Saturday, January 4, 2014

Reflections on 2013 and Looking Into 2014


Without a doubt, 2013 has been an incredible year for me. 

It was a transformative year of personal reflection, growth, and discovery.    Just to name a few things, I traveled abroad, explored a new culture, discovered a sense of belonging, set up new fitness goals and stuck with them, took on graduate school, and had an amazing internship experience.  None of these were without their challenges, but it is with these challenges that I have grown as a person and become a step closer to the person I want to be.  
 
While it seems like I disappeared off the earth to probably a lot of people (heck, it seems like I was more anti-social this year than ever before), I took time this year to focus on myself – to accomplish goals I had set for myself, to find and do what made ME happy, and not let other people affect what I believed was the right thing to do.  I could not have asked for a better year in making changes in my own life and being one step closer on a never-ending journey to discovering what makes me me.  

Here's a look at what I'm most proud of this year:


  1. Finding a place and time where I was completely happy
  2.  Experiencing new cultures and being spontaneous and living life to the fullest
  3. Being accepted to my university’s graduate program and doing well in some of the most challenging courses I've ever taken
  4. Eating clean 70-80% of the time and improving my cooking
  5. Fitnessfitnessfitness.  Remaining completely dedicated; starting heavy-lifting even though I'm still learning, sticking to a good schedule  (and seeing its results!)
  6. Getting an internship I’ve always wanted
  7. Starting a blog!  A failed resolution from 2012...
  8. Improving my time management (note: it takes some extreme organization to manage being a full-time student with graduate and undergraduate courses, having an internship, a part-time job, going to the gym 6 times a week, AND still getting sleep).

And here are my top moments in picture form - scattered in here are some of my happiest and most photo worthy moments with a heavy focus on my travel around Europe!

Now here's what I hope to do for 2014, with lots of room for interpretation:

  1. Keep improving my fitness even more (specifically, my deadlifts, pull-ups, planks, and running)
  2. Run some type of race – whether it is a 10k or even a 5k! I’m not sure I could manage a half marathon..yet.
  3. Continue sticking with my clean eating, but this time with less stress eating - finals week I'm looking at you.
  4. Travel to Europe again and travel on my own.
  5. Take more risks without a fear of rejection - like applying for a totally out there internship or job without being held back by the fact that I feel under qualified.

I prefer not to call these "resolutions" because that decreases the chance of me actually doing them!  Stick around this year to see my goals accomplished? :)

Happy (late) New Years to everyone!

No comments:

Post a Comment