20: The Best Year Yet

So for a while now I've been wanting to take part in Mama Kat's weekly writing prompts. I keep saying I will but as always procrastination takes it's toll. After analyzing this weeks prompts I decided to go with making a list of 20 ideas to make this year my best yet. Now I think the general idea is to come up 20 different ideas but instead I'm going to come up with 4 areas I want to improve in my life and five ways to improve each one.

A. The first area I want to improve is my faith.
1. I need to pray more. And when I say pray, I mean I need to sit down and have coffee with God more frequently and tell him about my day and what not.
2. I need to put more faith and trust in God. A lot of times I try to handle stuff on my own. Thus leading to a multitude of tears and hard times. If only I could quit being so darn stubborn and let God have his way and let myself just follow his foot steps in the sand. I don't know if I've ever shared this or not but even if I have I'm going to share it again, I don't remember where I read this at but it's always stuck with me...

One night a man had a dream he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes of his life. For each scene he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand: one belonging to him and the other to the Lord. When the last scene flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life. This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord, "Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way... but I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life that there are only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you the most you would leave me." The Lord then replied, "My son, my precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trials and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

I feel a lot of times I try to wiggle my way out of his arms and try to do things my way. I am going to do my best to let God carry me through the sand and sit me back down on his time, not mine.

3. I need to read the bible more. Not just read but actually study when and what I read. I use to be so good at that. I would get in my bed at night with a pen, notepad, and bible and I would just study away. Now I let the worldly ways get ahold of me. I let life get in the way and tell myself "oh I'll do it another day or tomorrow when I'm not so tired..." but that day never comes because its the same story the next day... which leads me to my next point.

4. I need to start giving God the best of me. When I lay in bed at night and say my prayers I'm always so tired and honestly, I'm not giving God the best that I can. I'm just saying my prayers real quick because I'm so sleepy. So with that being said, I want to start going to bed earlier before I'm too tired to say my nightly prayers.

5. Miscellaneous. I need to clean up my language. Have a better attitude towards things. Stop taking Gods blessings for granted. Get the most I can out of the Sunday sermon.

B. Secondly I need to improve my relationships.
1. I know I'm not the only one who does this, so I'll go ahead and throw in an amen for the ones reading this that can and need to do the same! I need to stop taking the people around me for granted. Now don't get me wrong, I say my please and thank you's. But do we ever really sit back and think about the things that others do for us? I'm not talking about big things, just the small. Like your other half doing the laundry for you, or someone baking you some cookies, or even a stranger opening the door for you. Do we realize that stranger just took five seconds out of their day to hold that door open for us and for all we know they have a cousin that has just been diagnosed with cancer? I don't really take my time and say a really good thank you. A lot of times I just say thanks out of habit and I don't really think about the deed that has just been done. I need to start saying more I love you's and giving more hugs.

2. A lot of the people around me go out of their way for me on daily occurrences. I need to start doing the same. Random acts of kindness, if you will.

3. I need to let my family know that I love them more often. Words only go so far, I really need to start showing it. I guess I get selfish and let my own life and issues get in the way of doing so. I'm going to try and start putting aside my issues and life and start letting the love shine through.

4. I want to start having better conversations with my family and my friends. Ask them how they're doing, just listen. I have to do a lot of talking at work and a lot of times by the time I get off clock, I'm through with talking, I'm through with listening and honestly I just want silence. When really i need to start giving them more of my time and ears.

5. One relationship especially I need to have more patience with. She's been going through a rough time as well as I have and really here lately everything seems to clash. I need to forgive and forget and learn to grow from what we've been through.

C. My health.
1 I'm not an extremely unhealthy person. I take vitamins on occasion even, but I want to turn that 'on occasion' to regularly.
2. I need to start drinking more water and less Mtn Dew and coffee. (I'm obviously a caffeine junky, guilty as charged!)
3. I need to start going to the gym daily and when I miss a day I need to do stuff at home i.e. crunches, squats... the works. I typically go to the gym three times a week but I need to multiply that.
4. I can't believe I'm even admitting this but I'm a carb junkie. I love me some bread. Macaroni...croissants...biscuits...even croutons (and I don't even like salads!) So I'm challenging myself this year by cutting my carbs in half. If I could cut the carbs, shoot I'd be so skinny I could turn to the side and be invisible!
5. Try new recipes. I've had The Biggest Loser cookbook for over a year now. I've tried some of the breakfast recipes but other than that I haven't done much experimenting. I need to do some more of that. The recipes actually look sooo delicious. I just never find...ok I never MAKE the time to do so. So I'm challenging myself to do just that.

D. Financials.
1.I suck at saving money. No really I just can't do it. I get so excited when I see my bank account up that I decide to reward myself by spending all of it. Well that's dumb, I know. I don't really have bills, after all I'm still living with the parents.
2. Which brings me to my next point, I'm 22 and I need to move out. Self explanatory right there.
3. I would also like to start putting some money back for Jacob Riley. I figured it'd make a pretty bad to the bone graduation present if I start now.
4. I need to stop buying stuff I don't actually NEED. I'm going to start checking prices before I just buy stuff and also ask myself if I realllly need it. (and pray that I don't come up with some slick reason as to why I do. )
5. I need to become friends with coupons. For every ten times I save ten cents is every time I get another dollar in my pocket!

E. Miscellaneous.
1. I need to blog more.
2. I need to smile and laugh more.
3. I need to read more.
4. I need to stop sweating the little things so much. Overanalyzing so much. And really I just need to quit thinking so much about the negative and just let it go.
5. I need to stop procrastinating to the max, realize that the quicker I do the task at hand the quicker it'll be behind me.

Now that I've written enough to possibly qualify for a short novel, I'll leave you with this... I hope everyone makes the most out of this year and I wish everyone luck with their resolutions. I really don't make resolutions I just try to make the most out of every year, and I hope you can do the same this year.