I’m a weird person in the sense that I do not hate New Year’s resolutions. Of course, I don’t think they will miraculously fix all my problems, but there is something very appealing in having a reset, a fresh start. That said, I do not always feel the right energy at the beginning of the new calendar year. Often, I have this vibe in September, when I am rested after the holidays and determined to be more efficient at work and generally better at living.

This time, however, it happened in February. I started a new job in the beginning of the month and have had to rearrange quite a few things due to that. Also, the new job in itself is a resolution of sorts. While interesting and rather high profile, I do not expect it to be as insanely intense as my previous post. This has been a conscious decision that I hope will allow me to do other things with my life than work 24/7. We’ll see, but so far the situation is encouraging.

Initially I thought that I only had one goal for this year (the first one on the list), which was fine for me. Too many resolutions by default mean a lack of focus. But then I realised I do in fact have other things that I either must get done or really want to do this year, so I am sharing them all here.

Sleeping more. You know the story by now: how I used to be extremely proud of my ability to function and perform well on very little sleep. For years, it was usual for me to be up until 2 or 3am to work and sometimes, I worked through the night. It has taken me a while to realise that I must stop this is self-sabotaging behaviour, unless there is an emergency. Frankly, I have no idea how much sleep I actually need, as I have never gotten enough. I did already try to prioritise sleep in 2022, but being in full crisis mode at work did not facilitate getting 7 hours of sleep per night (I did get to six most nights, but never to seven during the workweek). This year should be kinder in this regard and I am sure that sleeping more would help me to be in better shape, improve my mental health, work more efficiently and just feel better overall.

Translating a book. Of course the moment I found myself a slightly calmer job, I also took on another commitment. I am in the middle of translating a book from English to Estonian. I am a bit reluctant to talk about it, as I’m still afraid that I will mess it up completely and it’ll never see the light of day. It’s also quite a thing to accomplish in less than four months, as I am new to this and have a full-time job. Apart from that, I am enjoying it very much. Or perhaps more accurately, I’m enjoying it for several paragraphs at a time until I come across a sentence that makes me feel like I’m completely unfit for the job. In terms of time investment, translating constitutes the biggest chunk of my days that is not work at least until the end of April.

Doing a chin-up. I am generally very happy with my physical fitness level and don’t think I need to train more than I do. During good weeks, I have been doing three sessions of strength training and two of boxing. I walk a lot. I can deadlift 100 kilos. What I cannot do is a pull-up, as my upper body is considerably weaker than my lower body (which is often the case with women). I would really like to change that and will be working towards doing a chin-up first – as it’s easier – and then hopefully a pull-up at some point as well. Although this may take longer than I think, considering that I fucked up my knee by spending nine drunken hours walking and dancing in 10-cm heels.*

Figuring out my schedule. I am now spending most of my workweek in a different city, which means I need to think about when I train and when I eat. I find it’s much easier to be consistent with one’s training and healthy-ish with one’s eating when there’s a routine. I expect this will take a bit of time to fully settle, so I’m not putting too much pressure on myself. On the other hand, not having a good schedule is also a source of stress, so the sooner I get it done, the better. I have used this new situation also to rethink my eating. I’m not planning to do very strict intermittent fasting, but I would really like to stop eating late at night. I always thought this is not possible for me, but I’ve been at it for a month now and turns out it’s doable.

Taking vitamin D. I should have done this a long time ago, especially during winter, but I finally bit the bullet. I motivated myself with a fancy spray from a fancy brand, which I admit is a bit embarrassing, but if it means I actually take my vitamin D then fine (and I have been pretty consistent). There are some other health-related things that are a bit too personal to share here, so let’s just say I’m trying to be more health-conscious in general. I’m one of those people who do not go to the doctor unless I absolutely have to and similarly to no 1 on this list, I realise it’s not something to be proud of.

Planning my travels. It’s not that I plan to travel more this year, as there will certainly be less work-related travel than I’ve been doing in recent years. What I do intend to do, though, is to prepare things better. After almost bankrupting myself with the upcoming Japan trip (in my defense, I wasn’t THAT late with planning and I couldn’t start earlier because of the uncertainties around timing, etc) I am determined to be better organised in the future. The change of job should also help, as my agenda will be more predictable.

Writing. This comes in the end of the list, because I’m trying very hard to be reasonable and not to have any writing goals until the translation is done. After that, yes. I have several things in my head that I really need to put down on paper, but this is likely to happen in the second half of the year.

Did you have any resolutions for this year? And if so, how are things going? Also, I do realise that it’s already March, but I’m keeping the original title of the post as an accurate reflection of the timing of the resolutions.

*It’s a week later now as I’m posting this, and things don’t look good. So anything training-related is taking a back-seat at the moment. Whis is, I admit, extremely frustrating.