Goals, Goals, Goals

Note:  I was actually thinking of the Motley Crue song (as odd as that sounds) when I came up with the title.

As I’ve noted here in the past, every year I set some goals for myself.  Some might call these new year’s resolutions, but I've never thought of it that way.  Rather, I think everyone should always have some set of goals they are working towards, be they simple or complex.  There’s just too much of life to be experienced, and documenting the steps involved in that experience only makes sense.

Anyway, as I began thinking about what I wanted to accomplish in 2020, I decided to learn about some of the best practices for setting personal goals.  That turned out to not be all that helpful.  For example, there’s some decent thought out there that says we should only set no more than 3 goals for ourselves at any given time.  That’s something which simply doesn’t work for me, in part because my thinking and interests can be so divergent, that I could never come up with just three.  However, I did settle on “three” in a sense:  I broke my goals up in the three categories:  Personal, Professional and Home.  From there though, there was no limiting things to just three.

In another vein, I am reviving a practice for 2020 that I had many years ago, namely that of setting a theme for the year.  This year, the theme is “Creating a New Normal”.  That’s an important idea for me, as it seems like the past 10 years of my life have been just been a rolling series of upheavals and dramatic change, far from anything that would seem like “normal”.  Sure, there was plenty of change in the pre-2010 world as well, but things over the past few years just seem like they have gotten particularly out of hand in that particular (change) department.

So, what am I planning?  Well, there’s some usual stuff…

…lose some weight

…read more books (I read a lot, but I sometimes lack the focus to devote to whole books)

…many projects around the house (such as creating a walk-way to our garage)

There are also some new things on the list as well, such as decluttering my vast store of stuff*. 

Some of the goals are simply reminders to take the time to do things I really enjoy, such as photography.  

Mostly though, the goals are a kind of reminder that, since there are a lot of things outside of my control, it's important to focus on those things where my reach does not, in fact, exceed my grasp.

Here’s to all of us creating a new normal in 2020.

(*) For example, I have every work performance appraisal I have received since 1989.  Why do I need to keep that?