Happy New Year!
Please share yours in the comments!
SweetScience:
As you may have been able to tell from my last post and analysis of 2017, I was just happy to have survived, and thrilled to be moving in the direction I want, hard as it may be. So I have no ambitious goals for 2018. Other than teaching 8 classes, half of which will be new, moving into a new home in a new state, establishing healthy relationships with family in the area, and caring for my own family, including welcoming baby number two!! I’ll be happy to get through all these major changes the best I can.
peírama:
My resolutions are to improve at my job, continue to network so that it is not a huge chore if/when I am looking for a new job, and to continue to stay involved in my community without overdoing it. I am pretty happy with where I am in my career and my life, but it has taken a lot of work to get here. I am sure the future will hold more challenges, so the best I can do for now is to enjoy and to take steps to buffer against those future challenges in whatever form they come.
Curiouser&Curiouser:
My resolution this year is to give myself time to find my bliss. I spend a lot of time thinking and working on being good at my job, motherhood and wife-y-ness (yup that’s totally a real word); but I want to make sure I have space to think about what I want to be doing, not just what needs to happen right now. Am I happy in my job or do I want to try something new, do I want more kids, do I want to start dancing again, should we pack up our family and run away to our imaginary mountain farmhouse/library/art studio and all those kinds of questions.
saraswatiphd:
I’m not a New Year’s resolution person. I think they’re kind of overrated. If you want to do something, why wait? Do it now, don’t wait for the calendar to give you the green light. But this year is different. I’m waiting for something. Like a sign to give me the go ahead.
I got a sign of a sign a few months ago, sitting in my doctor’s office, going over my very suboptimal lab results. We talked about lifestyle and diet, about stress management, about this and that. She said that I needed to make a change how I approach my health – tune into my body, listen in closely to what it’s telling me. I never have. My body is something I abused for a while now – staying up too late, not dealing with stress well, not exercising, eating crappy food, or not eating enough all together, forgetting to take my thyroid medication… It’s catching up to me. I was surprised. Afterall, my body hasn’t failed me yet (besides autoimmune thyroid issues and chronic insomnia that is). Stress is something I thought I had to experience in order to prove to myself and everyone around me that I was taking things seriously. This (tenacity? stupidity? immaturity? dedication?) is something that got me through undergraduate work, graduate school, and my postdoc (during which I had twins), allowing me to get to a place in my life where I love my job and appreciate the direction in which my career is headed. This approach worked for me professionally. But my body begs to differ.
So, my New Year’s resolution is to take my health seriously, before I start having serious health issues. Eating wholesome foods, exercising regularly, managing my expectations so that stress doesn’t get the upper hand – those are on my (probably first ever) resolutions list this year. I am giving myself time to mull it over and construct a plan. If I am successful, I will hopefully ease into it in the next couple of months and continue throughout the year. Kind of like a warm up run before I cross that start line. We’ll see how I do.
NotaRealTeacher:
Like saraswatiphd, I don’t like resolutions. I prefer goals, which are a type of resolution anyway, so here are some of my goals for 2018.
In 2017, I found myself feeling so impatient. Impatient for the next career move, for the bigger house, the next car (hello minivan, I can’t wait for your sliding doors). When I take a step back, though, I am able to rationally articulate that things are going great for me. I have a teaching job I mostly love, two healthy kids, a successful husband and an adorable (albeit tiny) house in a desirable area. In 2018, my goal is to be steadfastly patient. I’ll still be looking forward to my next big thing, but I want to embrace all the good I already have.
Ragamuffinphd:
I only have one overarching goal for this year: adjust to life as a working mother, allowing myself the respect, patience and flexibility to find out what that means for me and for my family.
Before I realized that I wanted children, my goals and the attitude with which I pursued them were all about me. My dreams, my time, my ruthless obsession with academic scientific research. My perspective has already changed drastically (after 4 months of baby), and I hope that this more relaxed open-mindedness will be the driving fuel of my future endeavors.
Megan:
I am trying something very different this year. Every year, my resolution is to do more, to do better, to work harder, to improve. But 2018 needs to be different.
I started 2018 on New Year’s Eve with a stomach virus that didn’t let me leave the bathroom, let alone participate in any festivities. Frankly, I’ve been sick since around mid-November, with one thing after the next. I have a toddler in daycare and the microbes are ruthless. I need to face it: I’m completely run down. I’m often up past midnight, doing laundry and chores, writing emails, reading. Then, at 6-6:30AM, my adorable son starts babbling, then yelling, from his crib– and, trust me, toddlers don’t get that you can sleep in on weekends.
This year, as I was huddled sick and shivering on New Year’s Eve, I started thinking of possible New Year’s resolutions. Should I try to write more? Exercise more? Clean more? Network more? Make more of an effort to visit elderly relatives? Yes, I probably should do all of those things. But as I was contemplating them, I swear my churning gut screamed at me: “YOU NEED TO DO LESS!”
So, that’s my resolution this year. I don’t know exactly how it will translate yet. Maybe I’ll look into getting a maid? Try to go to bed earlier? Finally ditch our beloved but broken down old car that requires constant maintenance? I’m not sure how I’ll do it, but my body has put me on notice: it’s time to do less.
Just thinking of ways to do less instead of more already feels like a radical change.
A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman 