Happy New Year and welcome back to Crosstalk Podcast.

I'm Tommy.

Hi, I'm Andrea.

Happy New Year everyone.

We are going to talk about the New Year resolutions.

Right.

And this is a, this is a Western thing.

I think Japanese people do it too, right?

Yeah, in New Year's resolution.

Shinena who?

Yeah.

This is annual episode.

Yes, that's right.

It's an annual episode and it's an annual custom in our countries too, right?

Each country.

So do you remember what was your under sound New Year resolution?

I do because it's the same every time.

Diet, lose weight and declutter my house and get more sleep, right?

Right.

Those are the three that I'm always working on, right?

Mine is almost same as you OK decluttering decluttering my you know PC OK digital asset OK and learn about investing OK more exercise OK one thing I was really focused on was meeting new people you.

Were and I wanted to know did you do that?

I did.

You did I.

Did it?

Yeah.

All right.

Did you make new friends or like business connections or both?

Both.

OK.

I made a business connection.

I also have, you know, it's hard to describe who is a friend, but I would say this person is my friend.

OK, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, it is hard.

Like it's kind of a grey zone.

Like, are they just an acquaintance?

Are they a friend?

Are they a really good friend?

Like it's kind of a grey zone.

Yeah, yeah.

You said dieting, get more sleep, decorating your house and then this is a every year thing.

Yeah, because I fail every year.

It's not that I give up.

I'm still trying all year long.

It's just I didn't, I wasn't successful.

So it's my goal again for the next year because it was not successful the previous year.

But like, diet and getting more sleep, these are for my health.

And so these are very important.

And so even though it was unsuccessful, I still want to keep trying.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And actually, like, diet was really unsuccessful.

I probably gained more weight than I lost to be honest.

Yeah.

So improving your health is not only this year, it's continuous.

Yeah, it's forever.

It's very continuous, Yeah.

So the other thing like clean up your thing?

Yeah, it's difficult.

We may need to find a new tiny step or new angle to make it stick a little better.

Yeah, I mean, because I'm not, it's not just me.

It's like I live with another house full of people.

And so it's not only my stuff, it's everyone's stuff.

It's like household stuff.

Yeah.

If it were just me, it'd be very, very easy.

And I would always have a super clean house, like before I got married and had a family.

Like my apartment was always spotless and I know where everything is, but now that, you know, there's kids and there's a husband and there's lots of pets and, you know, it's much more complicated.

So this is an ongoing thing also because it's not just my stuff.

Yeah, you need another cleaning machine.

I I need like a group of 10 maids to come in and declutter for me.

I need to hire Mario Condor to come into my house.

Oh yeah.

So I want to ask you this, what's one thing you are proud of from last year?

Oh my gosh, that's a difficult question.

It is.

I haven't even thought about that.

Something that I'm proud of.

Nothing really.

That case that that that's.

Also, I mean it's just kind of normal.

I mean, I'm not like especially proud I do.

I was trying to manage my work time better.

So like I'm, if you know me and you do, I'm a huge procrastinator.

I put off doing my work I do and I put off doing like really things I don't want to do like taxes and accounting.

And I did that again this year.

I have not done it.

But like work wise, I've been pretty good about like managing my I have a pretty heavy workload, but managing my workload and like sometimes I am late to work.

I get here kind of late, but like getting everything ready.

Like I always have my lessons prepped.

I'm always ready to go.

So that's, I don't say I'm proud because that's kind of a tidy mind.

But I didn't waste a lot of time like preparing lesson material.

I was pretty time efficient.

Not really proud though.

I'm not really proud.

What are you proud of from last year?

I'm proud of it, you know, again, meeting new people and I made a new connection, OK?

So I want to expand this a lot more next year, OK.

I don't think I can do it more, but I need I need to find a way to do it.

More OK, I'm I'm the opposite.

Like I want to not cut people out of my life, but I need to not spend so much time with other people.

I need to focus on my own stuff.

Yeah, yes, yes, yes.

I have a list of a question actually.

So are the First off, what did you stop doing last year?

For me, one thing I quit last year was using Notion, which is the app managing your schedule.

OK.

So I was like ended up managing this management app.

Oh OK, so you were just kind of spending too much time managing your schedule on the app rather than doing things in real life.

Right, right, right.

I was managing just, you know, oh, this is filmed or this is edited, you know.

OK, so you spend more time actually just making memos on the?

Sheets.

And I was like doing work.

I was just flipping the labels over and over and I feel like, oh this is nothing.

OK, OK.

So I stopped using net.

OK, isn't is it easier now that you're not using that?

In a way, it's kind of messy.

OK.

When people see my workflow they might feel like oh this is disorganized, but I see for me it's much more simpler.

OK, as long as it's simple and you can use it, that's fine.

If you know where things are, that's all you need to do.

Yeah.

So like, I don't know, dieting can can be the same.

You're checking your weight.

Yeah, actually, I kind of did stop using my health app because I was actually really good about like meal login, like logging everything I ate.

But it got really mendoksite because it got too much work.

Because like when my husband cooks and he's insisting on cooking more, he likes cooking now and he wants to cook.

So I let him do it and then he'll do like for example, for breakfast, if I make breakfast, it'll be like a salad, an egg and a piece of toast and a coffee.

That's easy to log.

He'll do like a little bit of salad and like 2 slices of apple and like not even a full toast, like 1/4 of a toast and then a different kind of toast and then a few bites of this and a few bites of that.

It's just like, it's too much to log.

It's way too much work.

And I just like, I can't do this.

It's too much work, you know?

So I gave up logging that and I just kind of figure, OK, I know, I kind of know how much I can eat and how much I shouldn't eat, right?

Yeah, that's that's much more efficient counting the calorie, for example, in your mind.

Good.

I mean, it's good to do it if it's easy to do, but the way that he cooks, it's just you have to log in so many little parts of the meal.

It's just not efficient.

I don't.

I don't like to have like a lot of different bits on my plate.

I'm a westerner.

This is the thing like western people, we have like 1 meal with a few things on the plate.

Japanese older people like to have a little tiny bit of like lots of little kobachi, tons of little different bites.

And it's just like, it's way too much work to log, It's too much cleaning afterwards.

Right.

So in Japanese we say sometimes how much tento.

OK, what is that?

Counterproductive.

Yes, it's very counterproductive.

What is it in Japanese again?

Home much tento.

Home much tento.

Yes, I learned a new Japanese word.

Like you said, logging your calories, calorie caisson, it's it's, it feels like you were doing something, but what what actually you were doing is not.

Not really of time efficient.

Yeah.

The good thing about the food logs is if I have to log everything I eat, then I tend to eat less snacks because I don't want to log it.

I don't want to log it.

I'm like, oh, that's too much trouble to log.

OK, then I just won't eat that cookie because then I have to log it and I don't want to do that.

So that's actually a good thing.

I eat less junk food.

True.

True, right?

If I'm not, if I'm not logging it, I don't hold myself responsible, I don't hold myself accountable, and I eat more junk food.

So let's move on to the next one.

All right, So what do you want to stop doing this year?

Which I want to stop doing.

One thing I want to quit is

eating dinner after 9:00 PM.

Yeah, it's kind of hard though, because we work until late.

But yeah, but that's my.

Goal.

You could probably do that, but I can't because I still have to drive an hour.

So like we work sometimes until 730-8830 at night and then sometimes even later, right?

Right.

And then I have to drive an hour home.

So that's impossible for me.

But you could do that too.

Something I want to stop.

I want to stop staying up so late looking at social media.

Yeah, because you're staying up

until like 2 or.

3:00 in the morning.

Two or three in the morning.

Then, well, because I love reading.

I love reading it and my eyesight is so bad that I can't read books anymore.

So I get on to social media and reads like news articles and Reddit posts.

Lots of lots of news articles actually.

So.

Do read something until the late night, Yeah.

Oh my God, yeah.

I do, Oh my God.

And then I'll go take a bath and then while I'm drying my hair, I'll keep reading some more.

So.

I can't believe.

Or watching Netflix or something.

Yeah, I spend a lot of time in the evening on online.

Yeah.

Maybe.

But that's my that's, I really love it.

I really love reading.

I love watching Netflix.

It's very exciting for me.

I don't think you understand how exciting it is.

No, I kind of stopped reading something, you know, I switched towards more like watching YouTube or Netflix.

Yeah, Netflix, I watch.

YouTube I do not watch.

But I also read news like international politics and international world events.

That's also very exciting, actually.

Exciting.

Yeah, I mean, I really, I mean, I sounds like an old person.

I know this is an old person thing, but like reading what's happening is really interesting for me, for me, for me.

Yeah, yeah, sure.

Because I have to talk to a lot of people about a lot of different things, so I kind of have to have a lot of topics in my head, like as a backup.

Okay, this is a conversation topic, I can bring this out later.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had to do the same.

I have to, but I don't really read long articles.

Oh, I do, you do.

Yeah, I do.

Maybe you should summarize this long article somehow.

Well, I read very quickly.

Yeah, but still, you ended up staying up late.

Yeah, 'cause I'm reading several newspapers, I'm reading New York Times and CNN.

I'm usually looking at Japan Times the it's.

It's an era of, you know, short attention and then, you know, shorter content.

This is why I don't want you to because I cannot stand to sit there and watch a four or five minute video.

It's boring, but I'll sit there and read a four to five minute news article.

Yeah, but I'm what I'm talking is you should.

Because I can control my reading speed, I can go fast.

But on YouTube is like, it's OK, come on, let's go.

Next scene, hurry up.

You can't control the speed so much, you know?

I we can.

I mean, you can, but it's not the speed you're supposed to watch it at, you know?

You know at 1.5 faster speed it's it's doable.

Yeah, it's not enjoyable though.

Yeah, for some content, you know, I'm, I'm just watching to get a, you know, I get a good information.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, that's maybe you should stop doing.

Yeah.

Definitely, definitely, because I need to sleep more and that's one of my New Year's goals is to get more sleep this year too.

OK.

So Next up, what's your main focus on this year?

My main focus is going to be my health, and I'll tell you why.

Just a few days ago, I had to do a annual health check.

And usually I know that I'm healthy.

I'm like, yeah, I'm going to ace this test, you know, no problem.

This year I was actually worried because I have gained a little bit of weight.

I know I have.

And I was like, Oh my God, what if I've gained weight and I have diabetes?

What if I've gained weight and I've given myself, you know, from eating all this junk food?

What if I've given myself cancer?

Oh my God, I might have stomach cancer, you know?

So I was just like panicking when I was in the hospital, like like mini panic attack.

Mini panic.

I was like, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

The doctor's going to tell me I have cancer.

Oh my God.

You know, this is the first year that I've done the camera.

Yeah.

Like the stomach exam with the.

Oh.

Really.

It was the first time I've done that and I was so scared.

Was it?

Yeah, it was fine.

But I was like, they're going to find cancer or something.

I'm so afraid of getting cancer.

So this year, like, I really, really, really like, I hated that feeling, like being in the hospital, like panicking.

And I thought, OK, this is the year.

Like I really need to get my mental state organized and control my willpower for eating.

And I need to eat healthy foods I like.

I love vegetables, I like eating healthy food, but I also love junk food too, so I just need to make myself not eat junk food.

OK, that's your goal.

For this year, yeah, that's my goal, OK, Is to get my mental state, yes, in line with my body.

OK.

How about you?

Compared to yours, it's tiny like.

Yeah, because no one wants to have a health attack.

No one wants to have a health problem.

So I have a no problem with my health problem health.

So yeah, yeah.

And I keep I keep running.

Yeah, but you eat junk food too.

You eat a lot of like ramen, true, which is very unhealthy.

So I need.

You don't eat that many vegetables, I think.

Right, so I also need to eat healthy foods like you.

Yeah, we need.

And ideally, maybe I should cook food for myself.

Yeah, not eating out.

Yeah.

Right, that's what I need to focus on I guess.

OK, I didn't include this one on my list, but maybe I?

Should Yeah, yes, yes.

Well, like food related.

I eat a lot of meats because I'm American and I was raised to eat a lot of beef and, you know, protein and stuff.

But actually, the older I get, I'm kind of interested in being more vegetarian.

And I like, I'm laughing as I say that because people have said, yeah, because they know me, right?

They know how much meat I eat.

And they're like, yeah, there's no way you'll ever become a vegetarian.

And not every day, not every time.

But like I would like to have some days when I don't eat any meat.

So I would like to actually learn vegetarian cooking some.

No way.

See that's exactly my point.

But like I have had days recently when I don't cook meat and I'm fine.

Like if I eat enough vegetables I feel full, I'm OK.

Yeah, but anyway, we should focus on our health.

Yeah, eating healthier food.

Yeah, OK.

And learning new skills.

So I'm going to learn a little bit of vegetarian cooking.

OK, a little bit.

You have many things on your list, yeah.

I'm always, I'm always like very looking forward to doing something.

I'm very forward, forward facing I guess.

OK next topic, what's 1 relationship or social goal you have?

OK, a relationship or social goal for me, I'm the kind of person that if someone asks me to do something, I will always say yes, I can do that or yes, I'd like to join that or yes, I will help you.

But I think I need to really consider how much I can do time wise and physically.

And sometimes I need to say no to people like I have a lot of people asking me, can you help me do this?

Or can can I ask you to do this for me?

Or can you drive me here?

Can you take me there?

Do you want to join this event?

And I just, I always say yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

But I think I need to focus on myself and what I actually want to do with my time.

And I need to ask myself, is that thing really important to me?

To me, probably no, it's not.

Is that person?

Is keeping a relationship with that person really important?

Sometimes, yes.

But I can keep my friendships without having to sacrifice my time I think so I need to value my own time more and tell people no I can't help you, no I can't do that.

No I'm not going to join your event just to preserve my own self.

How about you?

What's 1 relationship or social goal that you have?

I kind of want to commit making more made magazines or blog post.

OK for our for this for the the podcast.

Yeah, for a podcast.

OK.

Nice.

We have been making audio contents quite a long time.

Yeah, but I haven't done making this text based content.

OK, but I kind of feel like I need to do it more.

OK.

And then, you know, something Hold hold me back quite a long time because I I feel like people might take my word in different way.

So I couldn't get myself to start writing content.

I see.

So my my focus on is making text based content a little.

Bit more, yeah.

And kind of expanding our podcast social group.

Right, right, right, right.

So I think.

That's great.

Yeah, if you guys are interested in this Mail magazine, please sign up.

The link is on the description on this episode.

Please check it out.

OK, great.

That's really great.

All right, let's summarize New Year resolution for 2026.

You have your diet.

Dieting.

Yep, diet, get more sleep, continue to declutter and also to learn at least one new skill.

OK, video editing skills.

Video editing and also vegetarian cooking.

Some, not a lot.

OK, I'm not going to shave my head and be a monk.

Don't worry.

And also you want to improve your health.

Yeah, that's all of these are health related.

How about you?

OK, my my new year resolution is expand more connections in both private.

And business OK and also dip in my toes of writing text based constant.

Awesome, all good goals.

All right, we hope you enjoyed this episode.

New Year resolution sounds simple, but the hard part is keeping them real and doable.

Yes.

And I always, like I mentioned, I always fail, but I think mine are doable.

It's just for me, it's a mental game.

So, yeah, yeah.

All right.

So it's not always about just setting big goals.

It's about stopping to do things too, like eating too late at night, like me, mindless scrolling or watching too much social media, overcomplicating your systems, not telling people no when you need to, these sorts of things.

So sometimes we need to stop doing things.

Right.

And I think people might draw a big picture of the goal, but maybe you should start thinking about think about the baby step.

That's a good idea, yes.

So we have a question for you guys.

What's one thing you want to start doing this year?

What's your resolution?

And what's one thing you would like to stop doing?

Let us know.

You can tell us your comments and answers on Instagram or in the Spotify comments or on YouTube comments.

Now of course we are always looking for a new episode.

Ideas.

What would you like us talk about next?

OK, that's all for this episode, but don't forget to catch our next one.

All right, this is Crosstalk signing off, bringing you English your way every week.

Keep listening and keep shining.

Bye.