Photo courtesy of Alyssa Strohmann on Unsplash

For a lot of people, early-January is a time of motivation. However, for a lot of people, that motivation starts to fade as the weeks go on.  As a matter of fact, just over two weeks into January, there's an official holiday to ditch your resolutions on January 17th. Let's be real too, some people don't even make it to January 17th before they start to throw in the towel on their resolutions. I'll be 100% with you, there have been years where I haven't made it to the end of the first week with all of my resolutions intact. A lot of the time, this was because I'd go into them unprepared, and without much of plan, which is quite common. 

But there are many reasons once may choose to ditch their resolutions. Perhaps their goals were a lot more challenging than they had anticipated, and they found it difficult to adjust their daily routine to accommodate these goals. Or they may not have been seeing the results they were hoping for quickly enough, and they just gave up. There is also a chance that maybe they genuinely lost interest in their goal, and it just wasn't working for them or adding anything positive to their life. And you know what? If something isn't adding any value to your life, it's 100% okay to drop it.

But if something is beneficial to you, or you can't stop thinking about it, and you know that you want it, why stop? Because it's more challenging than you had anticipated? Because you aren't seeing instant results? Because of something that someone else might have said to you? Because you had one bad day, or maybe a crummy week? Believe me when I say that I've been faced with all of these factors, and many others, that have tempted me to throw in the towel on something that I wanted. And each time that I would find myself giving up, I would be highly upset with myself for quitting. So let's not give up! Instead of getting into the "better luck next year" mentality, let's get motivated again right now.

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A year ago, I never thought I'd be writing a post like this. Not just because I hadn't even started my blog yet at this point last year, but because for the longest time, the thought of thoroughly decluttering scared me a little. I couldn't fathom the idea of letting go of something if there wasn't anything wrong with it, or if I knew there was a way that I could possibly repair it. My yearly "decluttering" consisted of nothing more than just tossing damaged or worn-out items and donating clothes that didn't fit. It was rare that I'd throw away much more than what could fit in a Walmart bag, and at most, I'd have about one or two pieces to donate. Yet going into my closet was stressful. Opening my desk drawers was stressful. Opening my makeup drawer was stressful. Dusting was stressful because of all the little knick-knacks I had to move out of the way. Sometimes just being in my room was freaking stressful! 

I think you get the idea. I had so much shit that it was stressing me the fuck out. Excuse my language, but seriously. I had to do something about it. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, not just because I had so much shit I had to go through, but because I was going to have to change my mindset as well. But it needed to be done. It should have been done a long time ago. But rather than guilting myself for not doing it sooner, I'm just going to focus on the fact that I finally made cutting the clutter a part of my life. And that it really does feel amazing to live with less clutter!

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At this point, I sound like a broken record when I say that I do not like Winter. So it is no surprise that Winter can cause me to feel a little down at times, especially as seasonal depression is actually quite common in the wintertime.  Which also comes at no surprise. The weather is often on the crappier side, it's cold, and days are short. Plus, not only are the days short, but daylight is often limited even more by clouds, so it might as well just be dark all day. It can be hard to get motivated on a gray and dreary day regardless of the season. But add the fact that it's cold and it'll be dark by 6:00 PM, and you'll find yourself just wanting to stay in bed. Perhaps this is why so many people have a hard time sticking to their New Year's resolutions. At least in the northern hemisphere.

But Winter is here for a quarter of the year, and winters in Ohio don't end when the calendar says they do. You're often looking until at least mid-April for the weather to be consistently pleasant. So I simply can not allow the winter blues to get me down all winter. I mean, I could just wrap up in my blankets all day and mope about the weather, but that often makes me feel even else. I don't want to be feeling tired, unmotivated, crabby, and unproductive for a quarter of the year. Who does? So I can't allow a season to make me feel like poo. I can't let Winter win!

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With New Year's Day being one of my favorite holidays and the weeks following January 1st being my favorite time of the year, it goes without saying that I absolutely love setting goals and resolutions for myself every year. For the most part, my New Year's resolutions have always been long-term lifestyle changes that I intend to work on all throughout the year and beyond. Either that or they were targetted at more specific long-term goals that I had. This year is no exception to that, I was thinking about these things, and how I was going to start working towards my 2020 New Year's resolutions, as early as November last year. But one thing that I've never done was make a bucket list for the year. As a matter of fact, I've never given much thought to bucket lists in general, which is something I really want to change this year. Especially given the fact that one of my resolutions is to LIVE a little more and have more appreciation for the little things.

I think the biggest thing that's kept me from making bucket lists in the past was the notion that the items on my bucket list had to be super grand, like traveling to another country or to another state. Or going skydiving or something big that would require a lot of time, planning, and/or money. But who says that the items on your bucket list have to be grand, and they can't be small and easily doable? I'm sure no one has ever actually said that everything on your bucket list has to be big and grand. Especially for a yearly or seasonal bucket list. As great as it is to dream big and have something big to work towards, the little things matter too. Even if they may seem small, or may only seem to matter to you. Seriously, you can put anything that makes you happy and that you want to do on your bucket list. Whether it's big or small, or whether it's goal-oriented or totally random.