I love symmetry, alliteration, patterns. So of course, when I heard of Stephany and Katherine’s plan of doing 12 Changes in 12 Months in the year 2012, it made me go LOVE! And then it made me go sign up.

And then of course, I had to stop and think about what are the 12 changes I actually want to make.

First, there’s the obvious. The weight. The weight that I managed to shave off in a few months, but has slowly crept back onto my body in the latter half of the year. Boo. So not the intention behind slaving away at the gym for hours (or even at home, thanks to Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred). Getting the weight down is definitely a priority.

Then there’s other things: improving relationships, expanding my mind, broadening my horizons. All the those “really good intentions” that we somehow forget about around January 17. At least, that’s when I seem to forget about them.

The idea behind 12 Changes is that 12 small changes will yield big results if done consistently over a long period of time. Ironically, it was something that was mentioned in my Stratejoy Holiday Council: people often overestimate what they can do in a day, but they underestimate what they can do in a year.

I’m still plugging away at my 101 Things list, which honestly has a lot of resolutions and goals built into it. My hope is that the 12 Changes project will help make some of these bigger goals a reality, by encouraging me to focus on them and incorporate habits into my life that will make them easier (like running a 10K or getting my A1c under 7%).

A lot of folks I’ve seen are talking about their 12 changes in quarters, so they’re only posting 3 at a time. I think this is a great plan, because obviously throughout the year, desires and abilities change and progress in ways that aren’t predictable. Some habits may take longer to develop before you can move on to the next one, whereas other habits might occur naturally without you even realizing. Overall, my resolution this year is to make Healthy Choices. That is my overarching theme and goal for the entire year. My 12 Changes will hopefully yield a healthier person by the end of it. To start off the year, here are 3 changes that I’m choosing to make that I think will make me a healthier person:

• January

Log my blood sugars once a week. This has been a major goal of mine for several years now and it’s something that I just have not developed. I want to start slowly with this goal, so the habit I want to develop is to take 30 minutes every week, on Friday, to sit down with my meter and my insulin pump and log my blood sugars and then analyze them. Color code, look for trends or variables. Later on in the year, I want to increase the frequency of logging, but for right now, once a week is what I’m doing. When I get my CGM, I also plan to download my data once a week to look for trends.

• February

Spend more time with friends. This has been another goal I’ve had for myself the last several years since moving to the East Coast and realizing I have all of 5 friends. I’ve gotten into a bad habit of casually saying to people, “Oh, we should hang out some time!” and then never doing it. That’s terrible. It’s so easy to find things to do in NYC and there’s really no reason why I don’t do more things with more people. My goal is to have at least one friend date a week. Four dates out of 30 days does not seem like that much to me.

(P.S. If you want to have a friend date with me, let me know!)

• March

Spend 30 minutes a day reading. I don’t read enough. And again, it’s one of those things I tell myself every year that I’m going to do more. But I don’t and then I get all sad and mopey when I see all these other people reading 50, 60, 70 books a year and I can barely eke out 10. And I’m a writer for Pete’s sake! Of all the people in the world who should be reading, it’s writers! I am a disgrace to my kind.

Other plans include: digital sabbaticals; regular wake-up calls / bedtimes; date nights with my husband; and regularly saving my money. I thought about incorporating weight loss and calorie counting into my 12 Changes, but honestly, those are more like old habits I want to pick up again. I didn’t really want to waste time when there are other habits I need to start. Regular exercise (4-5 days a week) and calorie counting are starting as soon as we get back from Vegas!

Are you participating in the 12 Changes in 12 Months challenge? I would love to hear from you if you are so I can get to know everyone! I’d also love to know if you make resolutions / goals at the beginning of the year. For the most part, I rely on my 101 Things Challenge to keep me motivated and working towards goals, but I’m looking forward to see what kinds of changes I can make for myself between now and the end of the year.

Do you make resolutions? What do you think of them?