2012: Switching Things Up

Good Evening!

I've been thinking of writing this hub for so long now. This hub will be about the year 2012 and what it meant for me to "switch things up". I think I found myself in a rut over the last few years because I simply denied myself the freedom of trying new things and doing things differently. I think I grew bored with myself and possibly put myself in a rut that I could have easily avoided. This hub is about just that, switching things up, reinventing myself and discovering new things. This has definitely been an awesome year for me. Check it out.

Oh. I almost forgot. I will be writing a companion to this hub next week so I want everyone to check out that one too. These are all personal hubs that I have been planning for so long. I've finally sucked it up and wrote them. I think it's just too easy to get distracted. Anyway, continue on. Hope you like the path photo I picked out from Google. It's pretty awesome. I wish I could find photo ops like that around where I live!

It was just time, I suppose. I'm twenty-four, no kids, no spouse. I'm FREE!! I should be able to explore life in more depth, do things differently every now and then. I think I just realized, I'm stuck in my ways. That's an old term that older people say when people have set their ways of living their lives. However, I felt that I wasn't quite there yet. I decided that I should do several things in 2012. Dress Differently, Meet New People, Lose Weight, Change My Mindset. These things were then set in my mind and I took on the journey of seeing these things come to fruition. Of course none of these were as important as losing weight, though I'll explain that in detail along with the others.

So, for those of you who don't know me. I'm a pretty modest dresser and in a lot of ways I still am. I think I like to dress so normal that I don't want people to notice me and that hasn't really helped me ego or self-esteem in the past few years. I think not getting noticed hurt me so I started to strive for something a bit different. Instead of my regular blue jeans, white tennis shoes, and plaid shirt, I thought I'd switch it up a bit. I bought some awesome three button T-shirts that have striped designs (I NEVER buy stripes). I got them in a size that wasn't so baggy and big on me. I definitely feel better about my clothes fitting against my actual form. I stopped buying these light colored jeans and got darker ones. I know these things are mundane but they drastically changed the outlook that people have on me. I even bought black tennis shoes. That's something I NEVER do. I said "okay, I'm doing things differently now." I actually can say now I don't regret it anymore. My friend convinced me to get them. Dressing differently has gotten me more compliments and it's made me so much happier. I wanna switch things up even more... maybe not always wear tennis shoes or wear more solid colors? I don't know... I should try new things more often right?

So when high school ended, a lot of my high school friends moved away and started their lives elsewhere. The only people I had left were my best friend/roommate, friends I met through him, and one remaining friend from high school that I rarely see. Now I work at a Chick-Fil-A where I get to talk to people all day. Some of those people have been become good friends, while others I just don't talk with too terribly often. My fault in this area was that I hadn't experienced spending time with different people, or meeting new people and getting to know them. I wrote an article earlier this year about "Letting Someone Else In" or developing another close friend. I actually grew closer to one of my co-workers (not pictured). She and I have always been good friends, but we haven't connected nearly as well now as we did a few years ago. So that's been awesome. I've made some other friends at work and spent time with them. I learned about being myself and accepting the fact that people actually like me and want to spend time with me. So in turn, I felt so much better about myself. All I had to do was speak up, get to know people more, make a better effort. I think I had grown so comfortable beforehand, not opening myself up. Now I know it's not too hard to meet new people and develop friendships. Learning has enriched my live over the past year.

Oh, my, gosh. So none of you guys knew me when I was 50lbs heavier. I used to weigh 268lbs. That put me in the "obese" category. For the longest time I just didn't care enough about my body to do anything about it. I ate whatever I wanted, drank tons of soda and at tons of chips (Doritos is my favorite by the way). I just got tired of being so big because I knew if I really wanted to, I could lose that weight and be healthier (or have a healthier weight/blood pressure/cholesterol level). So yeah this past summer I started doing a "Low-Carb" Diet. I did this along with one of my managers at work. She claimed it worked really well combined with exercise. At first it was so hard. I had to give up bread, pasta, chips, rice, beans, fruits (for a little while). I ate meals with lots of fiber, protein, and complex carbohydrates. I exercised three times a week on the treadmill and the pounds started sliding off. People were starting to notice. I STILL have people noticing my weight loss. I feel really good to have accomplished it. It really has done a wonder on my self-esteem and my health. I sleep better, I have more energy. This is what "switching things up" has done for me!

So all those things above were all awesome for me this year. They were awesome. Like life changing. I'm a new person, happier, healthier, and striving for more things. The greatest accomplishment this year is changing my mindset. I'm taking more risks... What I mean by this is that I'm doing things that could possibly be awesome for me. Joining HubPages was one of those risks. I never wanted to come here and really put the time in. I think I was afraid that I would do poorly. That fear kept me from taking many risks over the past year. No more of those fears. It's time to step up! I've already begun a new method of promoting myself. Now that 2012 is coming to a close, my goals for 2013 are being made known. One of them is living Happy and Healthy. I will do whatever I can to achieve that goal. 2012 has been an awesome year of "switching things up" and really taking the risks and making the changes to live a Happier and Healthier in 2013. Thanks for reading everyone! Keep It Real ;)