2017 is here and with it comes lots of people making lots of resolutions that they don’t keep up with. Me? I’ve been one of those people. Many times. I sit myself down on day one of a new year and say things like…

You will make ____ blog posts per week! MINIMUM!

You have to make ____ videos a week or ELSE!

Workout ___ days per week or feel ASHAMED.

Almost as soon as these goals are declared either out loud by me or put up on the internet, I seem totally unable to keep up with them. This leads to feelings of shame, frustration, and makes me feel like anything I do accomplish isn’t good enough because it wasn’t “the goal”. I end up spending the rest of the ensuing year being like…

That’s not the kind of year I want 2017 to be. I know that I have things I want to accomplish this year. Many things in fact. But if I am ever to grow I need to check myself, and part of checking myself is knowing myself well enough to know that when I set hard number goals, I fall short. As opposed to when I am more abstract in my goals, and then usually tend to exceed said vague expectations.

This is the kind of year I want. I want to read more books. I want to take more photos and make more video blogs and write more words. But what I DON’T want to do, is beat myself up for the next 12 months because I didn’t hit every point on a list I made at the beginning of the year. Let this be my little social experiment in not being hard on myself, and instead going with what feels right. Maybe I’ll have two months where I don’t post, and then post three times a day in a week. Maybe I’ll manage to take tons of photos one month, and then none the next. No matter how this ends up, I just know that this wibbly-wobbly set of expectations feels so much more free to me, and thus much more attainable.

So here is to 2017 being a year of quality over quantity! Here is to a year of me making cool stuff because for one, I love when people enjoy the work I do, and two, because it’s just so much fun.