Let me first preface this blog post by saying that I’ve never been big on new year’s resolutions. I believe that if you’re serious about making a positive change in your life, there’s no room for excuses, and there shouldn’t be any reason why you can’t begin working on yourself in the present, and constantly be working on yourself every single day. Being a goal-oriented person myself, and for the sake of challenging myself once the new year starts, I’ve made a list of things that I’ve been wanting to accomplish, things that I intend to seriously start working on in the new year.

Dive into the Word on a deeper level.

While I was still in school, I had the same excuse for why I couldn’t open my Bible more often than I was. It was always something school or work related that kept coming up, and so I just told myself that I would wait until I was finished with school to begin reading my Bible on a daily basis. Now that I’m out of school, I have no more excuses. I’ve tried to justify it by telling myself that reading my Verse-A-Day app every morning would be enough, but I need to find time to truly dive into the Word and journal again.

Get into (and start) grad school.

This one is probably both the easiest and hardest thing to accomplish next year, mostly because I don’t have a direct hand in determining the outcome of this situation. Like I’ve said before, I’ve already started on my applications. Now it’s a just a matter of me sitting down and pouring my time and energy into them to ensure the best possible outcome.

Go plant-based.

Now that I’ve been on a vegetarian diet for six months, I want to try to go completely plant based within the next year. Going vegetarian was somewhat of an easy transition, and so now I want to challenge myself further and be mostly plant-based by this time next year. I want to take the next steps towards being and feeling healthier, and further doing my part in preserving the environment, and taking more of a stand against animal cruelty.

Learn a new instrument.

For awhile now, I’ve been saying that I really want to learn how to play the banjo. But given the fact that I don’t own a banjo, and that a banjo isn’t a cheap purchase, I’ve been putting off that goal. With the readily available internet connection I have, it shouldn’t be a problem sitting down and finding the time to learn how to play. Right now, it’s just a matter of me giving in and finally putting the money down to buy a banjo and finally start learning.

Begin writing fiction.

Now that I’ve been blogging for a little over three years, I want to take my writing to a new level and begin publishing some fiction online. Recently, I’ve been looking for examples online of how other people have been able to accomplish that, and I’ve gotten somewhat of an idea of how I can make that happen myself. Topics and ideas are constantly circulating in my head, and I’ve just been needing an outlet to put it all down. For the past couple of years, I’ve been saying that I want to begin a sub-blog that strictly contains fiction, and I think 2018 is the year that’s finally going to happen.

Pay off one of my credit cards.

Now that I’m working full-time and am able to pay well over the minimum on both of my credit cards, I’m slowly paying off my balances. The entire reason why I signed up to drive for DoorDash was to earn a bit more money on the side so I can pay off at least one of those credit cards a little quicker. Once that’s paid off, I can focus on another financial goal I’ve had for awhile – buying a new car.

And with that, Blogmas 2017 is finally over! These past 25 days have been challenging trying to find topics to talk about every single day, and finding the time and energy to actually sit and put the words onscreen. Challenging as it was, this has also been a rewarding experience, being able to look back at the topics I wrote about all month, and seeing how I was able to commit to something I challenged myself with, and growing creatively along the way. I hope you all enjoyed reading my thoughts as much as I have enjoyed writing them, whether you read all 25 posts or just one. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey, and I’ll see you in 2018 with a whole year’s worth of new blog posts, hopefully keeping you all updated on the goals I made for myself.