2020 is the year that it was. I am not going to dwell on it. Not going to write a recap of that year. I am looking forward to the future and planning for all the great things to come.

When I think about the future I think about two areas that are important to me. I love and enjoy working on my creative endeavors through my photography. My health and fitness ties directly into that in many ways. Those are the two biggest areas I am thinking about when it comes to 2021.

Photography

There are so many different paths my photography has taken me down over the years. In 2021 I hope to discover some new paths less taken.

Social Media

I want to work harder at connecting with more like minded people on social media and trying to build a community with others who care about the same things that I do. The goal I’m striving for is to post at least two times a day on my three main social media channels of Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. I started this in late 2020 and I am going to continue it through 2021. The specific content I share will vary. Right now I am sharing a series of quotes that I like. The first series I am in the middle of is motivational quotes. Then I plan to move on to photography and nature inspired quotes and so on.

One Photo A Day

The winter months are often a time when my photography and creativity can stall if I let it. It’s easy to find the excuses that give me permission to not take action on my art and not do the work. To try to find added motivation and inspiration I am working on a One Photo A Day Challenge for the month of January. I will take at least 1 new photograph every day in January and I will share 1 photo here on the blog. Good, bad, or ugly you will see it here. I have completed the first 2 days and day 3 will be up later today.

Giving Back

I want to use my art to give back to my community more. I am currently trying to figure out a way to sell most of the physical photography art I have created and have on hand and donate most of the proceeds from that to a few local not for profits that I want to support. My website, KRNaturalPhoto, offers digital images where portions of the proceeds are donated to NFPs. I need to develop ways to boost those too. I want to donate more time and photography services to organizations I support. If anyone has ideas or way we can collaborate please get in touch.

First Photos Series

As an artist who often lacks self confidence I want to try and work to inspire other artists to keep working at their craft. I know it can be hard at times, especially when first starting out. It is always hard to see our artwork as good enough or as making progress towards our goals. We may think our work is terrible when we start out and that may discourage us from working and committing to it so we can get better. I am thinking about publishing a series of images that will be images I shot when I first started in photography paired with an image of the same subject that I created recently. My hope is that such a series would help inspire others to keep working at their craft and keep growing.

Arts Festival

I love the area that I live in. I keep thinking that the only thing the town I grew up in is missing is an arts festival. So I reached out to a local organization and asked if they are interested in working together so I could put on an arts festival. The organization I reached out to said they are interested in putting one on. If this works out this might be one of the scariest things I have done. This is a bit outside my wheelhouse, but it is something I am passionate about. I am going to reach out to everyone I know and draw on all the resources I have available to try and make this happen.

Health and Fitness

My health and fitness has centered around mostly running in the past. Recently my goal has been to become more well rounded and include more fitness activities like cycling, yoga, and strength training. I love running and working on my fitness, but I do not love exercise because I love to work out. I love running and fitness because of all the benefits it brings me elsewhere in my life. Being healthy allows me to explore and pursue my passions with my camera.

No Junk Food January

My weakness this past year especially has been eating too much junk food. Being vegan does not equal healthy eating. A lot of my unhealthy eating comes from eating when I do not need to be eating. I eat because I am tired. I eat because I am bored. Or I eat because I am having an emotional reaction to something. And when I am eating for any of those reasons the last thing I want to do is eat something healthy. My goal for January is to cut out the junk food. No candy. No Desserts. No fast food. And no eating out.

Dry January

Another aspect of my diet that is not particularly helpful to my overall health is the consumption of alcohol, mainly in the form of beer. I don’t think that I drink an excessive amount of beer, at least not regularly, but I probably average close to one beer a day. Adding beer to a diet that already hasn’t been particularly healthful of late is just adding more calories that are not bringing any nutritional value to the table. Then add in the possible detrimental effects of consuming alcohol to begin with and I am sure its not a recipe for feeling ones best.

My plan is to stop drinking beer at home. I will not even keep beer at home for the month of January. Being that we are still in the middle of a global pandemic this is effectively cutting out all beer consumption. But as I see it, if something happens in January where I am actually able to go out and have a beer with a friend then that might be a reason worth having a beer for.

30 Day Movement Challenge

This year I am a Picky Bar Ambadassador. I really like their products. They taste great and are healthy foods. Our group of Ambadasassadors is having a 30 Day Movement Challenge for the month of January. The goal is to complete some form of movement for at least 30 minutes every day in January. It doesn’t matter what kind of movement it is as long as it is for 30 minutes. I can walk, hike, run, bike, or do strength training, or yoga.

I really like this version of a streak because it allows me to have a streak for motivation but also allows for variability. It will also make it easier to complete because there is less risk of injury because I can switch up the exercises I am doing. It also will accommodate working around an injury better than most types of streaks. This will be great for me because the winter months can always be tough to get motivated to get moving.

Another 100 Miler?

A friend and I have started talking about the possibility of taking on a 100 mile race this year. I am not 100% sure this will happen at this point, but I am pretty excited by the prospect of it. To make this happen I need to get my health and fitness back to where it has been previously and heal some minor nagging injuries. I think all the other things I am taking on in January will help me get there.

Friends

To me you can’t talk about health and fitness without addressing mental health. One of the best parts about my health and fitness journey has been that it has allowed me to make a lot of friends that I would not have otherwise made. This has been good for my mental health. I have met most of these friends while pursuing our health and fitness goals and I continue to see them mainly when we ware working on our health and fitness. Mostly I see my running friends when we go for a run.

I always enjoy seeing my friends outside of our normal health and fitness routines and I would like to make that a bigger part of my life. I want to expand and deepen my friendships to go outside our health and fitness routines. This is where I struggle as a friend. I am never good at reaching out to friends and inviting them to get together. My goal for this year is to do better at that. I will invite my friends to hang out more often.

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