Much like Jamie, I don’t “do” New Year’s resolutions.
From past experience, when I make resolutions and then screw up, I feel really bad about it. Then, since I’m “off the wagon”, I struggle to muster up the motivation to get back on the wagon and that’s all she wrote.
Instead of resolutions, last year I set myself some goals. Admittedly, I didn’t get terribly far in achieving those goals, but there were some positive outcomes from the discipline of attempting to achieve them; I also gained some insight from looking back at where I failed. In particular, I found that I’d set the bar a little high in terms of the number of things I was trying to achieve. I just didn’t have the time. I also found that the further I got through the year, the harder it was to motivate myself to keep trying; the numbers just felt too big.
As part of that process and insight gained, once again I’m setting myself some new goals for 2011. Less and smaller numbers this year, but I’m hanging onto the 52 & 12.
Firstly, some of my goals for 2011.
- Learn how to make epic coffee. If not epic, at least “really good”.
- Write more. Both solo (like the blog) and with my writing partner. Linz and I have been kicking around some ideas for a while – I want to have something more than just some ideas by year end.
- Get rid of/throw/give stuff away. I’m somewhat of a hoarder. I’m going to keep a list of what I got rid of. Not sure if I’ll publish it yet.
- Clean out my backup drive. Seriously, I have a folder with 15 years worth of files dumped into it. It’s currently 107.77Gb in size. I figure I’ll take this one down a bite at a time. If it’s smaller than that by the end of the year, I’ll consider that a win.
- Clean out my garage. It’s a lot like my hard drive, except dustier and with spiders.
- Lose 26kg. Losing 52 kilograms was probably doable last year, but I failed miserably. The further I got into the year, the harder it got psychologically. I’ll be aiming to put the check-ins up weekly on the 52 Kilos page (which is still my ultimate goal at the moment).
- Read more books. I completed six books last year, all of which were in January. I find that embarrassing.
- Make a decision about the future of Geek Salad. I’ve been to-ing and fro-ing for too long. I keep getting asked about when I’m going to get back to it, and it does involve writing…
- Play my guitar & sing more often.
- Update my blog theme.
- Be a better husband and father. This one requires some more thought about exactly what that means to me and what I want to achieve. What does this look like if I succeed?
- Get to at least one live gig. I have several friends who are musicians and performers, and I didn’t get to a single one of their gigs last year. I will rectify that in 2011.
- Learn to appreciate wine & beer. I don’t know if I can physically do this, but I’d like to find out more about how to savour and taste different wines and beers.
- Cut down on my inputs. I’m collecting too many links and have too much information coming at me to process properly. I’m still not sure I’ll know if I’ve succeeded.
- Keep written track of the things I’ve completed. Reviewing my goals for last year made me realise that there were a lot of goals I didn’t achieve last year, but I have virtually no record of the things I did achieve. Since I’ve got a terrible memory, I’m going to write the stuff I do complete down so that I won’t have the same issue in 2012. If we’re still around…
52 Things:
52 Gym Visits: Get to the gym at least once a week. (Associated goal: Lose 26 kg)
52 Blog Posts: Blog at least once a week (Associated goal: Write more)
52 Meals: Cook for my family at least once a week. Not trying to achieve a new meal every time this year, but I do want to try and take some pressure off my wife’s shoulders (Associated goals: 52 Meals & be a better husband)
12 Things:
12 New Books: Like I said, I’ve cut down my reading goal this year; I’ve knocked one off already. (Associated goal: Read more.)
12 Old Books: However, I’ve got some older books that I want to re-read. This gives me a total of 24 books this year. (Associated goal: Read more.)
12 Date Nights: My wife will like this one. We can’t really afford a weekly date night at the moment, but I’ll make sure we get a date night at least once a month. (Associated goal: Be a better husband)
That’s about it so far, but I’m going to try and keep this post updated with new ideas as they arise.
So, what are your goals for 2011?