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Episode 40 Year of the Ox and Resolutions
Year of the Ox Resolution

Episode 40 Year of the Ox and Resolutions

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In this podcast episode, we talk about the Year of the Ox (2021) and review the SMART method to resolutions.

Links to resources/articles referenced in the episode:

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Sound credit by Zapslat.com

TRANSCRIPT:

Hello! Welcome to the Sally in the Zen podcast. I’m your host, Sally. I’m a Zen Buddhist caregiver taking care of my elderly folks, and always in pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome! If you’re not new, and you’re returning, welcome back!

So hope all of you are staying safe and staying sane. Happy Chinese New Year, which was ushered in on, what, Friday the 12th, into the New Year of the Ox. 

So today’s episode is going to actually just be a touch base on where my family and I are and we’re going to look a little briefly at the Year of the Ox, and then talk about resolutions and, actually how to make them into tangible things that we can achieve by using the SMART method. 

So if you’re interested let’s get started.

Now starting first with my Mom and Dad – catch up on them. Pop is still waiting for his full dentures. We had last got fitted for the model and we now have the model waiting in the dentist office for us to see if it fits. And, if it does, it… then the dentist is going to send it over to the manufacturer to make it into actual permanent acrylic dentures. But I had touched on this on last episode, I believe – the day before we got the call from the dentist saying, hey, come on in, stop on by, we’re going to try out your teeth, and then we’re going to send it to the manufacturers.

The day before that phone call, a family friend had called us and let us know that her son had gone to the dentist and he got COVID, and ended up in the hospital for two whole weeks. And she was warning my Dad not to go out, warning Mom not to go out, and she basically scared the bejesus out of Mom and Dad.  And we had agreed with the dentist to wait until after Chinese New Year, which is now, February, right. So the phone call happened sometime in January.  We were going to wait until after Chinese New Year’s to try them out, and that has been scheduled for this coming Friday. So that’s exciting. 

At this point, Pop’s just like, I want solid food. I want to eat meat. That he just wants to sink his teeth – get it? teeth? – into something hard but at the same time he’s still worried about… you know… the disease out there and all that bad stuff. And I don’t blame him.

The first thing I did as soon as I had heard the State of PA had a website – if you’re interested in getting the vaccine, you sign up on their website – and I did. So we’re waiting now for the vaccine. We shall see.

And as for Zen Mum, Zen Mum is relatively happy and healthy and I plan to continue to keep her that way.  Zen Mum is pretty low-key and low-maintenance as long as she has her cell phone which she watches her YouTube on –  Asian drama, cooking shows and whatever whatever. That thing is glued to her hand all day long. As long as she has that, she’s okay.

So that’s where we are on the home front.

Now moving on to the topic of today’s episode – the Year of the Ox. Here are some fun facts about the Year of the Ox. And of course, the resources that I cite on today’s episode, I’ll attach to the show notes for your reading pleasure. 

But the first is from Chron (c*h*r*o*n.com) – Fun Facts about the Lunar New Year – the Year of the Ox. People born in the Year of the Ox are dependable, calm, modest and stable. It’s preferable to have the Year of the Ox because you want a bull market. You know, you want the market to go up. And bull markets usually historically happened on Ox years.  Feel free to Google as you see fit.

Let’s see, next thing. Ox is the best friend that you can possibly choose and examples of people born in the Ox Year – my mom – Zen Mum, Meryl Streep, George Clooney and Jim Carrey,  among many other people. I thought that was pretty interesting.

Now generally speaking, I don’t make New Year’s resolutions because I find those to be not as impactful for me personally. And what I mean about that is promises and resolutions are kind of the one and the same with me, Where promises made are promises kept. That’s how I usually see promises. Promises to me are not made to be broken. So they’re pretty substantial when I do happen to make a promise to myself or to others.

So promises are – we’re going to get deep on this one, for a second – so promises or resolutions that I have always had – and it’s an open-ended promise or resolution every new year – is for abundance and prosperity, and happy and healthy days for me and my family. Now I’m up to the point where I’m 50 years old and I have a new perspective on the next chapter of my life, the next 25-50 years of my life. Where the last 50 years I’ve been meandering life without path of purpose but now since I’m woke, I have a better idea of what I want my next 50 or so years to look like. 

So that means how do I change those vague and lofty resolutions of wanting abundance, wanting prosperity, and happy and healthy days. How do I actually translate those into tangible things that I can actually do with my brain and my two hands, right? How do I actually make those tangible things in my life? 

Or put it in another way, what does abundance look like to me? What does prosperity look like to me? What do happy and healthy days look like to me? So depending on my definition of abundance, let’s break it down to a specific, actual goal that means abundance. 

And these are all very personal definitions that we all should have for ourselves. Abundance for me – it could be very, very different from someone else’s. Abundance to me could mean very specifically, being financially independent. I win the lottery. That to me is abundance – that I don’t have to worry about the next bill, right?  

But how do I specifically define these lofty things into tangible outcomes that would signify abundance, prosperity, happy and healthy days for me and my family? 

And this is where it gets interesting.

I put a spin on it differently this time around. So let’s use the SMART method. And what I mean by the SMART method – and this is from Minetools.com – SMART. 

So SMART is an acronym that you can use to guide your goal setting. So let’s dive deeper into the acronym. 

  • S – specific. Simple, sensible, and significant. 
  • M – measurable. Meaningful, motivating.
  • A – achievable. Agreed, attainable 
  • R – relevant which means it should also be reasonable, realistic, resourced, results-based and 
  • T – time-based which means there’s a time limit, time-sensitive, timely. So you’re putting a time frame on the resolution, on the goal that you’re trying to achieve, basically it. 

So the SMART acronym is just breaking down your resolution into bite-size pieces that you can chip away at to ultimately attain what you’re trying to attain – like, in this case – prosperity, abundance. But let’s get down into those words.

What exactly does prosperity look like for me? What does abundance look like for me, right? Happy and healthy days – what do those look like for me? 

And the answer to those questions is, truthfully, I don’t know. I’m so used to saying I wish for abundance and prosperity this year. I wish for happy and healthy days this year but I’ve never actually tagged what specific goal I want to have translated what they mean to me in terms of achieving abundance and prosperity before. I’ve never done it before. 

So now that’s a life lesson right there that we can talk about in the future episode of actually putting money where your mouth is. What does abundance mean to you? What does abundance mean to me? And how do we in this lifetime – what exercise can we do – what goal can we set to say that we actually did achieve abundance? 

Yeah, it was more than a few minutes – sorry about that – but yeah we did go deep into this. But a specific example to me of what prosperity and abundance look like would be our once-in-a-lifetime destination trip to Mongolia? When was the last time we talked about Mongolia? It was sometime last year – I got to look it up when but it was last year. 

Now I’ve said this also in previous podcast where nature-wise, attitude-wise for me, I’m pretty execution-driven. Once I plan out a blueprint of what it is that I want to achieve, I’m pretty execution-oriented, almost to the point of being Spock or almost being a robot to attain the goal within that time frame, right? 

So for Mongolia – let’s just keep it really simple and not apply to SMART acronym yet to the trip that I want to take Mom and Dad on. Why in the world Mongolia? Because why the hell not? Okay. The bigger, the better.  My motto nowadays is GO BIG or STAY HOME, which we’ve been staying home so we’re going to go big. Mongolia, at this point in our lives, is a lofty goal intangible, unattainable but let’s make it happen. 

So the first step is obviously the funds. What kind of money-money are we talking about? And I did a really quick back-of-the-napkin calculation some time ago on first-class flights to Mongolia for the three of us, right? Because if you’re going to go on a really long-ass trip to the other part of the world, then first-class or nothing. Economy not even in question. 

So first-class tickets altogether rough estimate for three people round trip $10,000. But I’m going to be conservative and say okay, prices will probably go up in the next few years. Yeah. So let’s go for a cushion of 10 to 15. Try that – $10-15,000.  

Well, square one is…I don’t have a job. I got laid off on November in 2020. And if you’ve been following this podcast, you would know that – that I’ve been trying to find another job. So first and foremost before I even attempt to use the SMART goal setting steps – I need money. I need a job. and then obviously after I get a job, save money for however long it’s going to take and then, let’s start applying a SMART method.

This will be a long game, planning this trip out, so. But first goal, first thing first, let’s get a job and let me just say, I’m happy to announce I can check that bad boy off because I got a job!  And my first day is going to be Feb 22, next week. So. That was my last and biggest news that I wanted to share on today’s episode. 

Now we’re finally back on track for saving for this trip, and it’s reassuring to think that, instead of saving for eight-nine years, maybe. Now that I have my job, I can knock off a year or two, and be able to get us to Mongolia before, you know, my retirement years. You never know. That’s very encouraging. 

So we are now all caught up on the updates and what’s going on in Sally in the Zen and I’m pretty excited.

So we’ve reached the end of today’s episode. Hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions or comments, drop on my blog SallyintheZen.com or you can send me an email at Sally@Sallyinthezen.com. Or easier – DM me on Instagram, whichever you prefer. Let me give a quick shout-out to the sound effects: sound credit from Zapsplat (z*a*p*s*p*l*a*t.com). Hope you all stay safe, stay sane, and I will talk to you again soon.

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