Yearly Goal Wrap Up!

Well here we are at the end of 2018 and it's time to see how I did.

2018 Goals List

Picture of the Day. Check. Went ahead with the prompted for the year. I was torn on that one at the beginning of the year, thought it might be time to drop the lists, but I stuck it out for the year. Most of you already know this one won't be making another appearance on tomorrow's list. I lost my taste for it, as Christopher used to say when something he ate on Monday he couldn't stand on Friday... But often what happens is around November I'm bored with it and I think about dropping it. But then I decide not to because there are parts of it that I love. I love the routine, I love the looking at my world to find something that fits, I really love when it sparks a discussion, so I generally go ahead and do it again. But this year the joy in it never came back. It became a countdown to the end of the year so I could quit without feeling like I didn't hit the goal. So it's a check and a done for 2019 (as of now, I've quit before and started again so we will see)

Writing. So this is a weird one. I did not hit my main goal but I hit all of the subs underneath it. Weird right? But the main goal was to write daily. One to two hours just writing. And somewhere along the line I totally forgot that part of the goal. Hunh. So I did not write daily. But the sub goal of 156 blogs? Check (today will make 160). Fifty two fiction pieces? Check (57 altogether).  Three submissions? Check (just 3 no bonus here). So somehow I hit all of the milestones without even trying for the main race. Something to think about for 2019 goals.

Reading. Okay, this one is a bit crazy. I had the main book goal of 64 books. Which was a book a week plus an extra a month. Then I hit on the subgoal of 50 books for 50 years. Reading a book that was published in each of the years I've been alive. THEN I took that subgoal and made that list into no repeated authors, reading them in order, AND at least a 50/50 split on male and female authors. Nailed it. I have a spreadsheet with all of the books I chose if anyone is ever interested. It was actually a good challenge because I was often down to my 3rd or 4th choice on books due to availability. I did probably 80% of the list with library books. I also ended up adding another piece to that goal about mid-July when I realized that if I pushed I could get all 50 done by my 50th birthday. OOooh...So I did.

Now, because I did that. Because I chose some books in my list that were childhood favorites, because some of the filler reading I did was graphic novels, because there were a few books that hit my library list at the same time so I was reading at land speed records I am sitting at 97 books for 2018. Just a little outside my goal. Now this is a really high number for me. My average books read (outside of this year, this one bumps my total) is mid-70s. But I blew past it by a bit. And I am only a little disappointed that I wasn't paying closer attention at the beginning of this month so I could have ended the year at 100.

Exercise and fitness. I wanted to hit the gym around 5 days a week and lose another 5 pounds. I average 5 days a week at the gym and I lost 5 pounds. Over and over and over again. I have been as far up as 8 and only as low at 2 pounds down for the year. I kept gaining and losing the same weight all year long. In June at my yearly exam I complained to my doctor about it and she said, "Getting older sucks." I explained to her that I was doing what I had been doing the year before where I lost 13 pounds and yet I was gaining this year and she said, "Yep. It sucks." I was not impressed. But it sucks. It really does. So I did and did not hit this goal this year and it's super frustrating to me. Expect to see a reappearance tomorrow... But end tally, last official 2018 weigh in was last Friday, I am hitting the gym like I should and I gain 5 pounds instead of losing 5. (shrugs)

Monthly goals. I went in to 2018 deciding to set little mini goals each month and I kept up with that. It was a good way to pick up and put down things without feeling tied to them, or like I was failing when I didn't do them. Spanish was a monthly goal a few times and I am just done with it, I think. Honestly I cannot seem to retain much of the vocabulary anymore. I still would like to learn to speak it, but I need to figure out a way to do it that sticks with me for longer than a day. Cooking. That one hit the monthly tally a few times as well and I finally reached the point this year where I could admit that I just don't care for it. I have tried so many things to make it fun, and it's just not. I am a good cook. I can make things just by throwing stuff together that "might be interesting." When I cook at home more we are much more able to control what we are eating. But it's never going to be a fun thing for me to do. So it needs to be moved to the gym column of "things I do to feel well" not the reading and writing columns of "things I do because I love them."

But the monthly goals were nice because I could try things out like the Spanish and cooking and when I realized it was a drag not a joy I could look at them differently. I also used monthly goals to work toward the yearly goals and the long term goals.

Which brings us to the yearly goal list. My living room is still not painted, are you surprised? But there were a lot of other things on the list that got checked off. Again, about half of the long term list was completed. So I'll start next year with the other half and maybe a few new things added.

I did the stars and lists in my calendar and I now have a shiny book full of stars. I thought about dropping it last year and I'm glad I didn't. Just making a daily list of things I want to do helps focus me and keeps me from ending the day wondering where it all went.

So there you go, 2018 in the books.
Reading, writing output, exercise, POD all Gold Stars
Weight, writing time, painting the living room, all a miss.

But overall not a bad balance to the year. I've been working on my 2019 list and I will post that tomorrow.

Happy end of 2018 to you all. I hope the year was everything you wanted it to be, and that you got all of the stars!