New Year Resolutions

New Year's Day is a few weeks over but it's never too late to make one's resolutions, yes?

I would use to make overly-ambitious resolutions such as, learning 4 new dance genres for the year or eating healthily. Needless to say, they never came to pass. In my mind, to learn and master a new dance genre takes A LOT of time, practice and money to go for dance classes, a commitment which I couldn't fully afford. As for eating healthily, my expectation was having fruits and vegetables in my diet everyday and I don't fervently note what I eat for every meal.

I guess the approach should be to set realistic and clearly defined expectations for our resolutions. By realistic I mean for example, learning 1 new dance genre for the year. Definitely far more possible than learning 4. To clearly define would be to tell myself, I will have fruits at least 3 times a week and a salad at least once a week, instead of leaving definition "eating healthily" open-ended. By doing so, I would be able to gauge how I was doing, and setting a realistic goal is motivating as you know you have a good chance of achieving it.

So what are my resolutions for 2013? Like I've said, I want them to be rational. I've divided them into 'major' and 'minor' goals.

Major goals

1) Get my driving license. However long the process may be, it's undeniably a very useful skill to have. The cost of driving lessons have increased significantly since I last failed my first test in 2011. I have to get that license ASAP before they become any more expensive.

2) Join the O School Recital. I've always wanted to do this, but back in school, it would always clash with my exams. When it was finally scheduled on a non-exam period, I had started working and thought I couldn't commit the time and effort. Nevertheless, I want to have this experience at least once.

Minor goals

1) Read more, 2 books a month. This was inspired by Thought Catalog's 6 New Year's Resolutions That Are Worth Keeping. I do agree that reading is brain food.

2) Gym at least once every 2 weeks. I do need to condition my body more to dance better.

So this is how I made my resolutions - whether I meet them or not will be a clear 'yes' or 'no'.

I also want to find myself and find my dance self. I'm not making these two official because I still don't know how to define how to get there. It's somewhat like discovering what you love to do or what you're really good at, and developing it, especially as a career (because would we want to spend the rest of our working lives doing something that we're not passionate about?). It's something intangible and deep, but I think many people my age want or need to do this. Dance-wise, let's just say I'm experiencing Diminishing Marginal Returns to dance, and I need a breakthrough in this area too.

What are your new year resolutions? :)