I follow a few Enneagram accounts on Instagram. Last week, @enneagramandcoffee (a funny-yet-often-times true take on Enneagram numbers) posted the New Year’s Habits of each Enneagram type. I’m not going to rehash the whole post, you can see it here, but for Eights the author wrote we’d say “If you want to change something about yourself, just change it. Why do you need a holiday to do that?”
And I DIED because last January I wrote this post called Starting again right now where I wrote:
I’m just not a big New Year’s resolution person. If I want to make a change, I pretty much just do it that moment or start the next day. I don’t like to talk about making changes, I just make changes. So if I realize I’m eating too much crap and not enough vegetables, I make sure my next meal reflects that realization. If I’m looking at my phone too much, I put my phone down and go do something else. Monday start dates are good, but if it’s not a Monday, I’ll start on a Wednesday afternoon. I think giving yourself the freedom to begin again, in any moment you notice things not going the way you like, is powerful and freeing.
The Enneagram is legit, seriously. (I’m writing more on it this week, so hold tight.)
Soooo, it’s redundant to tell you I don’t really care for New Year’s resolutions. I decided to lose weight in May one year and did it. We realized we needed to get our finances under control one random weekend in 2009 and made a plan for the next pay day.
I think if most people spent half as much energy working toward their goals as they did talking about them, we’d all be living better lives. With that in mind, here’s what I’ve been working on the past few months and what I’m continuing to work on as we move into 2019. (If you LOVE a January resolution, no shame! I’ve got you covered this week as I share five things I’m recommending we all do to have an amazing 2019.)
Trying to drink black coffee.
Please add me to your prayer list. This might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. EVER. I cut out dairy creamer last summer; I’ve been using almond creamer since then, but there’s still more sugar than I need. Right now I’m measuring out the almond creamer for my coffee instead of just dumping it in which is a baby-step in the right direction. I know black coffee would be best for me if I’m going to continue to drink it. But I also like to argue (with myself, no one else cares about this…) that enjoying creamer in my coffee isn’t the end of the world.
There’s a part of me that just knows I need to be adult enough to drink black coffee in a pinch, and I am not yet that person. Again, prayers please.
Some spending changes.
If you follow me on Instagram, you know I read The Year of Less by Cait Flanders last year, and it changed my life. I came home from fall break (where I read the book) and purged my whole house. I feel like it’s important to say I don’t keep a lot of clutter or overflowing closets in general. I don’t hold onto things for prosperity sake, and I don’t feel attached to many objects. I was, in a lot of ways, Marie Kondo’ing before it became a sensation. Maybe I’m Japanese. Who knows.
But reading The Year of Less challenged me in new ways. Like it was okay to have empty closets and cabinets, just because I had stuff to fill them didn’t mean it was stuff I needed to have around. Like how purging often was great, but if I kept shopping or bringing more things into my house, I might have been missing the point. Like how so many of my coping mechanisms have some relationship with buying/shopping/spending.
As I emptied my house this fall, I knew 2019 was going to be different. We were getting rid of things, but also deciding to live with less things. We were emptying closets and purposefully trying to not fill them back up. We were deciding to tighten our budget, not to be able to shop more, but to save and travel more.
On December 26th, I un-followed some accounts on social media that encouraged me to spend money or buy things because “the deal was just too good to pass up!” I sat down to meal plan for the coming week, not just randomly buying things at the grocery as long as it was within the budget, because I know we have more than enough money each week for groceries but I still tend to spend more than is allotted. I took the credit card out of my wallet. I told Chris I wasn’t buying any new books for twelve months. (Again, prayers are appreciated. More on that on Wednesday; this one is going to hurt more than black coffee.) We’re starting a full-scale kitchen remodel on Saturday, but I’m going to try my very best to not eat out in January or February. We’re taking a few months off from buying non-essentials off Amazon (Water filter? Yes. Another pair of yoga pants? Nope.)
November and December always make me feel a little crazy with spending; we have to buy so many presents, our grocery bills go up because of food for parties and dinners, we spend more on gas as we run all over Indy. After the last gift is opened, I feel ready for a reset, for a tightening of the budget belt. I’m excited to see how much we can actually live on and how much we can save. (Plus, spring break is just a few months away, and if we want to go anywhere, we need to start saving now.)
In December I read this tweet:
Show me your receipts, your text messages, your gas mileage, your online history, a record of your daily doings, and, just to get things started, a transcript of the words you’ve spoken aloud in the course of a single day, and we’ll begin to get a picture of your religion. (source)
And that, my friends, is changing a lot of things for 2019, not just my finances and my coffee.
2019: I’m excited and terrified of you. But mostly excited.
*DISCLOSURE: Affiliate links used.
MAKE SURE YOU SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEWSLETTER! GO HERE TO GET MONTHLY BOOK REVIEWS & SUGGESTIONS, SURPRISE GIVEAWAYS, SUBSCRIBER-ONLY POSTS, AND THE MONDAY BUSINESS MEETING EMAIL WITH ENCOURAGEMENT, NEWS, & FREE STUFF.
Leave a Reply