Woah!
I can't believe I'm already counting down the last minutes of 2014-
It was a great year that passed by so fast! I feel terrible I didn't document a lot of it, but hopefully I will get better at that with the start of 2015.
I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who decided to stop by my blog and read my ramblings.
It's typical, but might as well do a short recap of 2014 and share some of my goals for 2015.
As for right now, I am actually moving. I've been looking for a new place for quite a while and have had many incidents where I almost moved. Applications fell through, I was looking into the 'buying a place' option, and even thinking of compromising into a place I wasn't 100% sold on. But all in all, I think everything happens for a reason and I have finally found a place that I am extremely excited about. I am not in the settling mindset, so actually buying a place will come a bit later in life, and I am renting a 3 bedroom apartment that is less than 5 miles away from my work.
I've stayed at my current place for nearly 3 years. It is the first place I've rented out since I came to LA in early 2012. I came solo and since 2013, I've added two new members to my family: Chewie and Dante!
Ever since they've joined my life, too many things have changed. One of the reasons why I've been hunting around for a larger place is to accommodate my two birdies. It's been on my mind for the longest time, so I am glad that issue got squared away before this year passed by.
The packing and moving coordination, on top of all of year-end work, is a bit overwhelming, but I have many cheering along for me and helping me out, so I feel very blessed to be surrounded by good people. :)
Now for 2015 resolutions.. I've been thinking about it and I think I only have one big goal.
Get a life.
Sounds lame, but 2014 has been so work-focused, I feel like I missed out a lot on the aspects of life. I'm not getting any younger, so I feel like I should focus on balancing work and life a bit better next year.
Here's the break down of how I'm going to get a fulfilling life.
A) Be consistent. Continue with the good stride on the work out front.
Since mid-November I've been going to the gym quite regularly. I was talking to one of my coworkers and she said she wanted to shed some pounds. I told her to go hit the gym, and she gave a very typical 'Yeah.. I have to, but work is consuming my life..' answer. I told her I will go to the gym too and we should keep tab on each other. I don't know how such shallow conversation triggered as a motivation, but I started to actually go to the gym quite frequently after that conversation.
I think logging is the key to forming many habits.
I started to log my gym-going on my phone and by checking up on myself kept me going.
This ties in with point A) of continuing to go to the gym. I had a strong urge to set a number of days (something crazy like 290 out of 365 days in 2015) for that goal, but decided to not overwhelm myself with unrealistic expectations. :p
So in a nutshell, here's where I want to be a year from now.
"It was a great year!! and I know it was great because I documented (B) so many great moments, and was able to carve out some time for out-of-work (C) time, and was healthy and energetic (A) to do so many things! I've made 2015 better than the previous years both in my personal life and work!!! Yay me! :D"
I hope I can mature into a more relaxed and stable person in 2015. Also, I hope I can learn to look up and around to understand that there is much more to life than what is immediately in front of me. I should appreciate and enjoy!
Anyway, I should clean up and watch the ball drop soon.
I'm sure many of you already started your new year, and I hope everyone can stick to their resolutions and have a great year in 2015! :)
Thanks for reading through the long post-
Much love,
Catalina
X
I can't believe I'm already counting down the last minutes of 2014-
It was a great year that passed by so fast! I feel terrible I didn't document a lot of it, but hopefully I will get better at that with the start of 2015.
I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who decided to stop by my blog and read my ramblings.
It's typical, but might as well do a short recap of 2014 and share some of my goals for 2015.
As for right now, I am actually moving. I've been looking for a new place for quite a while and have had many incidents where I almost moved. Applications fell through, I was looking into the 'buying a place' option, and even thinking of compromising into a place I wasn't 100% sold on. But all in all, I think everything happens for a reason and I have finally found a place that I am extremely excited about. I am not in the settling mindset, so actually buying a place will come a bit later in life, and I am renting a 3 bedroom apartment that is less than 5 miles away from my work.
I've stayed at my current place for nearly 3 years. It is the first place I've rented out since I came to LA in early 2012. I came solo and since 2013, I've added two new members to my family: Chewie and Dante!
(Chewie [Left] and Dante [Right])
The packing and moving coordination, on top of all of year-end work, is a bit overwhelming, but I have many cheering along for me and helping me out, so I feel very blessed to be surrounded by good people. :)
Now for 2015 resolutions.. I've been thinking about it and I think I only have one big goal.
Get a life.
Sounds lame, but 2014 has been so work-focused, I feel like I missed out a lot on the aspects of life. I'm not getting any younger, so I feel like I should focus on balancing work and life a bit better next year.
Here's the break down of how I'm going to get a fulfilling life.
A) Be consistent. Continue with the good stride on the work out front.
Since mid-November I've been going to the gym quite regularly. I was talking to one of my coworkers and she said she wanted to shed some pounds. I told her to go hit the gym, and she gave a very typical 'Yeah.. I have to, but work is consuming my life..' answer. I told her I will go to the gym too and we should keep tab on each other. I don't know how such shallow conversation triggered as a motivation, but I started to actually go to the gym quite frequently after that conversation.
I think logging is the key to forming many habits.
I started to log my gym-going on my phone and by checking up on myself kept me going.
Here's an example of how I keep tab of my workout days
I haven't been able to go lately due to the holidays and the move :(
It's either a "Gym yes!" or "no gym" day.
I don't kill myself at the gym. Usually I do pretty light spinning or treadmill and listen to my music and reflect upon my day. It is quite calming and therapeutic to close a day like this. I feel pretty refreshed after working out and seem to fall asleep better. There's really no weight loss goal accompanying my workouts, but hopefully my gym-going can continue and I can get into better shape than I am right now.
Also getting a Jawbone UP band helped me. I am obsessed with looking at my activity count, weight, sleep pattern and food intake through the app. I try to hit my goal of 12,500 steps/day and if I don't go to the gym, this is pretty much impractical - so there's another motivation for me to get moving to the gym. :p
This is how my Dec. 31st, 2014 looks like :p
If you click on the scale icon on the top part, it shows my weight line graph too.
You can customize your goals and even form a team with other UP banders.
B) Document moments
I should write, take pictures, draw - do something to document the small, but great moments in my life. I was looking at all the cameras and lenses I have that are just collecting dust and realized that I don't document as much as I used to. Little moments compile and become a big blur and just get buried in memories, and then they just wash away with time.
In hindsight, I had so many moments in 2014 where I thought it would've been nice to at least snap a picture of.
this is probably one of my favorite moments of 2014.
I was forced to take a picture as EotM (August, 2014), and thought it was super cheesy, but it remains as a fun memory and looking back I am happy I agreed to snap a pic :p
This kind of ties with my sudden departure from vlogging. It's a long story, but I stopped vlogging because of one person at work. If you think about it, it's silly to let one person ruin all the fun and prevent me from collecting good moments on camera. Anyway, hopefully, vlogging can pick up again in 2015? Why I'm not promising is explained right below! ;)
C) Be realistic
I am a person with many complicated problems, but this point is one I need immediate fixing.
One of my biggest problems is overestimating my abilities. I have a huge problem of over-promising and under-delivering about everything in general (how many times have I promised to come back to regular blogging and failed? 'nough said..).
It goes both ways: I have really unrealistic high expectations about everything, and also think I can (and everyone around me should) meet those expectations in a do-or-die mindset.
What happens is, I take up too much, give myself too little time, and end up crashing, not delivering on time, or having to push out a half baked result AND feel shitty about myself. This puts me in a very very painful position, as I have to either physically suffer (no sleep!) or emotionally beat myself up (shitty results!) and it just keeps spiraling down in a viscous cycle.
I need to learn to let go, compromise (ugh), accept the current situation and other people's abilities, understand that people are OK with not-so-perfect results and might have lower expectations... or really step up and deliver super hero results on time.
I've spent so many nights up and slaving over every. single. detail. of reports and work that went unnoticed or unappreciated. At the end of the day I was so beaten up I literally fell sick as an end result. Was all that obsessing and pushing myself worth it? Some were, most weren't. The only thing that was left with me was 'yeah, her work is above average.... IF she ever delivers on time'.
So I've come to a realization that I should somehow let go of my super high expectations and be a bit more realistic with everything in life (hence, no crazy 'everyday blogging' goals for 2015, haha).
So in a nutshell, here's where I want to be a year from now.
"It was a great year!! and I know it was great because I documented (B) so many great moments, and was able to carve out some time for out-of-work (C) time, and was healthy and energetic (A) to do so many things! I've made 2015 better than the previous years both in my personal life and work!!! Yay me! :D"
I hope I can mature into a more relaxed and stable person in 2015. Also, I hope I can learn to look up and around to understand that there is much more to life than what is immediately in front of me. I should appreciate and enjoy!
Anyway, I should clean up and watch the ball drop soon.
I'm sure many of you already started your new year, and I hope everyone can stick to their resolutions and have a great year in 2015! :)
Thanks for reading through the long post-
Much love,
Catalina
X
Happy new year!!! love the blog and I always come back to read you... =)
ReplyDeleteHappy new year!
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year and I've been silently following you for years now and I just really want to say how much I of a big fan I am and totally understand the struggles that because I'm going through similar problems as well. hwaiting unnie, and I know you can do it!
ReplyDeleteHi, Cat. (at the cost of sounding really creepy)I've been missing you so much lately! I used to watch your vlogs nearly on a daily basis while cooking in the kitchen, working out in the house, etc. IDK, your voice already calmed me down a bit. I guess you got again carried away with real life stuff. I hope you are doing great!(going back to watching some more of your videos on Youtube)
ReplyDelete