2017 Goals | HAPPY NEW YEAR

New year post featuring my favorite picture of 2016.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I wanted to post this post before 2017, but the WiFi won't cooperate with me. The WiFi didn't even let me to post a "hello 2017" to my Facebook account, what a wonderful thing the WiFi is. I can rant a lot of things about my WiFi here but this post is about the new year, so let's talk about the new year.

It's 0:22 AM when I'm writing this, and my family is sleeping safe and soundly and I can't believe it. It's 2017, and I'm still breathing even with the visible and invisible scars and pains, Alhamdulillah. I'm given another chance to type down some of my 2017 goals, although, let's be real here, some of them are unaccomplished 2016 goals. But starting a new year with new goals are far better than starting without any. At least you have this vision of who you want to be in the end of 2017.

"But what's the point of trying? I'm just going to fail," someone once said to me. And my response was simple: "So what? Who cares? If you fail, you fail. Big deal." Success involves failing first.

-Connor Franta, A Work of Progress

G#1: Beating procrastination.

If you don't know, 2017 is the year I will be taking my SPM. I can't believe it! I've been slacking a lot in form 4, I really need to increase my efforts if I want to increase my grade. One of my bad habits that always gives me a trouble is procrastination. I'm a big procrastinator, even if some of my friends don't believe me when I say this. I'm one of those people who studies a week before exam and for some subjects, the night before the exam. If I want to ace in my study, I need to throw any bad quality in me and try to replace it with the opposite, good one.

Luckily I stumbled upon Liyana's post a few days ago, and it helped me! I'm also going to use a planner next year since I'm a forgetful person.

G#2: Don't label and don't be affected by labels.

Our society is big in labeling people with stereotypes. And I am always too affected by it. I'm already anxious even without these ridiculous things existing in my life, so it really affected my anxiety level. One of my sufferings in 2016 is this, and it ruined a lot of things. So, in order to make the most of 2017, I need to face my anxiety and step one is: don't care about the labels people give to me.

"Who are you?

Answer: You are who you are in this given moment. Label-less. Limit-less."

Another Connor Franta's quote. I'll be saying this to myself every morning each day.

G#3: Take more chances to get out of my comfort zone.

If someone asks me what had I got from my anxiety, it is that I always missed out because I'm too scared of doing things. And one thing about me: I hate missing out. I hate opening my social media accounts and looking at my friends' pictures of them having fun without me. This might sounds very selfish, but I hate it when I'm missing out of these things, when I have been given a chance to join it, but I declined it because:

1. I think that I might look stupid if I join it, because I never do this thing.

2. I'm ugly today.

3. I'm too fat to do this.

4. What if those people that I will meet hate me?

5. What if I become a loner in that program?

and the ridiculous reasons went on and on. I missed out a lot, and I decided I don't want to miss out anymore. In order to do that, I need to stop thinking the negatives and see the positive side.

G#4: Focus.

I need to be more focused. It's my senior year, the last year of me being a secondary school student and if I learn something from years of being a student, it is that I need to stop playing around too much if I want to succeed in everything. I need to minimize my playing around and maximizing my focus towards things that are important. Playing around is okay, but always put the important things first.

G#5: Try to talk to someone when I think of something bad.

One of my mistakes growing up: I bottle up almost everything I feel. Never once that I thought that it would be good to talk about my feelings to people because I was too anxious that they'll judge me about how I feel. I had a few best friends back then, but we parted away. I didn't have anyone to talk to, I didn't trust my close friends and I couldn't talk to my Ma. 

However, when things were going all wrong this year, I decided to talk about my feelings to my Ma. And that was a really brilliant decision, because when I started to open up, I became happier. I lost tons of weight when I was so unhappy, I went from 63 kg to 57 kg without even exercising and just by losing my appetite. That decision is proven to be brilliant when I gained weights after that and I simply became happier.

I learn that feelings that led to bad thoughts shouldn't be bottled up, and I will try not to do the very same thing again in 2017.

These are some of my goals for this year. My sole focus in 2017 is improving the qualities in me and trying to make the most of my life while living with my anxiety.

Happy New Year (again)! May 2017 be a wonderful, great and full of excitement and joy. I hope all of us will survive 2017 with strength and patience. I hope that we can accomplish all the goals that we set for this year! 🙆

Love,

Afifah Nabila. xo