16 New Year's Resolutions for 2016

Even though we are already in the middle of January, I still want to share my New Year’s resolutions with you. It took me the longest time to decide whether I want to post the resolutions on the blog, given that there seem to be many mixed opinions on making New Year’s resolutions. To me, I see them as an opportunity to grow, change, improve or learn something new. As it is the year 2016, I came up with 16 different resolutions, some more significant than others, but I want to give all of them a try this year:

Monthly Challenges

This year, at the beginning of every month, I’ll set myself a new challenge, a task to stick to every single day of the month. While they will be set for a duration of one month, my goal is to develop habits that will last throughout the year and longer. There are some that I already have in mind, but I’ll be deciding on a new one every month.

In January, (after months of deliberating), I decided to finally give up meat, at least for a month.

Eating Clean(er)

Keeping up with January’s goal, I finally decided to take a step towards a plant based diet. This year I’ll try to eliminate or at least substantially downsize the amount of meat in my diet, and try to eat more plant based.  It’s all about the food that will nourish me and make me feel better.

Downsize

While it seems that I am constantly clearing out my room, downsizing, sorting out and giving away things that I don’t need, I still feel like the amount of things in my life is growing out of proportion.

Even though the trend is noticeable in many areas, the increase is most visible in my beauty stash. I’ve fallen into a routine of constantly buying things that I do not need, or essentially don’t even really want and then struggle with being stressed and overwhelmed instead of being able to enjoy the products.

This year I’ll try to downsize the amount of things in my life and focus on making conscious decisions about what I buy, where I buy it and whether I really want and need it.

Read

Ever since I was little, reading was my absolute favourite thing to do. Even though I sometimes struggle to find make time for it, books are my favourite escape from reality. My Kindle is my number one essential and comes with me everywhere.

This year I am making a conscious decision to read more. At the time I am reading the Outlander series (seriously great books and amazing story!) and after I finish these, I’ll embark on new adventures. (All suggestions are highly welcome!)

Capsule Wardrobe

By now I’m guessing you’ll have heard about capsule wardrobe. With this resolution, corresponding with the one about downsizing, I’ll be striving to downsize, unitize and streamline my wardrobe. Struggling with what to wear is a daily occurrence to me and I know that having a clear sense of what I have and how I can match it, would help me immensely.

This project might take some time though, but I’ll be trying to make it happen slowly, by consciously think about every piece of clothing I add / keep in my wardrobe.

Improve Content and comment more

This year I’ll be striving to step up my blogging game in many aspects. I’ll try to improve my pictures and writing style and commit to producing better content for my readers. Too often I get sucked in by the things that everybody is doing and forget about the things and topics that I am really passionate about.

Keeping on the blogging theme, I’ll make an effort to comment more on other people’s posts. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t like comments that have clearly been written only to promote yourself, but here I’m talking about commenting on blog posts that actually inspire me and are a joy to read. There are so many bloggers out there who deserve that extra “effort” that goes into writing a comment.

Branch Out

Branching out this year will cover many different aspect, trying new products, going to new places, meeting new people, finding new hobbies and much more. I feel like I often get stuck in a routine, my little “safe place” and get too scared to try anything new and different.

This year I’ll make an effort to consciously make decisions that will help me try and learn new things, see new places, meet new people and overall gain new experience.

Snapchat

This one is a bit more “shallow” than the others, but I find Snapchat quite amusing, but don’t really have any idea how to properly use it. That is why I’ll try to start using it much more this year. I think it could be great as an addition to the blog, for posting quick reviews, swatches or unimportant life updates on the go. If you curious to see how I will get on with it, you can add me, my user name is beautysaur.

Digital Detox

This might be a strange resolution for a blogger, but I find that I spend way too much time on my digital devices. May that be my computer or my phone, I catch myself aimlessly browsing the internet and wasting my time.

While I love my computer and phone, I want to limit the time I spend using them for absolutely no reason at all. I have a really bad habit of binge-watching series at night while at the same time browsing Instagram or Pinterest on my phone and eventually falling asleep midst doing so.

This year I’ll try to use my evenings to relax, prepare for the next day, read a bit and go to sleep earlier. On the rare occasions that I do so, I wake the next morning refreshed, rested happy and ready to tackle the day.

Create a Sanctuary

Last year I begun the process of renovating my room, the first step was painting the walls white, to create a blank canvas for me to work with. By now I’ve also re-arranged my furniture, added some plants, a few décor pieces and the last addition was a new bedding that I absolutely love.

Even though a room might not seem like a sanctuary to you, I want mine to be a place where I feel relaxed, safe, and happy and is a place that reflects my personality. Getting rid of things that don’t make me happy and don’t feel like me anymore is extremely liberating and that way I can focus more in the things that bring me joy and happiness.

  

Animal Assisted Activities and Ambasadorji Nasmeha

At the end of last year, me and my dog Allegra participated in a training for animal assisted activities and therapy, which made me incredibly happy as it was something I’ve been wanting to do for the longest time.

She passed her part of the exam, and even though I am still waiting for the results from my part of the exam, I am already sure this is something I want to pursue this year.

Animals have always been my passion and my Allegra is my “favourite” thing in the whole world. Spending time with her makes me so happy and relaxed and the thought of helping others as a pair seems absolutely perfect to me!

Here I’m including the website of the Ambasadorji Nasmeha, Slovenian society for animal assisted therapy: http://ambasadorji-nasmeha.si/ and if you are one of my Slovenian readers I invite you to visit it and read more about this amazing society.

P.S. Yesterday I finally got the results from my part of the exam and I passed, hooray! Can’t wait to start with the “on-the-field” part of the training this month and later begin to work on our own!

Explore, travel

A few weeks ago I was talking to my friend, complaining about life and asking what is was all about, and his answer was simple but completely on point: travelling. After some consideration I realized how right he was. Travelling fulfils me, helps me grow, learn and improve.

Still, I tend to return to the same places again and again. This year I’ll not only try to travel more, but also travel to the places I’ve never been before. At the same time I’ll take the time to be a tourist in my own country, re-exploring places I already know and try to find new things and places to explore.

Socialize

I’m not the most outgoing person in the world, my circle of friends is really small and I rarely venture out of my safety zone. Even though I am quite ok with that most of the time, I do sometimes feel like I am missing out a bit.

During the last years, there were a few rare occasions where I stepped out of my safety zone, went to few events on my own, met with a few of the fellow Slovenian bloggers and enjoyed it immensely. This year I’ll try to be a bit more sociable, with my friends as well as with the people I don’t know that well and I’m sure I’ll have a lot of fun! 

Pamper

It seems like I am more than willing to spend my money on pampering product, but can’t bring myself to use them. I love pampering myself, may that be taking a nice, long bubble bath or performing a full-blown skincare routine, they make me feel happy and relaxed.

Besides the obvious beauty regimes that I might enjoy, I also want to take this year to pamper myself by taking time to read, travel, eat right and enjoy the little things in life.

Live in the moment

All the time I find myself focusing either on the past or the future, with each passing season looking forward to the next, always yearning for something out of my reach instead of focusing on the here and now.

In 2016 I’ll be making an effort to focus and find happiness in the moment, focus on the now, what is happening around me and enjoy the life. Yes, I’ll still be looking forward to the future, but will make sure to not forget about the present at the same time.

Create Memories and take Pictures

Even though I’ve been blogging for over 2 years now and also have a camera (on the phone) with me all the time, I constantly forget to take pictures of the places I go to or the things that I am doing and later regret that.

There are many things happening in my life all the time that I tend to forget about soon, and having pictures and being focused on making lovely memories will definitely help me to remember all the great things in my life.

Lately I’ve really been enjoying Instagram and taking pictures for the blog and have been quite successful at taking pictures of the “real” life as well. There are many un-used picture frames around my room and I intend to fill them with many pictures of happy memories this year.

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So, these are my main resolutions for this year and I intend to work hard to stick to them! I’ll try to let you know about my progress throughout this year, either on the blog, my FB page or my Instagram.

What are your resolutions for the 2016?

Thanks for reading and see you in my next post!

Rawr,

your Beautysaur