as a daily reminder of why I keep at this. It has a Winston Churchill quote (love his pearls of wisdom): “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

I’m going to embrace that this year. I’m going to think and get outside the box, try things I’ve never tried before.

I’m going to get uncomfortable. And, hopefully, by the end of 2017, I’ll be damn proud of what I’ve accomplished.

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What are some of your New Year’s resolutions? Share in the comments or shout out at my Facebook page.