“Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well lived.” 
― Eleanor Roosevelt

If you’ve been around this corner of the internet for a minute, you’ll know that I don’t really get into resolutions so much as I do yearly themes. I’ve found this to be a much more useful way to frame a year and the things I want to achieve in it.

A lot of good has come out of my Year of Health and I think my next focus needs to be on making some of the big changes I’ve made stick. This has been a good year after a few harder years, ones of hustle and grind. I’m starting to feel as if that hustle is paying off more, and that the grind is not taking the toll on my mind and body that it once did.

Looking ahead, I’d like to turn my attention to maintaining positive equilibrium and trajectory. 2019 is going to be the Year of Discipline. What is this going to look like you ask?

Fewer Lazy Days
I’ve been pretty honest about the fact that being married to an introvert has made me develop some homebody tendencies. And I’m not mad about it, I take great pleasure in down time and scheduling time by myself or with Jeff. However, looking back, I see that I have allowed myself to default to lazy far too often in the past year. Whether that means staying in bed too long in the mornings, goofing off on the internet too late at night, or just generally lazing about–those are hours and days I won’t get back. Now, I’m not throwing in the towel on relaxing, but I do want to be more thoughtful and intentional about how I use my leisure time, so I’m going to try and schedule at least one small activity a week to get out of the house more and take advantage of the city. Especially during the summer!

Financial Discipline
I made big progress this past year in making healthier money habits, next year is about maintaining them and holding myself to a policy of radical honesty. I will continue to document my makeup spending freeze and report truthfully on my purchases. I think I will resurrect my item based goal and see if I can hold myself to a goal of only buying 19 items in 2019–and I’ll hold myself publicly accountable on this as well.

Staying Healthy
Let’s be clear: I still hate exercising. I will probably hate it until the day I die. But it’s good for me, makes me feel better about life overall, and keeps my body and brain in a better state–who every could have guessed it! I’m most able to stick with exercise routines when I do the work of building them into my other routines and making it difficult to deviate from them, so that’s what I’m going to try to do more of in 2019.

Emotional Discipline
One of the things I still don’t feel I have enough of a handle on is how effected I am by other people’s moods, circumstances that I cannot control, or simple bad days. Rather than swinging from highs to lows so easily, I want to work on being more stoic and resilient and less susceptible to emotional influence. I’m not entirely sure how to best achieve this, but I think it will involve being more considered in the media I consume, more measured in my own speech and actions, and generally attempting to be more thoughtful and slow to react. Good luck to me…

Dress for the Job I’ve Got
I’ve gotten my career to a place that I’m proud of and at a more senior level and now I want to be sure I look the part. As my trivial and superficial goal, I’m committing to more discipline in my in my morning routine. I want to get up earlier and spend more time putting together more and better prepared outfits, using my accessories and jewelry more often and effectively, and to upping my grooming game. Instead of whipping my hair into ponytails and buns when I’m at a loss–this will be the year that I finally tame my damn mane!

Let me know if you’ve picked any goals or themes for 2019 in the comments!