Christmas is over for another year now, and life is fortunately beginning to get back to normal. However, few of us manage to escape one annual tradition that gets everyone going towards the end of December/beginning of January: New Year’s resolutions. These always seem like a sterling idea; vowing to give up smoking or drinking while half cut and with a fag in hand on NYE, and making other imaginative and ambitious promises for self-improvement for the year ahead.
With this in mind, I’ve been giving some thought to my New Year’s resolutions this week, and have a few simple suggestions for resolutions to consider, and for extra inspiration, check out The Everyday Goth’s ideas from 2014 too.
Do some exercise
I am the ultimate couch potato, and particularly in January and February, tend to hide out in front of my wood stove and go out as little as possible. The fact that it is dark and cold does little to motivate me out of my seasonal funk, but it is fair to say that going for a little walk or taking up some other form of simple exercise can improve your mood when the weather is shite and the nights are long, and I don’t mean simply walking to the pub. You won’t be the only Goth in the gym either; healthy Goth is now actually a thing.
This Goth blog, albeit it not having been updated recently, is also full of handy tips for Goths with an eye to their fitness.
Get up earlier
As part of my commitment to being a lazy effing slug, and partially due to the fact that I am self-employed and can set my own hours, I often find that winter plays havoc with my routine, and my getting up and going to bed times become ever more fluid, incorporating staying up later and getting up at midday. This is fine once in a while, but when you lose half the day to your duvet, you do start to feel like you’re always playing catch-up with yourself and never really getting ahead.
My resolution here is to get up no later than 10am every day, which is still more than late enough to make most civilised people frown at me in distaste, but will be a hell of an improvement on my current state!
Find a new hobby
This year, I have decided to take up archery, which is sure to end badly but nevertheless, I’m going to have a crack at it. I may have already burned my bridges with the local archery club when my answer to why I wanted to have a go was “because of the zombie apocalypse, PEW PEW PEW!” but fortunately, I have a mate who is going to hook me up, and hopefully keep me, and everyone else within range, relatively safe.
May the odds be ever in your favour.
Cut down on one bad thing
The ultimate fail of New Year’s resolutions is surely to vow to stop drinking, smoking and eating complete shit all in one go, and this plan is almost guaranteed to end in tears. But promising to cut down or stop just one thing that is bad for you is, or should be, manageable, so start small and build up once you’ve got used to the idea. I can’t decide if that’s going to be smoking or fatty foods for me yet, but I’m pretty close to bringing myself round to the idea. Sort of.
What are your new year’s resolutions? Tell me in the comments.
