New year resolutions – 2018

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Making new year resolutions has now become a habit, which I want to keep on cultivating because it helps me move in the right direction throughout the year. I tend to go back each month to this resolution list and see my progress. It is an interesting and forward-moving process.

2017 is over and a new year (2018) is here. For this year’s new year resolutions list, I’m putting in a few fresh resolutions and keeping a few from the last year. Why carry on with the old ones you say? It is because now I’ve started to know myself better than before and what keeps me happy and content.

For some people, new year resolutions are some things from which they want to break out, like a bad habit. For some, it is something new which they want to learn or do. For me it has all three, break out of something which I don’t actually like, learn something new and do something which I’m carrying forward from last year’s resolution list and haven’t yet completed.

Here you go.

New year resolutions – 2018

First off report of my last year’s resolutions.

1. Create something every day. i.e. – Photograph, Writing, Audio, Video, Sketch, Painting anything creative.
   I know art can’t be quantified but still, I’ve the numbers and I love them too!
   I created 130 pieces of art, content or writing in the year of 2016. Unlike last year I didn’t create every day but I put some more quality in the posts than quantity and took the posting at a weekly level. I didn’t quite hit the target of creating everyday but rather hit the create every week target.Here is the detailed breakdown of main 4 platforms I publish on:
   Instagram – 64 insta posts. Check my page here.
   Blog posts – 52 Saturday-Pentacle Posts and 13 regular creative writing/podcast posts. Here is my 2017 posts archive.
   Podcasts – 8 Episodes of my podcasts show ‘Experiments of The Lifestyle Architecture Lab’. Season 1 is finished with 10 episodes. Listen to them here.
   YouTube – 4 Vlogs. You can watch them here.
2. Write 8 Blog posts every month and be consistent with it.
   I couldn’t break this resolution. Even though I wrote about 65 overall which includes podcast and vlogs as well, averaging about 5-6 posts a month. I want to do it better this new year.
3. Create YouTube Videos about travelling and other stories – 4 every month. 48 in the whole year.
   I just fell on my face with this highly ambitious resolution of 5 videos every month. I only created 4 quality videos which I could make public. I don’t know if I want to keep a target this new year. Because even though I like the process of creating videos. I just don’t have time for them in my current life. Maybe in future, I’ll go back to it and make more videos.
4. Read 1 book every 1 month.
   So I had to read 12 books this year, I couldn’t crush this goal. I read 2 books and 5 more unfinished. Looking forward to finishing them. Want to do better in this area in New year.
5. Become better in Personal Finance.
   I would say I didn’t do 100% here. But I neared to 75% almost. So still better.
6. Spend more quality time with Family.
   I spent a lot of quality time this year with my family. I’m really glad to crush this new year’s resolution from last year.
7. Go to 75 non-conventional eateries anywhere.
   Oh Boy! I rocked this resolution of last year by taking it too seriously. I ate at over 50 new places this year throughout the country. Could’nt quite crush the goal but still happy.
8. Run 1000 KM. [83.33KMs per month | 20.83 Per week]
   I couldn’t crush this goal this year. Post the Mumbai Marathon in January 2017, I did a long recovery on a month and then didn’t keep up with running almost for 2-3 months more, I was doing very few runs. So I ran 610.6 KMs this year. That’s 50.88 KMs every month and just 11.74 KMs every week. I fell short of this goal by 38.94%. But I’m happy that even after a bad first half of the year I was able to put in the work in the second half and almost 80% of my total year’s milage came from second half of the year. I’m looking forward to blow this goal in this new year 2018. If you break it down per week 1000 Kms mean just 20 Kms a week, that’s just 4 runs of 5 Kms each. That’s pretty much achievable. Let’s do it this year again.
9. Travel to 12 places where I’ve never been.
   I blew this goal off amazingly by travelling and experiencing 40+ places (cities, spots and experiences) where I had never been. I’m so proud to have crushed this resolution.
10. Taste 12 type of wines (Indian or Foreign)
    I didn’t crush this goal even nearly. I could just taste a couple out of 12 new types. But I’m planning to go to a vineyard and taste more than 12 wines. 2018 is gonna be a great year.

Additional Resolutions which I had last year – 

1. Breaking out of the OCD habit.
   I did manage to decrease it by a significant margin but still, I’m not there. Will keep on putting efforts to erase it completely in 2018.
2. Meditate every day.
   I didn’t crush this resolution 100% but I did it almost 75%. I meditated almost 13 mins average daily starting from April 2017. First quarter I didn’t do meditation as much. But starting from April 2017 I continued it throughout the year. I must admit it not only helped me calm down and clear my head, but also helped me get new ideas and get insights of the ongoing things in my life. I would recommend meditating 10 minutes every day to everyone. It changes your life for good.

Here are the top 10 new year resolutions for this year – 2018.

1. Learn to Swim – That’s no. 1 priority for this year. This is one life skill which I never thought is important until last year. It indeed is crucial for survival, so I’m going to learn it this year.
2. Write a book – I’m going to write my first book this year. It shall be under 75000 words. Hope to finish the draft by Sep 2018.
3. Run 1000 KM. [83.33KMs per month | 20.83 Per week]
4. Meditate every day.
5. Read 1 book every 1 month.
6. Blog every week – I do write Saturday-Pentacle every week, which is an aggregator mailer/newsletter. But I want to write something more apart from Saturday-Pentacle each week making it 52 (Saturday-Pentacle) +52 (New stuff) = 104 posts in 2018. That’s an ambitious goal I would say but I want to try it and make it happen.
7. Put more value in the Blog for readers – Put more systems/processes to my blog, by putting automation and more great content. So that the blog provides more value to the readers and is more engaging.
8. Try to do something new every month – It could be – trying out to learn a new skill Or do something which I’ve never done before like skateboarding Or meet a total stranger and get into a deep conversation about a movie like Interstellar. Try something new every month.
9. Travel to 12 places where I’ve never been. Average one place (City or State) a month.
10. Taste 12 type of wines (Indian or Foreign)

So I want to keep creating and persevere the momentum I found in the things that actually matter.

That’s about it for this year’s resolution list.

Until next time!

Thanks for reading.

– Himanshu

What are your new year resolutions this year? Please comment on this post or reply to me directly and let me know. I will love to hear from you.

A Quote I’m pondering on lately – 

“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”

— Rainer Maria Rilke