A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.

“Resolutions” is a bit of annoying word, isn’t it? I think that, for most people, it has negative connotations, because the only time it pops up is at New Year’s, when everyone is doing their resolutions… and then, like clockwork, people end up not keeping to their resolutions and when that realisation hits towards the end of the year, it makes them feel bad and ashamed. I know I have done that myself in the past.

I don’t want to be “trapped” by words, though. The purpose of this blog is to constantly do things to improve myself and make myself happy, but if I feel bad for not keeping to my resolutions, then it becomes counter-productive. So, for that purpose, I am not going to use the word “resolutions”, but rather, “self-agreements” (which a friend of mine came up with! ?)

“Resolution” is a strong word, often with negative connotations, associated with one tiny period of the year, which sort of binds it by time. This blog is about how I can improve every day, today, and how I can take any step, today, instead of waiting arbitrarily for the “best” moment to start. It’s a tool to also forgive myself for days when I am not “productive” – I do not want to end up beating myself up over this blog or my resolutions. We are only human after all and I don’t expect myself to be 100% productive every single day of the year.

So these are not “resolutions”, but rather “self-agreements”, which, as a made-up word, has no connotations and is way less strong and unforgiving than something like “pledges” or “commitments”. I will still take them seriously – I just wanted to avoid all the negative emotions associated with much stronger words.

They are divided by category to make it easier to read through them. Some of these self-agreements are habits that I hope to develop over time, while others may just be straight up goals that I hope to achieve. Let’s just roll with this!

Health & Lifestyle

Meditation: I want to meditate regularly and practice mindfulness more, as it has been shown to have lots of positive effects, including increasing happiness, lowering risk of depression and being able to cope with setbacks.

Minimalism: I want to declutter my life and my living spaces, physically. It’s gonna be hard, living with two other flatmates, but I’m gonna take small steps to get rid of as many “useless” possessions that I have, which at this point are really just taking up space.

Exercise: This has always been a hard one for me because I’ve hated gyms all my life. I cannot stand them. But, I do enjoy walks, often in the park, surrounded by nature. I want to exercise more for the health benefits, just need to find a way for it to not feel so daunting for myself.

Eating healthy: Pretty self-explanatory. I want to learn to cook more foods and eat more healthy meals. This is actually probably one of the hardest self-agreements because I get bored with cooking very quickly. Let’s hope I can change that, bit by bit. I also want to get into meal prep, as that also helps me save up money.

Passions & Hobbies

Writing (& Getting Published): I love writing. It’s a passion that I have cultivated and that has stayed with me ever since I was a child. Writing has been part of me for as long as I could write. My dream is to be a published author in the future and my dream career would be being an editor in a publishing house. Writing is so important to me, and yet I really don’t do as much of it as I want to. I want to write consistently, at least every week; if possible, I’d love to write a short story every day. I also want to get my short stories published in literary magazines, then get an agent in the future so that I can publish my children’s books. This is definitely important to me and one of the things that matter to me the most.

Reading (& Self-improvement): It probably comes at no surprise that I am a bookworm, given my love for writing. I read between 30 and 50 books per year, but mostly with this self-agreement, I want to keep on reading meaningful books, including those that help me learn, that are about self-improvement and that add to my life.

Photography: My other biggest hobby. I want to make meaningful photography, to make people feel something when they look at my photographs. This art will take time to master, but I am ready to dedicate years to it. I also should reflect on what statement I want to make as a photographer, which I can only figure out with time, as I discover more about who I am as a person and an artist.

Languages: I have never had trouble learning other languages, in fact, some of my teachers in middle school and high school said I was quite gifted at languages. I started learning English when I was about 6-7; I studied German, Latin and Ancient Greek for five years in high school (yes, I was good at those); and now I am tackling French and Norwegian, both which I have been studying for a year. I love languages and just want to learn to speak as many as possible. After I’m happy with my French and Norwegian, I might start studying Japanese again.

Projects

Youtube channel: My youtube channel is actually something that’s very important to me. I have spent a long time (pretty much a year+) thinking and debating over whether I should start a youtube channel or not, and I’ve also had to deal with the anxieties that came later with my decision to start a youtube channel, namely uploading my first video and showing it to people. But – so many people have shown support for this endeavour of mine! (Especially a friend with another youtube channel who wants to do collabs with me! ❤) I now feel more confident about keeping on going with this project. I don’t really have any grand plans for this channel, but my aim with it is to be consistent, to upload videos semi-regularly, to put myself out there by making videos on topics I am passionate about, and… to have fun with it!

Blog: My blog is technically another project that I have started that I also care about. I feel like blogs have changed quite a bit since I had one back in the day, which partially prevented me from starting up a blog again after I stopped in 2015. However, I’ve come to realise that not every blog has to be the same; and, as long as I keep it true to what I want it to be, I will be happy with it. My blog is very much here to help me first and foremost, to keep me inspired and motivated, while making friends along the way.

Career

Degree: My history with degrees and university courses is convoluted, but it can be summed up like this: I tried to get two degrees (not at the same time, but consecutively), but left both in second year because I did not enjoy either. I might tell the story in more detail in a blog post, but that’s the gist of it. However, despite my history, I have decided to go back to university to obtain a degree, as it’s something that’s required more and more for good-paying jobs. After feeling lost and then doing a lot of research, I have decided to go for a degree in Digital Media at a university where the programme sounds like it’s completely up my street. Hopefully third time is the charm. I definitely want to obtain this degree and will dedicate a lot of energy towards getting it.

Other

Travelling: I love travelling. I love exploring new countries and immersing myself in another culture. I would definitely like to do more travelling, although it’s not something I expect I will be able to do in the next four years as I work on my degree and will still be living on a tight student budget. This is here to remind myself that one day I should definitely take a trip and get back into it.

Budgeting: Although it is at the very bottom of my list of self-agreements, budgeting is actually quite important to me. For the past three years (minus an 8-month period in-between where I was actually okay financially), I have been in a really hard economic situation. I am still not out of it, although I certainly hope I will be someday, after I obtain my degree. I don’t have much money to budget every month and I receive it sporadically, which always screws up any budget I try to make, but regardless, I want to try and keep a budget anyway, to try to give myself some peace of mind over money matters. It is a big stress in my life at the moment, but hopefully budgeting will help make it less stressful.