I’m pleased to announce that my January resolution went well. If you didn’t read my blog post, I was inspired by a friend of mine to have small resolutions each month, as well as more general ones to keep throughout the year. My resolution for January was a shopping ban. This meant not buying anything extra that I didn’t need.

Here’s a summary of the purchases I made versus ones I didn’t make:

Things I purchased: BTS’ new album, concert and musical tickets, yarn to make a new scarf, and a a few gifts to send a friend in Korea.

Thins I refrained from purchasing: Hygiene products (shampoo, body wash, etc), make-up, clothes, shoes and accessories.

The purpose of this ban was to work on my materialistic sensibilities. Instead of buying multiples of something that I already had, I wanted to have one and use it before buying more. Even though the things I purchased in January cost me more than the things I refrained from purchasing, it was the reasoning behind each purchase, or non-purchase, that was important.

Even though one month in the long run might not make much of a difference in terms of what I actually own, it was a good practice to work toward changing the process of how I make my purchases. One purpose of this ban was to use my money on things that I wanted to do more, instead of the things I didn’t actually need.

Now that we are going into February, I have a new resolution.

This month, I am not taking away or choosing not to do something. My new resolution is to read more. I don’t want to be specific in this goal, because telling myself I need to read for 30 minutes every day might be hard to accomplish or end up feeling like a task rather than something enjoyable.

My goal is to spend more time for myself.

This might look different for everyone, but as an introvert and literature lover, spending quality time reading makes me happy, and is rejuvenating. With reading more, the hope is to spend less time scrolling through social media or on things that aren’t as productive. While I don’t think my personal use of social media is toxic, I do believe that spending an extra few minutes reading instead will be more beneficial.

For those of you who know me personally, you are aware that I used to be an avid reader. What that means to me, is that I used to read 200 books or more a year. Although to be fair, that was also when I was in school and had to read for class, or didn’t have a job. But ever since I graduated university, I haven’t been reading as much. Last year I read 34 books, and while some might consider this a lot, I would personally like to read more. This year one of my resolutions is to read 50 books. Even though this will be accomplished in one year, I decided to incorporate it into my monthly resolutions as well because it’s the small steps that will help me achieve this goal.

So I will keep this month more of an open-ended goal. I will commit to being more mindful of habits in my spare time and think twice about picking up my phone rather than a book. And who knows, maybe I will finally read those books that have been sitting on my shelf for years.