The other day I was asked, “If you could wake up tomorrow morning with one thing about you being improved upon, what would it be?” Of course, my answer was the first thing I could think of. My fitness level.

Growing up I was always really active. As a little girl, I played soccer, took dance lessons, was on a swim team, played softball, took horse riding lessons, and was always ready to go to a playground or run around the yard with my cousins. As I aged all the sports, except swimming, faded from my life. Swimming was my best sport and frankly the most enjoyable for me. I had a whole team that quickly became my family and I feel at home in the water. By the age of seven I was a competitive swimmer; meaning I swam year round. By the age of eleven, I had practice for four hours a day, which left me little time for much else outside of school and homework.

Junior year of high school came around and I was burnt out from swimming. I needed a break from the pool being my second home and from always smelling like chlorine no matter how long I showered. Little did I know this “break” would last throughout college as well. I had officially “let myself go.” No longer being a swimmer and thinking my metabolism would keep up because I’m young wound up being a terrible combination. I wasn’t working out and ate like a college kid. I ate foods which would satisfy me but were also incredibly cheap. Hello, pasta!

On top of my bad eating and lack of exercise, I was diagnosed with a thyroid condition after having it for about 4 years and not knowing it; meaning when it came to weight gain, It’s like I really didn’t have a fighting chance. Now I’m 22 and with my thyroid condition under control, I’m frequently up in the gym working on my fitness, and I have changed my diet significantly. Although I’m still not at my goal, that’s ok! This is one area of my life where I want to improve upon and every little advance I make I feel like throwing a party for myself!

While fitness is currently my main focus for improvement, that does not mean every other aspect of my life is perfect. Here’s a list of things I would like to improve upon.

1. Get a “big girl” job. The job market is a battlefield, my friends. Sometimes you get turned down and other times you turn down the employer because the job winds up not being a good fit for you. Keep trucking; the right job will come along at the right time!
2. Pay better attention to the news. This one’s a hard one for me. I get bored very easily and typically don’t even make it through the weather segment, so when something important happens, I’m always the last to know.
3. Read more. I have a list of books I want to read, I just haven’t.
4. Regain self-confidence. For me, this one goes hand in hand with the fitness.
5. Travel outside my comfort zone.
6. Set a solid sleep pattern. Anyone who knows me knows that if I don’t get enough sleep I’m like a walking banshee; even with coffee.
7. Correct my cursive handwriting. When learning cursive teachers always said that once in high school cursive is all that would be accepted. Wrong. In high school teachers said that in college professors would hand out zeros for anything not written in cursive. What a blatant lie that was. Here I am all these years later still always writing in print because my cursive sucks. I mean really all I want is for my signature to be pretty.
8. Finish the scarf I started knitting two years ago. Here’s the thing, I used up the whole ball of yarn, the scarf is too short, and I don’t know how to add a new ball to my needle.
9. Head back to the barn. This improvement is contingent on my “getting a big girl job” because you can’t ride without money when you don’t have a horse in your backyard.
10. Learn more recipes. I like food, but now that I’m eating better a lot of my old recipes that I loved are now obsolete.

So, if you could wake up tomorrow morning with one thing about you being improved upon, what would it be?