Happy Boxing Day! If you are reading this, then congrats you have survived yet another Christmas!! Weehoo! Yesterday I ate fantastically at my Mom's, but also consumed half a bag of Christmas Mini-Eggs. The interesting thing is, that I have actually lost about 5lbs in the last 2 days. I am not at all condoning my activities, but I think part of it is the fact that I am actually eating the amount of calories I should be eating.
As you can see from the plate above, I enjoyed about 2/3 of my plate full of salad, some chicken, a smidge of potatoes, 1 homemade bun, and a few tbsps of stuffing. The only seconds I went back for were for more salad. For dessert we enjoyed some delicious lemon meringue pie, which I limited myself to 1 slice. I drank copious amounts of water with lemon, neglected the red wine, and made sure I went to the gym this morning.
It certainly wasn't easy to get my ass to the gym, but I did go and it felt good, but I have been sleeping in these days, which I need to stop. I need to get up earlier because it is way less busy at 8am than it is at 10am.
So, now that Christmas is over, let us talk about goals for the New Year. I don't know about you, but I am a HUGE fan of goal setting, vision boards, and seeing myself where I want to be. If you are not a person that standardly sets goals or the like, I promise you that if you actually give it a go and give it 100%, you will actually achieve them. It truly works. A hell of a lot better than just wishing. The key to goal setting, though, is to reflect on the past, before attempting the future.
So, here are some things that I remember most about 2013:
1)At the beginning of 2013, I was working for a photography company and traveling up north to various reservations and towns doing school portraits and family portraits. What I realized during this short stint was that a)I don't want to do just any photography and b) I need to be with the people I love. There was a point in my life when I absolutely lived to run away, be alone and travel to uncharted places, and not talk to family or friends for months at a time. My job as a traveling photographer to places where there is sometimes no phone/internet, etc. caused me to experience moments of depression and sadness. I missed Ryan. I missed my mom. I missed my brother and sister and the ability to just call, go to their houses, or send a quick email.
Therefore, one of my goals for 2014, is to spend more time with my family, travel more to visit people or spend time with people that I love, and to make MY people more of a priority in my life.
2) 2013 was a year of learning, education, reading, and furthering my life and my career in photography. It was the first time in my life, that I invested more into my business than the money that was coming out, but I feel 1000X richer as a result of my newly found education. Another big goal of mine for 2014 is to impact young women who are trying to find their way in the world, whether it be to inspire them in the form of becoming an entrepreneur, achieving their health goals with this blog, finding their strengths and not hiding from them or hosting workshops strictly geared towards inspiring creative minds.
3) This year I finally gave up trying to create what I thought was "expected" of me and starting creating things that came from my soul. This was quite difficult because a lot of times us "creative folk" are worried about what people will think of us, etc. I got too caught up in what other photographers/artists were doing and found that it made me incredibly negative towards my own work which was quite ridiculous. I am just thankful that I recognized this darkness before it caused me to rule out my profession all together. I was finding that I was wasting more time on being negative, rather than spending time on building my business. Instead of being scared of other, new photographers, I started to become inspired by past, amazing photographers. Once I achieved this mindset, my whole world opened up and opportunities starting flowing in. Therefore, my goal for next year is to continue studying the greats and to help other artists instead of secretly hating them. I have been asked to assist with an awesome magazine called Quiescent which is aimed at helping aspiring photographers get their work out there and providing them with some lovely guidance!
4) August was the month that I decided to get my shit together health-wise and start finding my way back to a healthier, happier me. Again, my goal is not to get skinny, but I do want to either lose 40lbs or look like I have ;). The number on the scale is not a huge threat to me, but how I feel in my clothes and how my body reacts is important. Obviously, I will be keeping up this blog as a way to document my trials and tribulations throughout the process and I hope you all will stay with me! My goal for this
is to not only increase my knowledge and share it, but to also create more of a consistent blog, including v-logs, new recipes, new juices, and progress pictures. I want to inspire other people, but also to continually motivate myself to learn more and do more! Also, I want to kick ass at my ballet recital in May haha!
5) Towards the end of the year, I realized just how important it was to ration my money a bit more carefully, as this was the actual first year of running my business and relying ONLY on my business for income. Summer was okay, but then winter was a bit slower and of course, I had already spent my money because that is what I normally do. Well, not anymore! I do not like this stress of worrying about car payments and credit cards and bla bla bla. Therefore, I am budgeting, saving, and being diligent in my spending. Not only do I want to put more money back into my business, but I also don't want to stress as much. I am quite lucky to be in the situation that I am but I do not want to take that for granted, so I need to work smarter. I look forward to
becoming a true, functioning business owner with a goal and schedule!
At the moment these are my big picture goals, but I do need to make smaller achievable goals to get to all of these things! I am quite excited for what 2014 is about to bring, not mention that I get to start it off by shooting a wedding on NYE, spending the first week in Regina with Ryan's family, and then finally heading off to Seattle to experience my equivalent of meeting Oprah and Ellen in the same room and LEARNING from them. My life is currently quite full, but I believe my goal next year will be to enrich my life even further and take my talents and strengths to the next level. I hope you will all join me and watch my journey as I stumble and get back up over and over again! I also would like to hear from my readers! Tell me, what are your goals, where do you want to be by this time next year? Share your stories!
