It’s hard to believe, but the first quarter of this year just flew by. Back in January, I shared a list of my New Year’s resolutions for 2026. Just like I did last year, I decided to share my progress every quarter. So, let’s take a look at the last three months and see how I did! As expected, it’s a mix of successes and failures, but I still have 9 months left this year – plenty of time to accomplish all of my goals.
Fitness – get back into a (balanced) routine
Last year, I struggled with what felt like a never-ending chain of injuries and other health issues. Combined with my busy schedule, it caused me to drop out of my regular exercise routine, which used to be really busy. This year, my goal is to get back into a routine, making sure that it’s a balanced one – I often go from 0% to 200%, and that’s not great either.
Generally speaking, I think I’m on the right track. I started slow, and have been gradually ramping up the intensity. My current weekly routine includes two resistance training sessions, a dance class, and 1-2 cardio sessions. It’s a good start! I’d like to push myself harder during the strength training workouts, and maybe add an additional cardio session – I’m thinking running, when the weather is consistently good. But overall, I’m really pleased with my progress towards this resolution!
Fitness – flexibility, stretching, back exercises
My second fitness-related resolution was to regularly do flexibility and stretching exercises, with a focus on my lower back – issues with my lower back caused me a lot trouble last year, and I’m well aware that prevention is key. I’ve been pretty good at doing those exercises regularly, a few times a week. Ideally, I’d like to increase it to most days, and then keep it up long term. But, overall: good progress so far!
Crafts – two wearable projects
The next category of my New Year’s resolutions was related to arts & crafts. The first of them was to make two wearable projects – crocheted or embroidered.
I actually made a start on one of those projects during Christmas 2025! I bought an assorted crochet set for making a granny square tote bag. I’m very close to finishing it now! I just need to add the handle. Whether it’s actually wearable at the end, we’ll see. For now, its shape isn’t looking great. I hope that once it’s finished, I can block it and stretch it so it actually looks like a usable tote bag.
Crafts – use up hoarded supplies
My next resolution was to use up some of my hoarded arts & crafts supplies and assorted DIY sets, whilst resisting the urge to buy more of them.
I did end up buying a few items, but I’m really proud of not going overboard. I’ve seen some amazing bargains in TK Maxx and if it wasn’t for this resolution, I would have bought like 10 or 15 new cross stitch and crochet sets. But, I managed to resist! I was able to complete a few of the old sets I bought last year too. I still have a mountain of projects to do, but it’s a good start. I’m pretty sure the net result for Q1 is completing more projects than the number of those I acquired new supplies for. It’s something!
Be minimalistic/reduce consumptionism
This resolution goes well with the previous one. Besides slowing down my arts & crafts hoarding tendencies, I wanted to apply a similar mindset to other areas: clothes, makeup, food cupboard and so on. Just because something is cheap and I can afford it, doesn’t mean I should get it!
With this resolution in mind, I did stop myself from spending money quite a few times this quarter. I did cave in a few times too, but I’ve definitely done better than I normally would. I had a couple of oopsies, unfortunately, forgetting to return a few items on time. But overall, this quarter was definitely an improvement.
Reading – 7 books
I set myself a humble goal of reading 7 books this year. At the end of last year, I bought a Kindle device, and I thought it was going to encourage me to read more – especially when travelling or queuing somewhere. Books are heavy and not so practical to carry around, whereas my Kindle is slim and easy to carry around.
The good thing is that I did read quite regularly this quarter. The bad thing is that I only finished one book. I decided to read a book that we studied back in high school. More of a serious one, written in archaic language. Quite long, too. I remembered enjoying it, as far as mandatory school reading goes. Well, clearly, my standards were different when I was at school. I really struggled with that book. I didn’t want to give up, but it took me ages to finish it. Luckily, I did! Now, I can move to reading more enjoyable stories. I recently started reading a new book, and it’s going a lot better. I hope I get to 7 books by the end of the year!
Study my Spanish textbook from high school
After finishing the Spanish course on Duolingo last year, my goal was to continue learning Spanish. I decided to go through my old Spanish textbook from high school. It’s a basic one, but I hoped it would help me organise my grammar skills better than Duolingo did. My resolution was to go through that old textbook this year. It has 15 units: 3-4 per quarter of the year. I already got through 5! Those early sections were super easy, though. I hope I get to more advanced grammar concepts soon.
Learn to incorporate AI in my job
My 2026 resolution for my professional career was to learn to incorporate AI in my day to day work. Whether we like it or not, AI is here to stay, and being able to use it efficiently will be an important skill to have. In my workplace, we have access to great tools, but I’ve been struggling to set aside time to properly learn to use them.
I made a small amount of progress this quarter, having spent two days watching tutorials and workshops on AI coding (I’m a software engineer). I’m still far away from unlocking the full potential of AI coding support, but I did manage to take the first steps in the right direction.
Push myself to do two things I always wanted to do but lacked the courage for
I’ll be honest – I made this resolution with 2 specific things in mind. I had a plan to do them at the start of January. In fact, I even had one of them booked. Unfortunately, in an unexpected turn of events, my January plans were changed, and I was no longer able to do any of the two things. One of them, I still hope to do later this year – it requires booking something that’s only available on selected dates, and for now, all of them fell on days when I was busy or travelling. But I’m pretty sure the stars will eventually align and I will be able to book that thing.
As for the second one, I’m not sure if I will be able to do what I had originally planned. But I might choose something else to challenge myself with, we’ll see.
Final thoughts
So that’s my progress on New Year’s Resolutions 2026 after three months. I feel like it’s going relatively well! I will share my progress again at the six-month checkpoint at the end of June, so stay tuned!
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