Bloganuary Post January 1, 2023

What is something you want to achieve this year?

After reading James Clear’s ATOMIC HABITS, I’ve come to believe that achievements are really the culmination of taking baby steps and developing new, tiny habits. With that principle in mind, here goes.

Lose just a few pounds. Honest. Just a few.

I’m a Lifetime member of Weight Watchers and after losing 35 pounds, have been at or below my official goal weight for nearly 20 years. But in that time, I’ve also lost two inches in height. At 72 I guess it isn’t surprising. Darn you gravity! Fortunately, the habits I’ve built in that time include almost daily moderate exercise and keeping a food diary.  Here are the extra baby steps I’ll take this year.

*Reset my app from maintaining to losing weight.  

*Planfully vary my daily intake within the WW Healthy Eating Range. That’s worked in the past.  High, low, and medium days will be noted in my planner.

*Attend weekly meetings (either in person or virtually) until I reach that magic number, just over (under?) the line into the next decade.

Write more. Publish more.

I’ll stick with my baby steps theory for this goal too.

*Make time to write/edit/rewrite something–a blog post, a letter, a poem, or the sequel to my novel–four days a week. Writing time will go into my planner. As I learned from my time as a consultant with the Northern Nevada Writing Project, “If no writing is expected, none will be delivered.”

*Make concrete assignments for myself. For example: “Add more about Maddie in Chapter 12” or “Clean up the POV in the middle build” or “Rewrite the final scene with Libby” or “Add relevant pandemic milestones to the narrative.”

*Publish some writing here every week. A poem. A thought. A paragraph. Something.

Day one of the Bloganuary challenge is done. Piece of cake.