Resolutions and Goals and Habits

It’s an older blog, sir, but it checks out…

2016 in review: I…

• Bought a big bike
• (Bike) commuted pretty consistently the 25 miles to work for the first 6 months of the year
• Ate no less than 3 species of mushrooms I found in the woods
• Didn’t die from said mushrooms
• Also didn’t hallucinate from said mushrooms
• Raced my first enduro
• Met some really rad people
• Taught a lot of mountain bike classes
• Moved closer to the mountains
• Brewed a bunch of beer
• Drank a bunch of beer
• Visited friends in St Louis a few times
• Tried downhill mountain biking, survived
• Went to canadia
• Watched my little brother get married
• Shifted jobs (within my job) to get a little closer to stuff I’m interested in

 

The new year always has people (me included) thinking about resolutions. Changes. Things to do better. Last year, I did this to an extreme. The result? A lot of missed goals.

Goals: each blank square would be filled in. Reality: Not so much. Still fairly happy with my year, but no crazy impressive numbers.

 

As it turns out, it’s really easy to set goals when you’re curled up on the couch… it’s a little trickier to go out there and do it.

I’ve always been more of a fan of goals than of resolutions. It goes back to a mentality… what do I want to do, vs what do I not want to do. I’d rather focus on the good things (climb the equivalent of 20x everest! Run the year!) than the bad things (lose weight/eat healthy/typical resolution crap). But, as it turns out, goals are hard too.

Such is life. Even if the numbers don’t work out, it’s pretty sweet to be able to run around in my back yard… that happens to be a mountain!

The result of all my pondering is that this year, I’m trying to focus on habits. Last year was a bit different than the years previous – I had a real job, in a city where I (still) don’t really know many people. I still hesitate to jump in to racing, spending lots of $$ to ride trails (or run roads) that I can access whenever I want. This warrants much more of a discussion than the space here but, suffice it to say, without racing (and with the purchase of a big squishy bike) I didn’t push myself nearly as hard. Actually, it very likely has much more to do with the lack of community than it does with the lack of racing. But I digress.

I take a lot of random awkward photos of myself accidentally. This is one of them.

Getting back to the end result… goals. The thing is, goals are great! But in order to achieve goals, you have to build habits. And sometimes just setting the goal is not enough to build the habit. In no particular order are the habits I’m going to build this year (it’s totally going to happen! hopefully):

• Floss
• Ride bikes
• Spend 30 min outside every day
• Walk more
• Be “happy” (it’s a habit, I’d like to make it more consistent)
• Forgive
• Stretch

After all, the new year isn’t some magical time when you wish things on a big shiny ball and when it hits the ground they magically come true. It’s just another Sunday. But this Sunday (or Monday, Tuesday, etc), you can choose to do things a little better than yesterday. And keep doing those things until you can’t imagine life any other way. At least… that’s the goal?

Taking stretching lessons from the master.