2020 - Progress, Not Perfection

It has been a few years since I made a New Year's resolution.  In 2017, I resolved to say no to more things, which obviously wasn't enough given the burnout I hit in 2019.  In 2018, I seem to have been in a bit of a dark place in which I thought resolving to do anything was futile, because I wouldn't be able to stick to it anyway.

The past two years have shown me that, under the right circumstances, I can actually make pretty big changes in my life.  In that time, I've greatly expanded and strengthened my social circle, to the point where I couldn't see everyone I wanted to during my two weeks of holidays.  I've started a (somewhat) daily meditation practice and gone to a meditation retreat.  I've been really consistent with yoga, going to 45 classes in the first half of the year and 83 in the second half*.  I've adopted an intuitive eating practice, which has led me to a much healthier relationship with food (and overall healthier eating habits) than I've had in my life.  And I've cut back on my work responsibilities to the point where I am only slightly dreading returning to it tomorrow.

When I look back at the changes I've made, the keys for me have been twofold:  motivation and gradual progress.  I haven't made changes out of a sense that it's what I should do, but rather because I can see how the changes will make me happier and otherwise enhance my life.  The goals I set for myself are personal and are aligned with my values, not things that other people think are important.  I've also started slowly with things (It took me over a decade to develop a regular yoga practice!) and allowed myself to learn from the process of change, rather than thinking that I'll be perfect at a new thing the moment I start it.  As Done By 40 said in a comment on my last post, "Progress, not perfection".

Looking ahead to 2020, my hope is to have a relatively uneventful year.  2019 was a year of tremendous growth and change, but it was also a hard one.  I kind of want to catch my breath**.  I want to continue with my mindfulness practice, and I'm aiming for a regular practice of four yoga classes per week and meditating every day.  I want to keep building on the friendships I have.  My financial situation is really good (No debt!  Lots of investments!), and I mostly just want to keep working and hoarding money for the future.  Overall, I don't anticipate any radical changes in 2020***.

But....in 2020, I would like to work on keeping up with everything.  I feel like I'm perpetually behind - on housework, on work work - and I find it draining.  I hate having clutter in my home and 100 dictations to sign off on in my inbox.  I hate feeling like I'm perpetually catching up, only to have new work pile on top of me the moment I finally get through the old work.  And it's not like I'm saving time by procrastinating on things - I have the same amount of work to do, regardless of whether I do it right away or put it off for weeks.

Which...is really everyone's problem, right?  While the specific tasks may differ, I think we all have an endless to-do list that is never done to our satisfaction.  So, while I'm setting this as a goal, I am also trying to be realistic.  And to extend a lot of grace and compassion to myself.  Because no matter how hard I work, I am never going to get to the bottom of the list.  And I need to make peace with that.

As far as how to do this...I'm going to experiment.  Try something for a while, see how it goes, then keep it or reject it.  I'm not expecting that I will get to the end of the list by midnight tonight and then always keep up with it, forever and ever.  I know it will be a process, and so I'm trying to give myself the time and space (and lots of grace!) to work with the process.  For the moment, I am going to try three things that I think may help:

1)  Going to later yoga classes:  Some of my favourite yoga classes are at 5:30 PM, which unfortunately means leaving work at 4:30 and therefore losing out on a lot of potential work time.  I'm going to try sticking to a regular weekly schedule, with a 7 PM class as my earliest, so that I get an extra hour or so at work at the end of many days.

2)  Coming to work earlier:  My work days start between 8 and 9:30 am (sometimes 10 if I really let myself sleep in) depending on whether or not I have a morning clinic.  I'm going to try to get to work for 8 am consistently so that I'm getting some extra work time first thing in the morning.  As an added bonus, I'm hopeful that the more regular wake up/go to work schedule will be good for my insomnia.

I recognize that I'm proposing to both start later and finish later, which has the potential to simply be too much work.  But I'm hoping that this will allow me to get most, if not all, of my work done during the week, thus giving me weekends completely off to recharge.  I'll see how it goes...

3)  Just doing the shit now:  I'm human.  I procrastinate.  Sometimes epically.  Yesterday I logged onto a conference website, thinking it was the last day for early bird registration, and when I discovered that I still had two weeks, I logged off.  I did very quickly log back on and register for the conference (also booked my Airbnb like a superstar), but my initial impulse was to procrastinate for another two weeks.  I've already started trying to break myself of this habit, as I know it is a huge contributor to the piles of things to do that build up.  So I'm trying to just respond to the email, just put my dishes in the dishwasher, just put away the laundry that I've already folded (instead of it sitting on my dresser until the basket is empty), and just add the item to my grocery list (instead of cursing myself when I get home from the store without it).  Just.  Do.  The.  Shit.

Who knows if this will work.  I like some of the 5:30 yoga classes, so I might cave and go to them.  My bed is very comfortable, so I may sleep in.  Doing the shit gets tedious.  But I'm going to give it a try and see where it takes me.

Any suggestions as I try to get more on top of things in my life?

*At least.  I only track yoga classes for my main studio; I think I did another 10 or so at other studios over the year.

**I feel like I'm tempting the universe by typing this.

***Seriously, I feel like I'm baiting the universe with this post.

How I Almost Moved Into a House But Didn't

A few weeks ago, I opened up Facebook while eating breakfast and saw an ad for the perfect house.  Only a few minutes from where I currently live and still in a neighbourhood that I love, the house was the ideal balance between "old enough to be charming" and "new enough to not have knob and tube wiring*".  And it was for rent, which is probably the only way I'm ever going to get into a house, as I'm utterly terrified of buying something.

It took me only a few minutes to email the person renting it, and I stopped by to see it on my way home from work that evening.  When I walked in, the house was toasty warm and beautifully decorated for Christmas, and my heart said a very loud yes.  This is my home.  I want to live here.

For the next four days, I lived and breathed that house.  I posted about it on Twitter and Facebook, I dreamed of all the things I could do in it (Butterfly garden!  Bat house!  Little Free Library!), and I started rescheduling my upcoming vacation to include packing up my apartment and moving into a house.  I was 100% mentally there.

And then...I went back.  I went to see it again with my Mom and to work out the practical details, and the reality of the house started to sink it.  Houses come with lawns to be mowed and driveways to be shoveled and windows (so many beautiful windows) to be washed.  And the $400 more per month in rent was only the beginning of the increased costs - I would have to add electricity and water and gas and a home alarm system and alllll the things I would want to buy with double the space that I currently have.  Yes, I could host games nights in a stylish historic living room warmed by a gas fireplace, but I would also have to get up early on snow days to dig my car out of the detached and unheated garage.

I went home that night, and I thought and thought and thought, trying to figure out what to do.  It wasn't a question of whether I could afford it - I save a high percentage of my income, so there is money in my budget to move into a much nicer home than where I'm living right now.  The question was, why did I want to move into a house?

The answer, for me, was social.  I wanted to host games nights for friends and have my aunt over for coffee and drop in informally on the friend who lives around the corner.  All really good things.  But...none of them dependent on being in a house.  Sure, my one-bedroom apartment is limited in its ability to host big gatherings, but I'm an introvert who actually doesn't really like being around large groups of people.  Two to six people is about ideal for me, and my dining room table can comfortably seat six.  The size of my apartment isn't really what limits me socially - it's time and energy, both of which I'd have less of in a house.

The financial side of it, even though I could afford it, was also a big issue.  The added costs would be approximately equal to one month a year of income - that's huge!  When I looked at it that way, and asked myself "Would I rather have that house or an extra month of vacation every year?", vacation won without a moment of hesitation**.

So....I still live in the apartment where I've lived for nine years.  And...I'm good with that.  Work is a 6-minute drive when there's no traffic (and under 30 in even the worst of rush hour traffic).  I can easily walk to fabulous restaurants and coffee shops.  And I have time and money and energy to do the thing that's most important to me:  connect.

*Technically renovated to not have knob and tube wiring...but still new enough to not be a nightmare of old home disasters.

**Not that I'm going to take an extra month of vacation, as my vacation time is already pretty ridiculously amazing, and I do need to earn money.