As we move forward into 2018, I can’t help but reflect on the previous year. So much has changed in our country and in society in general. It seems like there’s so much negativity in the world, but I try not to dwell on those things. Instead, I’d rather talk about a few positive things that I personally accomplished last year.
NaNoWriMo
In the month of November I wrote 21,288 words of a novel. That’s far short of the 50,000 word goal, but it’s over twenty-one thousand words I didn’t have in October. I started the month pretty strong, but then struggled and didn’t write at all around the Thanksgiving holiday. Even with the missed days I averaged over 700 words per day. Writing at that rate every day, I would have over 250,000 words by the end of this year.
Health
Starting in March 2017, I decided to finally get back in shape. I started counting calories and tracking my weight in the [Lose It!] app. I also started walking on the trail behind our house every day. I track my steps and daily workouts on my Apple Watch.
Doing this, I averaged about 10 pounds of weight loss per month for the first few months. By the end of the year I was eating around 1,500-1,600 calories and jogging 2-3 miles per day. Since March I’ve lost 65 pounds. I’ve continued counting calories and exercising for at least 30 minutes every day and don’t plan on ever stopping.
Habits
Most people that hear about my weight loss say I must have amazing willpower, but I don’t think that I do. Instead of mentally forcing myself to exercise every day, I made it a habit. It’s just something that I do every evening, usually right after dinner.
So much of what we do in life is based on what we’ve always done before. If you sit around and play video games every evening or watch Netflix, then you’ll probably continue to do those things. Trust me, I know.
One day I just decided to go for a walk instead of goofing off. I didn’t walk for very long, but I felt good afterwards. I kept going for walks every evening. Soon, I started seeing results. I could walk a bit farther each time. More importantly, I started losing weight. That’s very motivating.
This also explains why I failed at NaNoWriMo. I never really made it a habit. Instead of scheduling time for writing every day, I tried to squeeze the writing into my free time. Once my free time started getting shorter, I stopped writing. I hope to avoid making this mistake again this year.