New Years Resolutions: January Status Update

With the month of January behind us, I thought it would be helpful for me to check in with myself on how I have been doing in keeping up with my New Year's Resolutions.

1. My first resolution was to work on my thesis. I gave myself the goal of working on it at least an hour a week, which is really the bare minimum, and to put my research first. So far, I think I've done okay on this. I'm not sure if I have really worked on it exactly an hour a week, but I have made headway. I have a rough draft of my results done and I have been doing some research on the best way to do some follow-up analyses.  I want to have these analyses done by the end of February and the results incorporated into my write up.

2. Goal number two was to make more time for my VIPs. I think this has been going okay too. We had my parents over for dinner once in January (one of my goals) and I'm sure I did stuff with my mother on a few other occasions. Yesterday, I also spoke with my aunt and my grandfather - so it just squeaked in for January. Hmm what else? I reconnected with an old friend this month and Neill and I had a special date night. As the semester starts to get busier, I need to stay on top of this and make sure I don't let schoolwork take precedence over spending time with friends and family.

I was actually just reading some research yesterday that suggests that people's general life satisfaction is decreased by feelings of work conflicting with family, while the impact of feelings of family conflicting with work on life satisfaction was quite small. This suggests that while feeling conflicted is in general not too good for you, letting work keep you from your social life is likely to negatively impact general life satisfaction whereas letting your social life keep you from work responsibilities won't have much of an impact. This is good evidence that putting my VIPs first is the right choice - putting work a head of family might lead me to be less satisfied with life! 

3. My third goal was all about being financially secure. I'm going to go ahead and give myself a big pat on the back because I think Neill and I have been doing great on this one. I'm not carrying a balance on any of my credit cards (yay) and we got our emergency fund organized. Also, I started reading The Two Income Trap in an effort to learn more about finances and so far the book has made me think a lot about the downfall of creating a lifestyle that relies on two-incomes. My goal for February is to get my taxes done and make sure to save save save.

4. Another goal I had this year was to focus on being healthy. Before the holidays, I really let my eating habits fall. I was relying on frozen pizza and pre-made chicken nuggets for dinner more than I'd like to admit. Since the new year, I have definitely made an effort to eat healthier. I've upped my vegetable intake and both of us have rededicated ourselves to cooking dinner (not just defrosting it). This makes it easier for me to bring healthy food for lunch. Also, Neill's mom just gave us a bread maker! Now, we can easily make whole wheat bread and avoid all of the chemicals that go into most prepackaged bread. I've also been trying to recommit myself to the gym, but I will admit that this is still a work in progress. Also, I'm still working on only eating when I'm actually hungry/stopping when I'm full and battling an intense love for dessert. (Mmmm dessert) I'd be totaly psyched if I could make some headway on lowering my sugar cravings in February.

So there you have it - my end of month report card and some goals for this month. How are your new years resolutions going?