Jane/Susannah/Sadie here, who just tried to schedule a dinner date with a friend…on Super Bowl Sunday. In New England.
Clearly, I’m a little out of touch on certain things.
Since it’s January and all, I thought I’d share with you one of my goals for the New Year. And that is:
Do Things That Require Me To Step Out Of My Comfort Zone
Even just writing that down and putting it out there requires my taking a risk (Success #1, LOL!). I’m pretty sure most of us are in some kind of routine of actions that may or may not be serving us anymore. I may not have been paying attention to the football postseason schedule, but I have been paying attention to things I do just because I’ve always done them that way. For some things, that’s okay (my technique for boiling water, as an example, doesn’t really need tweaking). For others, well, there could be better ways of accomplishing goals and I’ve vowed to be open to new methods.
Health. Like a lot of people, I use January to make a commitment to get healthier. But this year, instead of vowing to lose weight and exercise more, I decided to try something new. For the last several weeks I’ve been following, not a weight loss plan, but a plan that eliminates foods with the potential to cause inflammation and allergies/sensitivity. It is very strict–no dairy, grains, sugar, legumes (which means no peanut butter *sob*), or processed food. Eventually, I can introduce these foods back into my diet one at a time and see what’s causing me problems. I’m not gonna lie. It’s been difficult. But not impossible.
And the results have been astounding. Aside from an almost unbelievable double-digit weight loss, I am sleeping like a baby. I no longer crave a nap in the afternoon. I almost never crave sugar anymore. And most wonderful of all: the chronic stuffy nose I’ve had my entire life is now completely clear. I am giddy with all this extra oxygen. All this, because I took a chance on something that looked too scary, too darned hard, before.
Knitting. Yes, knitting! I taught myself to knit, from instructions in a magazine, when I was 7 years old. I have always had a quirk in my knitting that has required me to fiddle with patterns. Stitches came out with a little twist, unless I knitted into the back of the stitch (basic knitting involves putting the needle into the front of the stitch). Most of the time I can make it work, but some more complicated lace and eyelet patterns just don’t. I have never been able to figure out why–and I never asked anyone to watch my technique and tell me. Finally, I sat down with a basic how-to-knit video on YouTube, and I understood. It wasn’t the knit stitches that were the problem. They came out twisted because I was wrapping the yarn around the needle the wrong direction on the purl stitches on the back side of the knitted fabric. This seems like a small thing but it honestly was like solving a mystery–one I’d put off addressing for decades. Now to train myself to do the purls correctly!
Writing. This year, I vow to write something other than a cozy mystery, in a completely different genre. To stretch myself. To see if I can do it. Just to see what happens. I’ve already begun the research and some of the outlining. I’ll report back on this one.
How about you? Have you taken a risk lately? Tried something new?