Goals for 2023
Happy New Year!
What better time to reflect on my 2022 and set goals for 2023 as I lay in bed, recovering from Covid… Oh I haven’t been sick in years and this one hit me like a lorry. After three days of unrelenting fever my brain feels like it’s been cooked a solid well done. So it’s anything I write is incoherent, blame it on SARS-CoV-2. And here are my goals for 2023!
Be a Better Caretaker
Lifestyle and Nutrition - one achievement of 2022 that I’m proud of is that I started to establish a healthy relationship with food. I plan to elaborate on this topic in a separate post when I have gathered enough courage. Reading Janette McCurdy’s memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died was difficult in part because of its portrayal of eating disorder. I truly admire her courage and vulnerability in shedding light onto some of the darkest corners of her life. It also made me grateful for my own journey and how far I have come. In 2023 I will continue building on the progress made last year, respecting my body’s needs, and treating it with love and gratitude for all that it enables me to do.
Flexibility - Over the years I have come to accept the limitations of my body. While this is in part positive in the sense that I no longer fight with my body and go against what it naturally wants to do, I have also surrendered to some lower standards. I had accepted that I would never have a decent turnout, a side split, a perfect arabesque, etc. But even just last night when I was doing yin yoga, I realized that my body was capable of achieving more when my mind is out of its way. This year I will adopt a more systemic approach to stretching and achieve a level of flexibility that enhances my ballet performance.
Be a Better Amateur
Ballet - pointe work. The last few months of 2022 was when I finally picked up the courage to start wearing my pointe shoes in class. I say “courage” because the beginning of the pointe journey isn’t pretty to look at. It took me almost 8 years in ballet to not feel like a wobbly duck some of the times so it was difficult to endure the embarrassment of being a beginner again. Oh vanity, thou knowst no bounds… Obviously all the embarrassment was just in my own head. Who cares that I’m a beginner? After I got over the initial hurdle I progressed rather quickly. I could feel myself getting stronger and more confident on pointe each week and progress is the best motivator. This year I hope to be able to dance through center adagio on pointe, and dare I hope, even attempt a pirouette?
Violin - Sep 2022 marked my second year of violin playing and my first year with my teacher. I’ve come a long way since I picked up my first rental violin just before labor day 2020. But I’m impatient by nature. It’s not that I don’t have the humility to appreciate how difficult it is to begin learning the violin. But I believe I can do more. I can progress faster. This year I’m committed to more regular practice. I have this image of a perfect practice session that lasts over an hour that covers everything I want to work on. But this might be counterproductive on days I’m too busy or tired to practice “perfectly”. This year I will prioritize frequency and quality over duration or coverage. Even if I only have 5 minutes, I will take out my violin and practice with intention for those 5 minutes.
Read with more intention - a math professor of mine used to say that unless you can teach something to another person, you don’t fully understand it yet. Similarly unless you can articulate the essence of a book to another person, you have not fully comprehended it yet. I read a lot but whenever I try to recall the books I have read or recommend them to other people I realize that my understanding is largely superficial. This year I will focus on annotating and reflecting as I read and writing down my thoughts on a book immediately after finishing it. It doesn’t have to be anything profound or even coherent. But the act of writing is a way of switching my mind from passively consuming content to actively engaging with it. I will try to do the same with film and TV as well.
Be More Productive
Time Management -I spend way too much time wasting time. End of. No more bedtime scrolling. Period. Well ain’t this an easy one…
Create more and consume less - I have spent much time this past year being entertained, educated, soothed, inspired, baffled, or frustrated by the content created by other people. This year I want to reverse my role as the insatiable consumer and be more of a creator. This doesn’t mean that I will be doing viral dances on tiktok or sharing my morning coffees on Instagram. But it does mean that I will write more, photograph more, dance more, perform more…
Learn new things - current candidates: coding; photo editing; acting; picking French back up; finally figuring out how Squarespace works?
Well these are some lofty goals so wish me luck…
