11 Ways to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions (All Year Long!)

May 16, 2016
by Stephanie Pellett
9 min read
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11 Ways to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions (All Year Long!) >> Life In Limbo

We’re almost halfway through the year, so it’s a great time to check in with your goals or resolutions for the year. How have you been doing? Have you been doing them?

Even if you’ve forgotten about your goals entirely, the year is not over yet. Not even close! It’s not too late to re-evaluate, re-configure & re-commit to your goals. Here are my top tips for sticking to your goals right up until December 31st (and beyond!).

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good

On my list of 26 things I’d like to do before my next birthday, I included the item “collect quotes”. Not only was this very vague (more on this in a bit), it also conjured up fantasies for me of how best to go about completing this goal. Maybe I could make a beautiful collage on my wall! Maybe I could sit down and hand-letter all of the quotes and later bind them into a book! Maybe I could write each of them on a slip of paper and put them into a lovely jar!

But then I realized that it was a month after I created the list and I hadn’t written down a single quote. All of the above would be amazing options, but waiting until I could implement one of those plans would slow me down or even completely prevent me from following through on this goal. So, I opened up a Google Doc, titled it “Jar of Quotes”, stuck it in my Bookmarks Bar and went on with my day. Maybe later I’ll make it into a beautiful book, but for now I’m just happy I’m doing it at all.

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Reading Challenge 2014

September 24, 2014
by Stephanie Pellett
3 min read
2 Comments

Books 2014

I feel like a broken record, but can someone please tell me how it’s September 24th? How is that possible? Does time move at warp speed as soon as you’re finished university? Don’t tell me the answer to that, I actually don’t want to know. Somehow it’s been more than 9 months since I set my goals + feelings for the year, including my reading goal for 2014. It doesn’t seem possible how quickly this year has gone by, and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down either.

I’m happy to report that I’ve stuck to my reading challenge as much as was humanly possible for me this year. Having a full time job for the majority of the year put a tiny cramp in my reading style, though I do still read quite a bit. In 2013 I read 75 books, but I was travelling or working a not very demanding job for most of the year so I knew that 2014 would pose some more challenges to my reading life. But I was hopeful I could overcome them! (Sadly yes, I am that serious about my reading. You have to be if you love to read as much as I do, and if you want to read an absurd number of books every year!)

On my last post about reading, a friend left a comment asking when I read. The answer is: when I’m eating, when I have nothing to do at work, when I have a break, when I need to commute somewhere, before bed, while stretching, while brushing my teeth, and if it’s a really good book…. then when I’d normally be surfing the internet or writing. I don’t watch much TV – maybe about 3 hours per week – and messing around on the computer and reading are my two favourite pastimes so I spend a lot of time doing one of the two.

I stay accountable to my goals by religiously logging my books on Goodreads, putting books on hold through OverDrive so I always have a new exciting book to read, and of course sharing my favourites here every few months on the blog.

So where do I stand?

Books 2014 2

I’ve got 27 books to go before January 1, 2015. That number seems a tad high, especially since according to GoodReads I’m 6 books behind schedule to complete this goal. But the good news is, the challenge has already been a success for me! It always is, no matter what the outcome. I discovered some authors I love (Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Elin Hilderbrand) and read some really wonderful books. I’ll read at least 50 books this year, which feels like a major accomplishment my first year as a full time employee. It proves that I can do it, despite what all the naysayers always say (abundance 4ever!). I’m not giving up on the goal of 75, but everything from here on out feels like icing on the cake. Wish me luck!

You can read about how I read so many books for free here, and see my favourite book recommendations of 2014 so far here. You can also add me on GoodReads here, I love to see what other people are reading!

24 Before 24: Get a Tarot Reading

May 15, 2014
by Stephanie Pellett
3 min read
5 Comments

I’m doing 24 fun new things before I turn 24. You can see the rest of the list here. 

DSC_2221Getting a tarot card reading has always seemed so fun and exciting to me. Like most people, I am equal parts skeptical and giddy when it comes to mysterious things like having my fortune told or getting my palm read. I always think it sounds a little bogus, but not enough to discount it entirely – there’s always still a part of me that wants to believe in the magic of it.

This was one of the things on my first list that I never got around to, so I was excited to get the chance to have this experience while I was in Seoul! It was kind of fun, but kind of strange, too. It made me feel a little weird afterwards, but it was overall a pretty cool experience.

DSC_2222In downtown Seoul we walked past a whole line-up of tents offering fortune-telling services – apparently they are quite common in Korea. I got excited, then remembered that I didn’t speak Korean. But my friend offered to translate for me, and before I knew it we’d ducked into one of the tents! It was very kind of her to offer, and it ended up being a fun thing for us to do together.

Initially I’d thought to just get the tarot card reading, but after learning it only applies to the next 3 months of your life, I thought I’d go for something potentially more interesting: a reading of my birth chart! I gave the sweet woman who ran the tent (dressed totally normally by the way, and no crystal ball in sight!) my birth date and time, and she typed it all into her computer to find my chart.

DSC_2223The results weren’t overly surprising. According to my birth chart: I can be stubborn, I always have an opinion and I like to get my way. I’m a great teacher, I like learning, and I’m good with languages. I should get married later in life, after age 30. It will be important to me that both me and my partner are passionate and work hard at our respective careers – she went so far as to suggest the possibility of being a “weekend couple”! I should work to build a specialized, professional career (whatever that means).

And that was it, really! Nothing overly dramatic or revealing. The whole time I was in the tent though, I had this sense of forboding, like she was going to say something I really didn’t want to hear. For a while afterwards, I felt a little uneasy and couldn’t put my finger on exactly why. So while I wouldn’t entirely rule out the possibility of doing a tarot reading again in the future, or even looking deeper into my birth chart, for now I’m happy to have done it and am closing the book on this one.

The 24 List

April 14, 2014
by Stephanie Pellett
2 min read
7 Comments

24 Photo

Two years ago, I wrote a list of 22 things I wanted to do before I turned 22. I loved the idea and the project, and some of my favourite memories of that year were sparked by the 22 before 22 list: creating a book club, making a podcast, sewing a dress, running a race. I didn’t make a list last year, mostly because the year was a bit strange for me between travelling for 3 months in Europe, living at home deciding my next steps, and ultimately moving to Korea. Since I didn’t know what the year would look like in terms of my routine or physical environment, I didn’t feel inspired to set goals. This year, I feel more settled and I have a pretty good vision of what 23 will look like, which means I’m feeling excited to start a new project.

These goals are all things I think will make my life richer, happier, and more fun. They’re meant to inspire me to have more adventures and experience more joy. They’re not meant to make me feel stressed out trying to check them all off. On the 22 list, I only completed 12 of my goals, and while I (of course) hope to cross more off this list, I’m approaching it with a very fun and relaxed attitude. So here we go, 23! Let’s see how many of these I can do before I turn 24.

  1. Get a tarot reading ✓
  2. Learn to surf Go surfing ✓
  3. Try acro yoga ✓
  4. Get into lotus pose safely and comfortably
  5. Run a half marathon Run a 10K race ✓
  6. Shoot & develop a disposable camera
  7. Learn 4 new hairstyles
  8. Get a manicure ✓
  9. Make 24 new recipes (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
  10. See the sunrise from a beach ✓
  11. Have a picnic somewhere stunning ✓
  12. Write another (e)book
  13. Sell something I make ✓
  14. Order room service
  15. Make a photobook for my trip to Europe
  16. Spruce up my websites ✓
  17. Go camping ✓
  18. Go trampolining ✓
  19. Write articles for 7 websites (1, 2, 3, 4)
  20. Create a photography portfolio ✓
  21. Be able to do a free-standing handstand ✓
  22. Donate to charity once a month ✓
  23. Make business cards
  24. Write 12 love letters by hand (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6-9, 10, 11)