It's New Years, and comes one of the things that I hate more than anything, coming up with New Years Resolutions. For most people they are all for making goals, however short lived they may be, and work towards achieving them. For me, I hate them because I tend to get down on myself with my depression finding ways to change just makes me feel even more bad about myself, and sends me off into a land of what feels like never ending gloom. This being the case I don't tend to make them, but this year after having a ten minute conversation with myself decided to make three, and one of those has to do with my depression and the conversation that I had with myself.
To introduce my first goal I will tell you about the conversation I had with myself. Since high school I have told myself and others that in order to be happy in a relationship you first need to be happy single. In high school depression wasn't something I talked about with anyone, so nobody but my mom knew what was going on with me (disclaimer: my mom knew from watching me and dealing with depression herself). For about the next ten years I found myself in a Catch-22, with my depression I couldn't really be happy, and if I wasn't happy single I wouldn't be able to be happy in a relationship, which meant I couldn't ever be happy. The conversation I had with myself dealt with how even though it was sound advice, in dealing with my depression it wasn't good for my mental health. I then had to promise myself that I wouldn't let the things I felt one day determine what I would feel the next day, to the point I decided that I need to do a weekly emotional checkup with myself, and wrote every week in my planner "just because you aren't happy today doesn't mean that tomorrow has to be the same." Goal 1: Not let what I feel one day determine how I feel the next.
My second goal is one that I know I am not very good at, and that is reading my scriptures everyday. Since coming home from the mission almost FOUR YEARS AGO, my scripture reading has been all over the place. And with the church's new curriculum and me being a primary teacher, I have to be ready for the lessons that we have. Also, because I have applied to be an EFY counselor I probably should be an example to the kids with my scripture reading. I decided that I need to be realistic and I know that I won't be able to do scripture study the same time everyday, so each week when I start scheduling my week, I will schedule when I will do my reading. This way no matter if I am working one job or two I will be able to have time set aside based on my schedule to be able to read.. Goal 2: Improve on scripture reading.
The last goal I made I knew that I wanted to do something along the lines of self help but at the same time I hate those goals the most. I feel like those are the goals that you do alright for the first month or so but after that they are the ones that go up in flames. So I decided that I to find things that may inspire me to change, so once a month one of my weekly goals is to find a self help book to read, a self help podcast to listen to, find inspirational Youtuber to follow, and stuff along those lines. I chose this way because then I am not doing the same thing every month, and if I find something that I want to do I can try it for the month, and if not it's no big deal. I also chose things that I already use, so that way it wasn't a huge change in my life, because I don't do well with that. Goal 3: Find something that inspires me to find ways to be better.
This year I want to try and change but I don't want to send me off the deep end mentally, and I feel like going about my goals in the way that I have has set me up to succeed and not make me feel like a worthless potato.
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