I love making New Year’s resolutions – I love goal setting and list-making in general. I love that feeling of a fresh start and the potential for the year to be anything you want it to be. 

Some people pick a word for the year – and I’ve never really been able to do that before, nothing ever felt right to me. But this year, the word that keeps coming to my mind is “thrive.” I’m really optimistic about 2020 – I think big things are going to happen for me. I have no proof of this, just a feeling.  

My year is starting off with a bang – three weekends in a row I will be out of town, which is almost unheard of for me. I turn 33 in two weeks, and I’m heading to Dallas to celebrate by getting my first tattoo (I’m super stoked for this by the way!) The following weekend, I’ll be heading to Orlando, Florida to celebrate my mom’s 60th birthday in DisneyWorld. Then the next weekend Dean and I will be going to a My Hero Academia convention (back in Dallas). Two days later I will be having surgery on my foot, and then I’ll start the long recovery process…

So, why have I said that my resolutions are unoriginal for this year? Well, thriving for me looks like doing the things I want to do for my health, but have struggled to do for the past few months/years:

• Exercising consistently
• Eating better/cooking at home more
• Praying/meditating daily

These goals are things I always take for granted that I will do every day, but I found it to be a real struggle to achieve these while I was in grad school. They’re your basic “good habits” that we all know we should be doing, but somehow find ourselves not doing them. Now that grad school is done, I feel like I’ve got more breathing room. I mostly just want to get back on track with being healthy physically, mentally, and spiritually. So yes, they are totally cliché and unoriginal, but those are my resolutions for 2020, summed up in a word: Thrive.  

Another part of thriving for me is just feeling good being me in the places where I am. I feel like I got to a point last year where I just felt tired of feeling bad – of feeling insecure and anxious all the time. Is that something you can just decide to not feel anymore? I’m going to pretend like it is and see how it works out for me… I’m tired of feeling imposter syndrome at my job – I’m tired of feeling ugly in pictures – I’m tired of worrying about being made fun of for the music or t.v. shows I like – I’m tired of pressuring myself to be a “better” mom – I’m tired of caring that not enough people “liked” my photos or read my blog – I’m tired of just barely surviving and making it to the end of each day – I just want to be me and feel good about it, to be good enough and not perfect. 

Perhaps my unoriginal resolutions have a bit more nuance than they initially do at first glance – but I’ll admit they are still pretty run-of-the-mill. However, I am pretty excited about my unoriginal resolutions and what they will mean for me in the upcoming year. Whether you’re the type of person who makes resolutions or not, whether your goals for 2020 are exciting, boring, or average, I hope this year brings you one step closer to thriving. 

Thanks for reading!