2011: the best year yet

I’ve been so excited to write this post for the last several months actually.

When I recapped by 2010 goals, I said what an amazing year 2010 was for me. I said that 2010 was the year that I changed the most and it was such an amazing year for me, returning to school to change my career and finally quitting my job to pursue school full time.

But, with as great as 2010 was – 2011 was seriously the best year of my life thus far. I feel like 2011 was the year I grew the most as a person and I feel like I have finally overcome so many of the things I’ve been working on the past few years. I feel closer to the person I really want to be after this past year than I ever have in my life. I’ll also say 2011 was the happiest year of my life too, which is exactly what I wanted it to be!

So what exactly happened to me in 2011? Well, let’s do a short recap bullets of the highlights:

school

School was amazing this year, but definitely took most of my time. I took classes in both Spring and Fall, plus two summer classes. Amazingly, all my hard work paid of and I made a 4.0 in all my semesters.

I’m in a completely different place now with my future career as a Registered Dietitian than where I was a year ago. I have been interning with an amazing mentor and learned really about where I want my career to go. I am so confident I made the right decision to leave my former career and start a new career.

I also started the Dietetic Internship application process in September and will be finalizing this process in January. I’m looking forward to knowing where I’ll be completing my internship in 2012!

fitness

Fitness and my injury were a long and defining part of this year. I started off with a strong workout routine at the beginning of the year, ran the Cowtown 10K and set a PR (despite being injured)

I decided in March to seek out physical therapy for my hip injury, so I could heal and begin training for the Dallas 13.1 half marathon. I discovered a month into my recovery that I wouldn’t be running the 13.1 and was placed on exercise restriction.

I purchased a bike and biked during my recovery, which was my only source of exercise besides walking. I spent 16 weeks in physical therapy, approximately 12 weeks on prescription anti-inflammatory pills and finally returned to the elliptical at the beginning of July.

I ran for the first time post-injury recovery during the Oktoberfest 5K, which is a special and sentimental race for me as it was my first 5K. I also spectated the 13.1 instead of running. I’m really looking forward to getting back to racing in 2012!

I have to say, as detrimental and hard it was for me to be injured – it’s been one of the greatest life lessons I’ve ever experienced. Going through this injury has made me such a strong person and changed my entire outlook on exercise, stress management, judging others and listening to my body. I think back to the nights early in the injury when I laid in bed balling my eyes out from sadness/frustration and I think how much different I am today from going through this process.

blogging

2011 was a great blogging year for me. I started the year unsure of the direction I wanted my blog to go in. I ended up keeping the same name and deciding to blog whatever I felt like, which is sort of what I was doing before

I redesigned my blog and released the new design in July. And while I still have a lot of other upgrades and features I want to add, I’m so happy with where my blog is now vs. a year ago.

I also attended Health Living Summit in August where met/made/saw some amazing blog friends. I decided slightly after returning from HLS to give up Google Reader and really focus on building focused, individual relationships with other bloggers. I joined the Foodie Pen Pals and have met so many beautiful and wonderful bloggers through this!

personal life

Personally, I’m a completely different person now vs. one year ago. I completely changed my outlook/methods with weight loss and I lost 25 pounds in 2011! I started Weight Watchers in July and kept it a secret until October, giving myself 3 months to adjust to the program. And within the last week, I’ve finally fit back into some of my clothes from 7-8 years ago. I’m about half way there!

I started focusing on dressing better in order to feel more confident about the body I have now in August. This continued on the blog through Fashion/Feel Good Fridays. I feel so much more confident about clothing, my body and the image I present to others since I have started this campaign.

This year I focused on being more positive and being less judgmental. I started reading and managed to read 42 books in 2011. I’ve focused on stress management, and while I still have work to do – I think I always will. I’m so much further in my journey to combat and deal with stress than I was a year ago.

I think overall – I’m more dedicated, focused, happier and fun to be around than I was when we started 2011. I’m so proud of myself for all the hard work I’ve done this year and all the benefits I’ve realized from this work.

So how did I do on the actual 2011 goals I set? Well, let’s recap those really quickly.

2011 goals recap

1. My non-stated goal was to lose weight this year, and lose weight I did. Accomplished! I’m down 25 pounds from when I started the year and I can’t wait to continue this into 2012.

2. Run a 1/2 marathon. Not accomplished. No, I did not accomplish this goal. However, this year I realized that running a half marathon is not in the cards for me anytime soon and I’m absolutely okay with that. Instead of running a half marathon this year: I overcame an injury, grew as a person, picked up a new hobby (reading) and became way more flexible in my hips/legs (thank you PT!)

3. Continue to make a 4.0 in school. Accomplished. I worked my booty off and made a 4.0 all three semesters this year. Go me!

4. Read 12 books in 2011. Accomplished. I really latched on to reading this year and replaced a lot of the time I spent exercising with reading when I was injured. I read 42 books in 2011! You can check out which books I read here.

5. Set monthly goals. Not accomplished. I started out the year with monthly goals, but quickly moved to weekly goals, then moved to not setting goals, then back to weekly goals and now daily goals. I set goals, so that’s good. I’m okay with not accomplishing this 100%.

6. Set a consistent exercise routine. Not accomplished. I think this one is self explanatory.

7. Start a yoga practice for spiritual reasons. Not accomplished. I did this for the first two months of the year, but when I became exercise restricted – I had to stop going to yoga. This goal was more to find a spiritual practice than it was to practice yoga all year. I don’t really feel I gave yoga enough of a chance for this reason, but I also don’t see myself going back anytime soon. So I’m once, again, stuck with finding a spiritual belief.

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8. Start an Etsy shop. Accomplished. So I technically accomplished this, though not in the way I was thinking I would. I wanted to start my own etsy shop, making jewelry to sell as a hobby. I ended up starting a shop to sell off the remaining inventory leftover from my mom’s old jewelry business. Do I want to start an etsy shop of my own now? No, not really. So I’m okay with this.

Looking back – my goals were really specific on some key things I thought that I wanted. But looking back, I’ve realized while these are things I may want, they are definitely not things I’ll be focusing on in 2012.

Tomorrow I’ll be back with information about a brand new January fitness challenge I’m starting and I’ll set my 2012 goals on Monday.

How did you do with your 2011 goals?