Prepare for what might be my longest entry to date. 🙂

Over the years, I have wavered between making specific goals, setting intentions or focuses. I have set vague intentions and lost sight of my motivation for those intentions. Other times, I have fallen off the deep end on the other side and set too many goals or goals at such a high bar that they cause stress or disappointment when I do not reach that mark.

Around this time of year, a person cannot take a step without figuratively running into all sorts of advice for how to set or not set New Year’s Resolutions, the advantages or disadvantages of resolutions, tips on how to lose weight and get in shape or words of affirmation for loving your body and life as it is. I could continue with examples but I believe I have made my point.

With this post, I do not attempt to solve that dilemma. This is the post where I lay out my goals for the year. I have decided to create specific, achievable goals this year rather than intentions for the following reasons. One, as I discussed last week, I need a plan. My goals need to be SMART. I know that my intentions for last year were not SMART because, without looking back at last year’s post, I have not the foggiest idea what they were. Two, having specific goals gives me something tangible to aim for. I plan to put these goals in a prominent place so that these reminders help keep me focused on the goals.

Although these goals are quite specific, I plan to build in an escape hatch of sorts. This so called escape hatch will, hopefully, bring reasonableness to the goals so that I do not add stress and frustration to my life as I have in the past. I will admit, however, that I still may not give myself enough leeway when making these goals and thus reserve the right to change or abandon them at any point in the coming year.

I have twelve goals. This may seem like a lot. Many of them I have attempted at various points throughout 2018 or in previous years but nothing stuck due to my far too vague goal setting and failure to place reminders in a prominent place. These goals also fall into four main categories with one that does not quite fit. In the paragraphs below, I will discuss each goal within a category, the reasons I chose the goal, how I plan to achieve it and how I may adjust the goal. I do also hope to return to these goals periodically throughout the year to check-in and remind myself once again. I have not decided the frequency but it will not likely occur monthly since I post only once a week apart from race recaps.

First, I want to discuss my goals in the real of nutrition. I have two here. One, I want to drink two full water bottles daily. When I worked at the bank, I accomplished this easily by making myself take a drink every five minutes or on the fives. It became a habit. However, my current profession does not permit such luxuries so I have struggled to reestablish the habit. I do not plan to make any exceptions to this because I believe that this is eminently doable. I will mention here the one caveat for all of the goals. I will not focus any effort on completing these goals while on the Grand European Adventure in July.

The second nutrition goal I have attempted before. I would like to eliminate excess sugar from my diet. When this past school year began, I had a good thing going. I had just recently watched a few documentaries on the topic so it was fresh on my mind. Then this crazy school year started rolling along and convenience took priority. I can feel a difference in my body between when I eat cleanly and when I do not. So, I will make clarification here on what I mean when I say “no added sugar” or “no excess sugar.” I could take that to the extreme, which, unfortunately, is what I did last year. I cut too much out without sourcing alternatives. I will start with rewarding myself with one or two pieces of funsize candy on Sunday if I make it through the week without eating anything with obvious added sugar, aka products where sugar appears in the first two or three ingredients. Each weekend, I will make sure that I have enough food prepared for meals and snacks in the upcoming school week so that I do not resort to convenience food which tends to include way too much sugar. In the months to come, I hope to refine and tweak this goal as necessary.

I move on now to the next category of fitness and routine. My love of running should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog. My more recent struggles with motivation also should fail to surprise. In an effort to increase my internal motivation, I have made the external motivation also known as goals. The first of which is cycling (primarily stationary bike at the gym) 500 miles and second, maintaining a running mile total of 30 miles per week, including the three weeks in Europe and the week in Salt Lake City for Spring Break. Hopefully that will motivate me to get up and out of bed when it feels way too comfortable. I know that I never regret a workout when I finally push myself out the door. Some obvious exceptions are as follows. If I am sick, I will rest. If I am on a field trip with my students and events on the trip prevent me from working out, I will rest. If a snowstorm hits, I will rest. Neither I nor my car have the proper gear for that.

A third goal in this category comes in the shape of getting out of bed right after my alarm gos off. The snooze button is a slippery slope. More often than not. I have found that when I get up and start moving around, I’m completely awake. I think this habit may take some time to build but I want to return to how I used to operate. The only exception I will make for this is the periodic reward of a few snooze moments on a Sunday morning if I have met this goal on the other days of the week.

The last goal I have in this section is to complete my hip and glute strengthening exercises at least four times each week. I have attempted to meet this goal regularly ever since I started working with Liz at Performance Therapy three years ago. I want to prevent further injury and this is the way to do it.

I come next to the area of work/life balance. I have written about that before. THe two goals I discuss in this section pertain to habits which I hope will help me improve in this area and keep me from drowning in responsibilities this coming semester. With three field trips to plan, I know I will have plenty. First, I want to try to stay out of the drama and other conversations while at work. This will help on at least two fronts. One, I will have more time to complete required tasks. Two, I will avoid filling my head with negativity. I will accomplish this primarily by sticking to my classroom during planning and before and after class. I have to stop seeking out people, like Benson for example, just to talk. I think it will definitely be healthier for me.

Next, I aim to leave school by five at the latest, except on days when we have meetings like faculty meetings or Model UN. Even on days when I have Life Group at the Pidcocks’, I still want to leave by five, just go somewhere like Starbucks to hang out and eat. Over the years I have gone back and forth on whether I am more productive at home or at school. I think it’s a mix of both. If I aim to leave by 5, I hope to establish a habit of maximizing the hour or so I will have after students leave to complete things that need to be completed at school like updating the board, cleaning the room, and making copies so that I can do the other things at the table at home.

The last goal category I have is reading and writing. On the reading front, I always have a goal through the goodreads reading challenge and try to surpass it. This year is no different. I set a goal of 100 books like last year which I surpassed last year for a total of 120. I would like to do the same this year.

I have a two-fold writing goal. These two goals will pose the biggest challenge for me. (I have previously discussed my ironic relationship with writing.) I want to write at least twenty minutes every day. I also want to journal every day. For the sake of my sanity, those can be accomplished with the same action. Too often I push writing to the side for no good reason. I want to stop that. Since I know this goal will challenge me the most, I am tempted to make copious caveats. That would defeat the purpose of the goal. Instead, I plan to carry my notebook and journal with me everywhere. Thus eliminating the excuse of not having the materials. The only exception I will give myself is on nights where I am out late, like at the Peace Center for a Broadway show and get home after eleven. It would make no sense to sacrifice sleep simply to fulfill an arbitrary obligation.

The last goal, a financial one, has no companion and thus no need for a category. I would like to increase my savings rate from 37% to 40%. Yes, my current savings rate ranks fairly high. However, with all the travel ideas bouncing around in my head, I need to increase that rate just a bit. Over the past two years I noticed a trend. My savings rate has no trouble achieving the high water mark of 40% or higher for the first couple months of the year before trending downwards each month as I become a little too lax in spending. Last year especially, I know I spent too much on Starbucks and food as the year progressed. I became lazy in the food prep area and thus was not able to bring my savings rate up to the goal. Many of the things I mentioned earlier in this post will help me achieve that rate.

Phew! I wrote a much longer entry than I thought I would originally and enjoyed every bit of the process. Here’s to 2019 and all the success I know it will bring!