Goals in 2014

My first post of 2014 is coming much later than I had hoped. With work and vacation and planning events with family I haven’t had much time to just sit down long enough put my thoughts on paper. I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and a happy New Year as well. We spent both with family, which is always fun and interesting, I just wish our break was longer, oh the good 'ol days of college and having a month off to do whatever came to mind.. I started thinking recently about goals and New Year’s resolutions and this year I decided to make one. I haven’t made a New Year’s resolution since I was probably in high school; I began to think they were pointless, just hopeful wishes that people wouldn't have the will power or drive to follow through with so what was the point? Obviously since then I have grown in my understanding of people and the power of goal setting but I still have not had the desire to make a New Year’s resolution in recent years. I am not sure what sparked this decision to go ahead and make a resolution but I feel that it comes from a deep desire within me that I am not yet fully aware of enough to put into words or even to recognize it fully myself. I do, however, want to find out where this takes me so I have decided to follow that spark and see where it leads me. That being said, my New Year’s resolution is to do more. Sounds broad huh? Yeah, that’s because it is. I want to be more in life than just this being that lives life consuming without giving anything in return so I have decided that if I want to be more I need to do more. I want to grow in knowledge and skill so I have decided to set goals for a certain amount of books I would like to read each year. I want to be more independent and skillful so I will be honing my sewing skills so that I can mend my own tears and create things that right now I can only see in my head. I want to be more social. I want to grow my network of trusted people and have reliable sources that I can count on and who can count on me and to do that I will need to get out more and, you guessed it, do more. I love my family and friends so I want to involve myself in more activities with them. That may be the easiest task to accomplish, our house is usually the hub for family activity; however, I want to do more outside activities like going to school plays for my nieces and nephews, going to dinner with our siblings and parents, having game nights with friends. I just want to be more involved in the lives of the people that I cherish most and not just be someone that is in their life and that’s it. Finally, I want to give more. I love volunteering and I think I have multiple skill sets that have served me well in my volunteering opportunities; however, I have sort of fallen out of the volunteering game in recent months and would like to get back in the groove. In addition to rejoining the volunteering game, I want to also grow in my volunteering. I want to use as many of my skills as possible to give back, as well as picking up a few that may serve me well in the years to come. It is not always about giving money or things, sometimes it is just about giving your time and right now that is the most valuable thing I have and would like to spend it in a way that not only makes me a better person but makes a positive impact to my community. There are many more goals I have listed for myself and my growth but those I plan to accomplish over a longer period of time so perhaps I will save them for another post. I haven’t quite figured out how I will accomplish all of my goals for the year, they are pretty ambitious objectives but I plan to take it one day at a time. The best thing I can do for my self is to not make any excuses. Excuses can be the downfall of any good-hearted person. I hope to make the best of my time and to help anyone I can stay on track with their goals for the year. What’s your New Year’s resolution?

xoxo

Cass

Random fact for the day:  In Ancient Athens ostracism was a procedure under the Athenian democracy in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years.