I’ve talked about goal setting before, I find it’s a more useful approach to accomplishing things across the year than resolutions. That said, sometimes life throws some twists in that interfere with those goals. As an example, I returned to karate near the end of 2023, so had a goal of attending a certain number of classes across the year. And then I had hand surgery in March, which knocked me off the mat for a couple months, followed by physical therapy for arthritis in my knees for a couple summer months, and a whirlwind of travel in the fall.
At least that’s explainable… I’m not sure how I only tracked 42 books on Goodreads. After hitting my goal of 52 books multiple years, I had increased it to 54 for 2024. Even if I missed tracking a couple, that seems low, especially with all of the Hugo nominees I read before voting in those awards before attending WorldCon in Glasgow.
Regardless, I accomplished some goals – fixing up my master bedroom closet (which had been on my list for years), paying down my home equity loan, and, of course, writing my weekly blog posts. Now I reset, determining what goals I want to work towards in 2025. I’ve found 10 to be a reasonable number, and have made sure they meet the SMART requirement – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-based.
Having done that, I should decide what I want to work on… re-organizing my work desk or my reading goal, noting that I’m currently reading Wind and Truth, which is over 1300 pages. As one of my karate instructors says, start strong, finish stronger.