Continued Resolutions

Today marks the first weekend of 2013 and like many others I have made a few New Year’s Resolutions.  However, if you have read my past posts on this topic (http://www.alohafridays.net/2011/12/old-year-resolutions.html, and http://www.alohafridays.net/2010/12/resolving-to-find-wellbeing.html), I really don’t make new resolutions, but simply re-pledge to continued resolutions.  This year I am going to do the same, but maybe with a little more updating.  So my five resolutions can be summarized as:

1.     Write

2.     Get in the Best Shape of My Life

3.     Give Back

4.     Live Aloha

5.     Chase Dreams

How did I do in 2012?

Writing can be judged by how many times I have posted to this blog.  In 2011 I posted about 2.5 times per month while in 2012 that shrank to 1.5 times per month so we are headed in the wrong direction.  Both averages are well below my goal of once per week or 4 times per month.  So I am going to change “write” to “write more.”

For “Get in the Best Shape of My Life” I have a few measures for 2012 that are positive.  I ran my fastest 10K and 5K since I started tracking those times in 2007.  I also won the Above and Beyond Award (with a prize of a free airlines ticket on Southwest Airlines) in the Red Rocks Fitness Challenge so I did pretty well there.  But that means I only want to go faster this year.  So with 5Ks, 10Ks, and getting back into triathlons again with Olympic and Spring distances being on this year’s possible event list, I want to see if I can continue to set personal records in these events. So let’s change this one to “Go Faster.”

“Give Back” was a little less tangible in 2012 since I didn’t fundraise for charity as I had done before, but I still looked for ways to serve in all aspects of my life.  In fact I feel the more that I have learned to “serve” rather than compete, as I have done in the past, it has made me a better person.  This third resolution will be modified to “Serve.”

“Live Aloha” was once again directly realized with a family vacation to Maui over Thanksgiving.  But like I have said before, this is more than simply leaving the mainland every year and more about trying to bring some of the Hawaiian values home of being friendly and focused on family.  Since it is family that is most important aspect of this resolution I am going to change this to “Ohana”, which is the Hawaiian word for family.

“Chase Dreams” is emblematic of my work on the Dream Chaser team to build a new human spacecraft for our country.  This year we are going to have a crucial approach and landing test and start work on landing our next large contract from NASA. I am going to modify this resolution to be “Land Dreams.”

So with my new set in hand:

1.     Write More

2.     Go Faster

3.     Serve

4.     Ohana

5.     Land Dreams

I am ready to plow into 2013.  With that in mind, I am going to follow up this morning’s run with a bike ride so I can work on going faster.