2010 Resolution Round Up – How Did I Do?

So, it’s about that time of year – done with work until 2011 (yaaaaaaaaaaay – don’t get me wrong, I love my job but it is time for a long winters nap), and time to reflect upon how 2o10 went.

In a word – 2010 was AWESOME.  It’s going out with MUCH more promise than it had coming in.  January 1st, I was having some discontentment issues at work, financial uncertainty, and just general uneasiness with things.  Late December, I’m feeling very content with just about all areas of life.  It’s nice that things are good again!  I missed having nice things.

Besides just a general feeling of “pleased” with the year, here is the specifics… here were my resolutions for 2010 I posted last December:

1.  This is the most important and different one for me – for one year, I am going to not attempt to lose weight.  As long as I maintain under 155, I’m going to put any pressure on myself to take off weight.  I’m going to focus on my running, and continuing to eat healthy.

How did I do?  Well, I never actually got into my goal range this year.  I’m a little less buggered about it than I expected.  I’m currently working on it since I’m about 10 lbs heavier than this, but I’ve also come to accept that I’m never going to be perfect.  Without some surgery, I’m not going to be able to walk around in a bikini with rock hard abs.  I’m never going to look in the mirror and think “perfect”, but I can (and often do) certainly look in the mirror and think “hawt”.  I do need to, and will, take off the extra 10 lbs to get right about to the tippy top of my “healthy” range and I think that’s about as low as I need to go.  Unless it interferes with my progress in athletic pursuits, I think I’m ready to let go chasing the ideal of 125.

Also, on the subject of perfect – I DO have what I would have considered a perfect body 5 years ago.  At that time, I would have probably been happy with not being out of breath walking across the parking lot, and freakin’ jazzed at not having to shop in the plus size section.  These are things that I take very much for granted now.

So yeah – not much physical progress, but lotsa mental progress.  I’ll take it.

2.  Running – I want to do a half marathon in under 2 hours, and I want to run a full marathon (no pace goal, just run the whole thing… well, who am I kidding, I’ll have a pace goal by the time I finish training, but anyhoo…) this year.  After that, decide what’s next.  Martial arts?  Triathlons?  More marathons?  Ultras?  Also, I want to make sure to not forget stretching and yoga.  That’s when I start getting injured like I am now with hurty butt.

Well, unless you’re new to the blog I’ve talked about these extensively.  The closest I got to under 2 hours was 2:08:08, but I’m working on it (and very proud of the huge PR there).  I decided to drop the marathon goal and instead train for an olympic triathlon, which I can proudly say I completed on October 3rd.  For right now, rest is next, but I definitely have some goals for next year which I’ve hinted about and will talk about soon (part 2 of this post is forward looking!)

I definitely did NOT do well with stretching this year, but I’ve gotten better in the last month – plus having yoga CLASSES is really nice.  I stayed relatively injury free this year (a few weeks of heel pain caused by sucky running shoes, one more instance of “hurty butt”, and that’s about it if I remember correctly… nothing major).  Also, having access to a pool/sauna/jacuzzi seems to have kept me loose and the injuries at bay.

3.  I will dedicate 6 hours per week to writing, revising, reading other books, or outlining.  I want to finish what I started for NaNoWriMo, and then move on to another one.  It would be peachy keen if I could do some necklaces, I would love to start songwriting, but I think this is my year of writing.

Nope.  Fail.  I read a few books but I didn’t write one word that wasn’t blogging or work related.  While I would like to read more, I’m ok taking a pass on the writing this year.  This was essentially trying to explore the possibility of pursuing this as a career.  While I love to write, and someday would like to publish a book, it’s no longer a huge need to fill a void of making my bacon with creative expression – it’s back to the bucket list.

4.  I’m not sure exactly what I want to say here, but I want to figure out what’s next career-wise.  I have spent the last few years keeping my head down and trying to stay out of the way so I can support the creatives, get my check, and go on my way.  That is SO not me.  I can’t continue to do that forever.  I might not have the ability to get what I want just yet, but I want to have a direction by the end of the year.

Done and done.  Sometimes you just have to hold out long enough and things just resolve themselves.  I’ve got a good few more years before I don’t feel sufficiently challenged in this position at work – I’ve got my hands happily full now.

5.  Some one liners: Travel outside the country (nope).  Be more spontaneous (I had to ask Zliten on this one – he said I was after some consideration so I will call it a yep!).  Continue to whittle down my smoking (yep – only when I drink now and not even all the time anymore).  Try something new with my hair (yep – hello shoulder length and layers – loving it).  Continue to draw things out of the magic hat (nope, but we definitely had our share of adventures).  Host some game nights at the house (nope).   Attempt to keep a cleaner house so it’s not embarrassing when someone comes over unannounced (ha! ha! um…no).  Do more industry events and get over my boredom with networking for networking sake (did some, but could do better – much easier in my new position now though, and much less needed, heh).  Play more games (err, besides my own game, nope).  Continue to live a life where I can have at least ONE memorable thing I do each month (2009 has many more than 1 per month, but that’s my absolute minimum requirement) (absolutely).

What’s on tap for 2011?  Stay tuned next week and I’ll discuss!  Question of the moment: do you do resolutions?  If so, what’s your one biggest success in 2010, and what do you still need to work on?