My New Year's Resolutions for 2018

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It's January 2nd, 2018 and I've been in the New Years spirit the last few days. New Year's Eve is by far my favorite holiday. I just love taking stock of our lives over the last year and looking forward to what lies ahead in the next. I love the idea of new beginnings.

I thought I would take a bit of time to share my New Year's resolutions and what I've done to change things in the last few days.

My Resolutions

Below are my 2018 resolutions:

• More focused time with the kids
• No R, MA, or M rated media
• Get weight to 180 lbs and do more exercise
• Save $600
• No swearing
• No fighting or raising my voice with family

More Focused Time

As my kids get older I find that they are in need of more and more focused time. I want to spend that time with them. I think that I can do this by removing some of the more useless activities and stopping what I am doing to spend time with them when they need it.

I would have never thought that I would find it hard to spend time with my kids but I do. My kids are growing up fast enough as it is. If I don't take this time to spend with them, I'll regret it later.

Media Consumption

I have had this goal in the past but I am going to really try to stick to it. I think that I shouldn't have a need or desire to lean towards "harder" media and should be able to find plenty to watch in the ratings PG-13 (movies), TV-14 (television), and T (video games) and below.

After a year of sticking to the above I'm sure I'll find that I have consumed a more healthy media diet.

Weight

I've been working on losing weight in earnest for about the last year and a half and I'm proud to say that I am within about 10 lbs of my goal weight of 180 lbs. 

I've been losing weight by having a low-calorie diet and striving to exercise (trying to hit 10K steps daily).

Once I hit around 185 or so thought the weight loss plateaued and I've been hovering between 186-192 lbs or so for about 6 months. This year I hope to punch through to 180 lbs and perhaps even go lower to 175 lbs.

Save Money

This year I want to have $600 or more saved in the bank by 2019. This works out to $50 a month or around $25 a pay check.

I hope saving money is a habit that will actually stick this year.

Swearing

When your child says their first swear word you know it's time to stop cussing. #embarrassed

Inside Voices

There are times when our voices get a bit too raised in the family and this is something I want to have happen less.

Having a more peaceful and harmonious household is something that I think is definitely worth working towards.

Early Results

Even though the year is only 2 days old I've already done two other things that seem to be paying off.
For one I've removed all the news apps on my smartphone home screen. I really want to open up some of my time that's been absorbed with reading news and leave room for other projects.

I've started doing a daily vlog on my YouTube channel. I'm still in the early days (see what I did there) but I'm improving all the time. I think it would be cool to have 365 days of daily videos. (We'll see if I can keep it up.)

I'm also hoping to write more here on this blog. In the past I've used this blog more as a dumping ground for articles and thoughts that didn't fit anywhere else but I hope going forward to use it more as a personal blog.

Conclusion

I think that the above resolutions will be really good for guiding me to have a better year and I've been encouraged by the results so far (even though it's only been two days).

Here's to a wonderful 2018!