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Checking In With Yourself After The First Week Of The Year

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checking in after the first week of the new year - Pinterest graphic

Can you believe that we’ve already seen the first week of 2023 come and go? For many people, this is a hectic week. You’re getting back into your work routine after taking a break for the holidays. Most of the time, it is the same week your kids are headed back to school. The traffic is crazy. Life is crazy. Yet, we put these additional goals and resolutions on our plates. That’s why checking in with yourself is the best thing you can do to stay on track with your annual resolutions.

Why Checking In Is Important

There are a plethora of reasons why checking in with yourself is important, especially when it comes to goal-setting. Believe it or not, if you don’t check in on yourself, and your mental and physical health, you won’t reach your goals. More important than that, you can pinpoint why you set those goals and how the process makes you feel.

For instance, one of my goals is to lose weight this year, like many other people. In the past, I usually fasted, cut out large food groups entirely, and went about things in an unhealthy way. Of course, I started to try and do that again this year. After checking in with myself, I knew it would not be healthy to start the year out with an extended fast. Instead, I’ve focused my time and energy on making and eating healthy meals at home this week while cutting caffeine and sugar.

Checking in allows you to step back and assess everything from how you feel to how achieving your goals will make you feel. Most of all, it ensures that you are okay every step of the way.

How To Check In With Yourself

If you’re not sure how to check in with yourself, don’t worry! There are plenty of things you can do to check in and see how you’re feeling. Here are a few things I do to unplug and check on myself.

  1. Journal. Writing things down is a great way to get them out of your head. For me, it is a good idea to write down the things that are on my mind or the things that are worrying me/weighing me down. It allows me to get those thoughts out of my head and onto paper.
  2. Practice self-care. My favorite form of self-care is a nice hot bath with a good book. This allows time to unplug and check in with my body. Plus, reading is a soothing activity for me.
  3. Assess whether or not I’m overwhelmed. I’m ambitious and I like to set a lot of goals for myself. However, this can be more detrimental than it is good. Sometimes I need to take a step back and assess whether I’m overwhelmed or not and decide right then and there what can be taken off my plate.
  4. Take it one day at a time. This is the best advice anyone can give you! Some days are going to be great, you’ll make fantastic progress and work on all the good habits you’re trying to build. Other days, it’ll be great to just get out of bed and feed yourself. That’s okay too.
  5. Do something that brings me joy. Whether it is hanging out with a friend, curling up with a good book, or just a mug of hot tea, find something that brings you joy and do that thing. It is a great way to check in and give yourself a good mental health boost.

How often are you checking in with yourself and making sure you’re okay?

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Happy Holidays! Here Are Our New Year’s Resolutions

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New Year's Resolutions

Christmas was extremely successful in our home this year. We managed to keep everything low-cost where presents were concerned. However, many of them haven’t gotten in the mail for our relatives out of town (whoops). Christmas Day we went to the dog park with our baby (Enzo) and made homemade lo mein instead of ordering takeout Chinese. We ended the holiday looking forward to creating a vision board for 2019 and setting some New Year’s resolutions.

Setting Family New Year’s Resolutions

My other half and I have a lot of goals for 2019. This year will be our first year creating a Vision Board together. It will include financial goals, of course, and personal goals for us both. On the personal side of things, we would both like to get married next year. I would also like to train for and run a 5K and lose the last 40 pounds I have to reach my weight goal.

Financially, we both have the same long-term goal: be debt-free. However, to hone in on what we need to do in 2019, we’ve made a list of our debts and plan to snowball it starting January 1. Here’s what we’ve discussed so far…

  1. Pay off “small” debts by March. The other half’s car will be paid off by March. We will also have our credit cards paid off by then and a small medical bill ($242). Having these things paid off in full will leave us room to pay off other debts, including new tax debt.
  2. Focus on tax debt while making minimum payments on other accounts. We owe a little over $9,000 and have established a payment plan with the IRS. With my other half out of work last year, we weren’t able to put taxes aside as we normally do. After we pay down the smaller accounts, we will use all of our extra cash to pay this off. Once it is paid we are also going to begin putting big chunks of cash aside for future tax bills.
  3. After tax debts are paid, we will be making extra payments on remaining accounts. Once the IRS is paid, we will start throwing extra cash at the remaining accounts. We will still have our Conn’s bill (about $2,000 remaining), student loan ($22K), car loan ($20K), and the tool bill ($10K).

Creating a Vision

New Year’s resolutions are overrated for the most part. Many people abandon them by the end of March. For us, creating a Vision Board is more important than resolving to change in the new year. Instead, we are focused on large goals we’d like to reach by the end of the year. Each of the steps above will be part of reaching that vision and creating a life we want to live.

What about you? What are your New Year’s resolutions? Do you create a Vision Board?

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