2011 New Year's Resolutions

A few years ago, I was in a transitory period in my life, and I decided to post all of my resolutions on facebook. I made a long but fairly reasonable list of things to accomplish by the end of the year and the act of posting them in a place where I could easily keep track of them, made me feel more accountable to them. I also made sure that nothing on my list was implausible. Last time it worked fairly well and I accomplished most of the tangible goals. While nothing was impossible to do on it's own, compiled with the rest of the list it was a bit much to do all in one year.

Well, here are my new New Year's resolutions and here's to hoping I can get them all done. I left off one or two that may be common knowledge to my closer friends but that I really just can't share on here. 

• Pass the CFA Level II - Maybe if I had set this as a goal last year, I would have done it. We're working out a new study plan and I'm trying to figure out how to balance that with this blog. 
• Pass the lead climbing test - I think I'm getting to the point where I have the strength to do it. Maybe it's time to get back on that horse and try again.
• Speaking of climbing... climb an 11.b or maybe even an 11.c - This may venture out of "things that are possible" but the real goal here is to keep pushing myself to climb harder routes and get better at it.Well, we got the 11.b out of the way early so guess it's time to shoot for the 11.c?
• Climb Outdoors - (yes, I added this in the middle of the year, never too late to tack on more goals, right??) I don't know why this didn't make the original list but it's really pathetic that I haven't made it outdoors yet. 
• Don't put a relationship before yourself - I may not fully be ready for something serious yet but I'm sure I will be but I know how these things go and I don't want to compromise my plans at the moment. I have a lot to figure out and I can't shelve any of that for anyone else right now.
• Think before you speak -not gonna happen My friends are very good at calling me out when I contradict myself or change my mind on something. I really don't want to be full of BS but a lot of times I'm not even sure what I want or what I'm thinking. Maybe I need to figure that out before I start mapping out my future.
• Pay off my car loan - done! Pretty self explanatory.
• Build a little bit of a nest egg - It would be great to save up a little extra as a back up or to travel or maybe for a house or grad school. 
• Dress better - This may sound superficial and flies directly in the face of the item before it but I really want to"dress for the life I want, not the life I have."  When I see myself down the road in my career I picture myself wearing suits and nicer clothes so why not start taking steps to dress the way I see myself in 5 or 10 years? Plus, who doesn't feel a little more confident or successful when they clean up and put on something more sleek?
• Travel somewhere new - Wouldn't that make a fun blog post? This actually would be fairly easy - even though I've been to several places around Europe and Brazil, I've never been to New York, Boston, DC, Chicago, Canada, or Mexico. I had the pleasure of going to Amsterdam and Brussels for the first time during my last trip. I don't want to stop there though. I think I'm going to finally venture to some of the cities I haven't seen stateside as well.
• Be nicer - I kind of have a sarcastic, mean sense of humor. While I mean well, sometimes in the wrong situation my jokes can be a little hurtful. I need to work on saving my mean jokes for the right time and place.
• Keep in touch with my relatives more - the older I get, the more I appreciate my family and how amazing they all are so I really want to work on staying connected with all of them. 
• Keep up with my blog - This blog has really helped me at a time when the best thing for me was to get out of the house and experience new things. I had been really unhappy with a lot of things when I started writing this blog and I look at my life right now and it is so far from that. I may still be looking for change and wondering what comes next but I'm also pretty happy with my life. It's fun to think of the list of things I want to do and make an actual plan to do them instead of watching the list grow. I've also been learning to be more open minded about trying new things. There are a lot of experiences that on the surface may not have sounded that appealing, but that's the thing - you never know how much you're going to enjoy something until you've tried it.

So there is my list. It's a lot of stuff but it's all pretty reasonable. I will try to update throughout the year as I get things done. I think the hardest thing will be balancing studying with updating the blog, but I've already started mapping out new places I can go to where I can study as well (Blue Bottle Cafe,  you are at the top of my list).

Happy New Years Everyone! Wish me luck :) Hopefully you can take care of your resolution(s) too!