Every few years I actually make new year’s resolutions and then I more or less stick to them. A couple of years ago I bought a lovely, big notebook to keep track of them all (I made a TON of resolutions, or rather wanted to do a lot of things, that year) and actually enjoyed checking the items off the list. It included fun things like “Go to the beach – 2x” and more resolution type things like “save $100 each month”. In the latter case I then made 12 check boxes to tick off when I completed a goal.

I pulled it off the shelf the other day and amusingly enough I had it subtitled “Sandra’s semi-neurotic quantification of New Year’s resolutions – a year-long project” Kind of a fitting name but hey. It was a really awesome project with lots of inspirational quotes and graphics from magazines:

Last month I finished reading Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project and she had come up with a similar fun chart to track her goals. I thought about how much fun I had making my New Year’s Resolutions Book and checking off accomplishments. OK it also sucked to have a constant nagging reminder that I STILL hadn’t run a 5k and a few other things but overall it reminded me to be conscious about taking time to do things that I wanted to do for myself to live an active, healthy, and fulfilling life.

This year my resolutions were the exact opposite of this rather specific goal setting (hello MBA) and I believe they were to travel more for fun and to make home-made Christmas gifts. Pinterest sure helped with the latter and I’ll have to dedicate a post to that after the holidays when my friends unwrapped theirs. I also traveled a lot more for fun or made work trips more fun so I call this year a 100% success year in terms of (granted, very easy) resolutions. Pat on the should, Me! (I’m sooo vain… I bet I think this song is about me…)

For next year I have a lot of ideas for several areas of my life so if the world doesn’t come to an end when the Mayan calendar becomes outdated I might just whip out my purple note-book again and fill it some more. I think it’d be fun.

What are your resolutions / plans for 2013?