The older I get, the faster time flies. How can it possibly be end of September already? I swear the year only began not long ago. Well, it’s time for a 9 month check-in for my New Year’s resolutions. I set myself some goals at the start of the year, in a variety of areas. Some of them, I worked quite hard on achieving. Others, admittedly, haven’t gone too well so far. But with 3 months to go, I still have a chance to achieve my goals! For now, let’s take an honest look at how I’m doing so far.
Fitness – get back into a (balanced) routine
Honestly, I’m not sure whether this resolution is a success. I’ve had a really active summer, though not particularly balanced or sustainable. My favourite thing to do was go on a long walk/hike, pretty much every Saturday. And by ‘long’, I mean 20, 30, or even 40 kilometres. The weather was great, and I particularly enjoyed walking along the English Coast Path. But when days get shorter and colder, I won’t be able to keep it up.
As far as other types of activities go, I’ve been forcing myself to do resistance trainings twice a week, only failing occasionally – often when my lower back was acting up, which, annoyingly, happens too often. A couple of years ago, it would have been unthinkable for me to miss a strength training! I need to work on finding that motivation again, and hope my lower back stops bothering me.
I also did a run this quarter, just one. And somehow, I ran the longest distance in my life: 18 kilometres! I’ve not run since March, so that came out of nowhere. Looks like walking crazy distances every weekend really built up my endurance.
I still do my dance classes every week, so overall, I’ve been pretty active with a variety of activities. It just doesn’t feel like an established routine yet.
Fitness – flexibility, stretching, back exercises
My update this quarter is exactly the same as 3 months ago. I do stretching and flexibility exercises in my weekly dance classes and as part of my resistance training, but I haven’t been doing any additional back health exercises in between, unfortunately. This might explain why I’ve spent so many days in bed with back issues this year. Something to work on in the last quarter of the year!
Crafts – two wearable projects
I started so well after Christmas last year… I bought a DIY set for making a granny square crocheted tote bag, and nearly completed it at the start of January… and never touched it since. Sigh! I’m sure I can finish it in about 3 evenings, I’m just lacking motivation. I still have 3 months, that’s more than enough time to finish the bag!
As for the second item, I started the year with a few ideas, but recently, a new one popped in my head! I need to find the necessary supplies in my stash, but hopefully, you’ll soon see a tutorial for some unique DIY jewellery… watch this space!
Crafts – use up hoarded supplies
About that… I’ve been working through my stash of DIY supplies, and I’ve completed a fair few projects – mainly cross stitch and crochet ones, as I have a high number of assorted sets to go through. At the same time, I’ve been trying my best to resist buying any new ones… Which hasn’t been a full success. Unfortunately, I did buy a few new cross stitch and crochet sets. They were too cute! I think I just need to stop going to TK Maxx every day to stay away from temptations.
I’m pretty sure I completed more sets than I bought, so that’s progress. But I still have tons to go through. This resolution might end up getting extended to 2027, I’m afraid. It certainly didn’t help that around summer, I decided I was into watercolours now, and bought lots of new tools and supplies to entertain my new hobby.
Be minimalistic/reduce consumption
I had a more general resolution related to being minimalistic and reducing consumption or buying things I don’t need. I feel like I’m doing… okay-ish? I try not to buy new clothes, and although I did get some (a few of them, I regret), I also managed to resist on multiple occasions. The bane of my existence are the craft supplies.
I got a few kitchen items I probably shouldn’t have, and I definitely have much to work on. But at least it hasn’t been a complete failure, and when I do buy something, I do it with guilt!
Reading – 7 books
I started the year reading Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz, a Polish Nobel Prize winner in literature. I read that book back in secondary school – it’s a classic in Polish literature, and part of the curriculum. It’s not exactly an easy read, and it took me a while to get through!
After that, I moved to more modern titles. I read two medical thrillers by Robin Cook: Fatal Cure and Fever. I used to love Robin Cook’s books as a teenager, I read a large number of them, but forgot them all.
I also read a book for work, recommended to me by my manager when I moved to a leadership role: The Multipliers. This means I’m at 4/7. Let’s see what I can do before the end of the year!
Study my Spanish textbook from high school
Last year, I finished the Spanish course on Duolingo. I’ve continued doing the daily refresher lessons every day to protect my streak, but I wanted to take my learning to the next level, as Duolingo has its flaws. I have an old Spanish textbook from high school, and my plan was to go through it all page by page. It’s an elementary level book, but it has some words that I’ve not seen on Duolingo, and it focuses on explaining the grammar a lot better than Duo does. The book has 15 units, so the goal was to do 3-4 per quarter. I finished 5, all at the start of the year, and never touched the book again. What a failure! If I can get to the middle of that book by the end of the year, I might extend this resolution to 2027, and hopefully finish it then.
Learn to incorporate AI in my job
As always, I want to start this update with some disclaimers. My job is in software engineering. This blog is not my job, and I don’t use AI here!
I’m not a fan of AI and data centres, but unfortunately, AI has become an essential part of my career, and it can indeed be quite helpful. The truth is, it’s an industry where you need to move with the times, or you become irrelevant.
I started using new tools in recent months, and I’ve definitely used AI more than before. I’m certainly not an expert, but I’m pretty happy with the progress I’ve made over the last few months!
Push myself to do two things I always wanted to do but lacked the courage for
I don’t have much of an update on this one, sadly. I made this resolution with specific things in mind, and one of them fell through in January. I did manage to do the other, though, back in the spring. This resolution might end up 50% complete, unless I manage to think of a different thing to do.
Final thoughts
So that concludes the 9 month update on my 2026 New Year’s Resolutions. I feel like, all in all, it’s not going too bad? Resolutions aren’t meant to be easy to complete before spring even ends, they’re meant to motivate you to improve and work on yourself. I still have 3 months for a final push, but overall, I don’t want to be too harsh on myself. It’s the effort that matters.
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