At the beginning of the year, I always would like to ask myself the following questions:
- What I have accomplished for the last year?
- What I would like to accomplish for the new year?
- What I did not quite do right in the past yar?
- How I am going to accomplish more in the new year?
When I ask myself the above questions, I feel very guilty for what I haven't done and what I could have done.
This is called the new year's resolution. A lot of people often perform reflection in the new year and set plans for the upcoming new year.
First thing first, what I have accomplished for the year of 2015:
- Received positive news for my first NSF grant
- Taught my first course: Mineralogy
- Gave an invited talk at the AGU fall meeting
- Renovated my large volume press laboratory, now housing four big presses for pressurecooker-like work.
What I have not accomplished and what are under my own expectation in the year of 2015:
- Weak publication. I should have written more papers, rather than proposals.
- Procrastination -- always wait for the last moment to finish my work, which actually made my life quite stressful.
- Lack of motivation of exercising and becoming healthier. After I purchased the parking permit, I stopped biking to work. And my body weight significantly increased. My body mass index (BMI), for the first time, falls into the lower end of the overweight range.
- Spent little time with family, especially kids. Even at night, I worked in my office. However, the productivity is quite bad. In other words, the imbalance of life style really gave me hard time in focusing on my work.
So what is the new year's resolution for myself? In the year of 2016, I am planning to establish some good habits and overcome the bad habits one by one.
- Read more books, not only books in my research field, but some general topic books. Reading more good books makes one live wise. Read the books in the Book Reading List.
- Write routinely. Everyday, spend 30 minutes and write at least 700 words. Do not check how good the writing is. Just sit down and start to write. Remember, the 3R principals of effective writing: Revise, revise and revise. You can always have the opportunity to revise your articles.
- Overcome (probably not that easy, but I will try my best) procrastination. Always set the deadline 2-3 days earlier and work towards the deadline.
- Establish a good habit every six weeks. See Habit List.
- Run 3 times a week. This can be done in the morning or in the afternoon.
And most importantly, what is the new year's resolution for my family? Family is what I value the most important part of one's life. I am blessed that I have a nice family, with two little and lovely kids. In the new year, I am planning to accomplish the following:
- Read to kids every day.
- Give them a decent and memorable vacation to the family.
- Spend more time with wife and kids.
- Learn to cook nutritious and healthy breakfast for the family.
- Be a role model for the kids.
There are always more things I would like to accomplish. Let me start from small things first, one after another. And I believe more will be accomplished by the end of the year. I am writing more reflections in this personal blogs to keep track of the changes I made and things I finished.
Change will come; may you have the wisdom and courage to adapt -- Robert Hazen
I believe my life will become better if I start to change now on an incremental basis.