Concrete Goals

As with last year, I’m dividing my resolutions into 2 categories. This first category is of my measurable goals, wherein, by this time next year, I’ll know if I’ve achieved them or not.

Find a new new job. I’m on the job hunt again, as I am learning the hard way what I should have already known and that is how difficult it can be to be in a good place, work-wise. (And also that I do miss being in an office.) I feel like I’m getting to a place where I know where I want to be for the first time since I quit being pre-med, and that’s a really great place to start. I also need to be better about asking for help with this because I am still very lost in the non-pre-med world and I have always been too proud to ask for help but I need it. I need help.

Read 25 books. I failed this goal really miserably last year. Barely read at all. According to Goodreads, I only read a dozen books this entire year. My problem is that I don’t set aside time for reading. The only reason I even read as many as I did this past year was because of the time I spent on a 1-hour train ride commuting to my last job. I didn’t have anything else to do but read, and it became my dedicated reading time. I need to carve out dedicated reading time in my schedule again in order to achieve my sad, sad goal. I’m also going to try really hard to stop wasting my time on books that I just don’t enjoy. I normally devour books in a day or two, but struggling through a book for weeks or months on end doesn’t do anyone any favors. (Looking at you, terrible chapter of Cloud Atlas!) So this goal would come out to about 2 books a month? That seems so doable and yet…

Take more photos. And archive them better. I realized with my very belated Europe posts that my documentation of my trip was crucial in my being able to remember what had happened. This year, I tried not to let photo-taking interfere with me actually experiencing my life, so I have to find a delicate balance here. I have decided to take at least one photo every day and will be documenting via Instagram and Tumblr. This is not only an exercise in documenting my life but, hopefully, will also be a photography exercise in and of itself. I know what I’m doing with a camera, so I should try to act like it.

Edit videos for video documentation. I have wanted to explore video for a while, as a long-time YouTube addict. I have so much footage that I just don’t want to edit because, well, I hate video editing a lot. It is tedious work for me because I’m not good at it but I’m very meticulous about it. I hope I can practice editing this year so that it can go by faster and I can get footage of Europe and more up ~~and become YouTube famous~~. I’m trying to think of a way to quantify this goal, maybe one video per month? Or one video per quarter? I guess we’ll see at the end of January how I’m feeling about this, and whether it’ll be a monthly or quarterly thing.

Maintain regular blogging schedule. I am really proud of myself for sticking to my self-imposed schedule of posting every Tuesday and Friday. I’ve cut it really close a few times, but I managed to make it! The only problem I encountered with this schedule was that I found myself wanting to post things in between those days (e.g. for holidays, immediate recaps, etc.) but waiting because I knew that I wouldn’t have the energy/inspiration to post for my Tuesday/Friday schedule. I will try to guarantee a post on Tuesday and Friday and supplement with additional time-sensitive posts, like today’s New Year’s Day resolutions post! This might go terribly wrong, but it will teach me that I have to plan ahead.

Get 700+ on the GMAT. I did not seriously consider taking the test last year, now that I look back. I’ve been holding onto my boyfriend’s GMAT prep books for years now and have barely opened them. I haven’t even taken any practice tests yet. This year, I’m going to take the test because this year, I need to apply for school. Not being in a formal educational setting is kind of killing me. I planned on being in school for the next 4-7 years, and now I’ll be school-less for 2 years.

Perfect split. How many years is this going to be a goal…? But let’s get down to business with this one. I am going to set an alarm for myself to stretch if I have to. Here’s the kicker: I know I can do a split right now. I was essentially dared to do one over the summer and I did it. I was in pain for about 2 weeks afterwards, however, so that’s what we’re going to try to eliminate this year.

Learn to code. I feel really motivated, lately, to get serious about coding. Historically, computers and I have never gotten along. They scream at me and sometimes literally fume because they hate me so much. (No, really. You haven’t experienced fear of technology until your vision was clouded by smoke and you could smell burning plastic.) But I need to conquer technology and I think this is the year I will do it. Being able to code my blog (when I move hosts?!) and personal website would be a good concrete marker to look for here.

Keep up with my planner/journaling. I don’t know how well journaling will work out this year (likely not well at all), but I want to consistently keep up with my planning in my planner. I often have gaps from when I just forget about my planner and I’d like to avoid that this year, especially since I have a brand new planner that I just love looking at. As long as I have something written every week (hoping that I have something every week) would be a success here.

Get a new primary care physician. This is more of a to-do for the coming month but ever since that nightmare visit with a PCP who wasn’t my pediatrician, I haven’t listed a new physician for primary care, and I haven’t had a full physical since. As someone who constantly tells people that their specialists should not be their PCPS (ob/gyns are not PCPs, ladies), I feel really uneasy not having one of my own. We recently switched insurance, so now that the dust has settled I should be clear to find a new doctor and get a physical.

Plan at least one themed party. I have been itching to plan and throw a fun party. I love planning events and getting little details right. It’s part of why I love planning those random outfits I keep doing for the occasion. I know I’m not the only one who gets excited when all those seasonal items come out in stores, whether it’s patriotic napkins or decorative cornucopias.

How clever is this??

Please let me know if you have any tips/advice for my resolutions and what yours are this year, especially if we have any overlapping! We can help keep each other on track and be resolution buddies. 🙂
I hope your resolutions go better than mine usually do!

P.S. I am always brutally honest and hard on myself around resolution time, but I know I have actually succeeded with several of my resolutions in the past, especially with regards to small habits that improve my health. I drink a lot more water than I used to, I SPF and moisturize way more regularly than before, etc. If there’s hope for me, you’ll definitely knock your goals and resolutions out of the park!

It is that time of year again. You already know what it is, I am the kind of person who requires a list goals to keep myself on track. Let’s get this party started.

Concrete Goals

This is my list of achievable, measurable goals. By the time December 31st rolls around, I will know whether these were completed or not.

Find a new full-time job. I delayed entering the real world because I worked in the research lab that I was at for 4 years as an undergrad for the first half year of me being graduated. That job was making me unhappy, and it was no longer aiding in my new career goals.
Clean my room. Hahahahahaha okay I’ve given myself a year to do this, it should work out, right? This mostly means that I need to
1. Organize my clothes and books
2. Throw out a lot of things I have been hoarding
Move out. I think I will need to move out and be on my own again, soon. Getting my room in order will likely help me with that. I don’t need to do this ASAP, but it would go hand-in-hand with getting a new job. Sometime this year, I should move back out.
Post 50 blog posts. I have really enjoyed blogging more regularly again. I’m going to aim for about one a week, so, with any luck, I should have no less than 50 posts by December 31.
Read 30 books. This will be tricky, especially if I don’t have a designated commute time to read books.But I do miss reading and I should try to set aside some time for it. (I anticipate not being able to do one a week.)
Win NaNoWriMo. “Winning” means that I’ll have written 50,000 words between November 1 and 30. This year’s effort didn’t go very well, because I hadn’t given much thought to it until November 3. Next year, I’ll develop my story a bit more and try again.
Full. Split. I completely dropped the bomb on this resolution this past year. That’s frustrating but I learned my mistake: Not only do I need to set a concrete physical goal, I need to have in place a training plan to achieve it.
Get 700+ on the GMAT. I should really think about taking this test if I want to think about applying to business school. I think a score in the 700+ range should leave me in good shape to worry about other admission considerations besides GMAT score.
Wake up by 8 on weekdays, by 10 on weekends. Admittedly, this is primarily so my parents get off my back about me sleeping in and “when I was young, I woke up before dawn because I had a dream and I had to have it!” but I should get my life together and stop wasting away my daylight hours. This may help with my oft-failed resolution of not sleeping too late.
Read The Little Prince in French and Chinese (and Russian?). I would like to really work on my language skills this year. Le Petit Prince is a book that I have loved for a long time, but it’s also short and has relatively simple language. To be able to read it in other languages without having to refer to a dictionary AND while being able to fully understand everything I read would be great. (This book may be changed depending on if I find one better suited to this goal.)
Drink no less than one liter of water a day. And perhaps other non-dehydrating beverages, but I primarily drink water and nothing quite quenches my thirst like water. I have been working on this one for a while and I do drink more water than I used to, but there is more room for improvement. I know that humans get a lot of water in food, but this is specific to me ingesting water in water form.
Eat at least one full serving of fruit and one full serving of vegetable a day. Last time I put this resolution down, I knew it was not enough and I was called out on it. But so many days pass that are so carb heavy with nothing more than maybe burger or noodle toppings to pass off as vegetables. I need to more consciously incorporate fruits & veggies into my diet. Some days, I would buy a smoothie or a Naked juice just to make sure that I did this consciously. I think I often eat my vegetables incorporated into other dishes (e.g. celery + carrots in chicken noodle soup), but it would be good to have just a dedicated veggie dish every single day.
Do not buy any more makeup or skincare. Buy skincare only when previous products are empty. My little Black Friday splurge was fun, but I have zero reasons to buy more makeup. I have more mascara than I know what to do with, because I always buy sets, and mascara is always in those sets, and I wear makeup never. I do, however, want to continue investing in my skincare but it is unnecessary to buy new things while I still have products that work well.

I have many other goals that I can probably make more concrete, but this seems like a good place to start.

Abstract Aspirations

This list will be harder to keep track of, as far as whether I’ve achieved them or not, but they are nonetheless important.

Allow myself to be happy. The ThoughtCatalog post “10 Lies Depression Tells You” really forced myself to criticize thoughts I had, such as “I deserve the unhappiness I have and any future unhappiness I inevitably come across”. It is time to stop being such a defeatist. I acknowledged a short while back that happiness is an active process. I acknowledge now that everyone – myself included, as difficult as that is to believe – deserves to be involved in this process.
Pick my battles. I want to detail this a bit more in a post later, but I have improved significantly with regards to inhibiting myself and not getting into arguments that would benefit no one. However, I am not blind to my less-than-savoury interactions with my loved ones, and I acknowledge that I have a ways to improve here.
Make fitness a priority. I liked the person I became when I was training for a 5K and then taking a ballet class. Every year, I berate myself for not being physically active. My ballet class lent support to my hypothesis that I need an external structure, i.e. a class or an event, to keep myself committed to my physical fitness. Preferably, I’d love to find a new ballet class, or perhaps even a barre class, to attend. I know I dislike running (although that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing it), so ideally I can find a really fun dance class or two to keep me moving.
Hone my music skills. My heart aches at how long it has been since I’ve played my piano. And I joke often about how I am addicted to karaoke, but I seriously love it and it makes me legitimately blue that I haven’t been in several months. I would love to join this competitive karaoke league I heard about, but I need to do some more research first.
Refine my web presence. I am kind of playing around with my web presence since graduating. I don’t know how serious I want to be about it, but right now I kind of want to make the plunge and make this a real thing. I also have a collaborative project with a friend, and ideally, I’d love to be able to see some real results from both my personal stuff and that project to the point where it is an investment with foreseeable returns if I, for example, purchase a nicer camera and learn to use better editing software for photos and videos.
Talk slower and less. I tend to talk really fast, especially if I’m excited about something. Often, it’s because I’m worried that the other party will lose interest and stop listening before my amazing story is over, so I just want to get to the end before then. Ridiculous, right? I also talk a lot. I’m a loquacious gal. It’s exhausting for myself and all unfortunate listeners, so this has to be addressed.
Discipline myself. Many, if not all, of my goals will require discipline. I lack discipline and I usually do. I’ve relied on being admittedly bright for a lot of things, but that just isn’t cutting it anymore. I need to stop being afraid of hard work, and of the possibility that working hard may not fix my shortcomings.
Invest time in my relationships. This was a year when I feel like I both neglected myself and my loved ones, which is ridiculous. I spent more time feeling guilty than with the people I care about. Obviously, this has got to change.

I always get nervous about publishing resolutions, not only because it does force me to be accountable (which is the whole point of me publicly announcing them), but also because I worry that I’ve forgotten something important. But the beauty of resolutions is that you can resolve to make a change in your life at any given moment. January 1st is just a neat day to do a big list like this. But if I decide sometime mid-April that I want to be able to run 10 miles (ha!) or in October that I want to get paid to cosplay, then I have every right to do so.

The only thing that changes on January 1st is the numerical assignment of the year. I will struggle to not write 2013 for about a month or two before I finally get the hang of writing out 2014. (I still tell people I’m 21, but that hasn’t been true for a short while now. Change is difficult for me :P)

I hope you all are having fun celebrating ringing in the New Year, whether you’re going out and have an amazing outfit or you’re staying in and watching the ball drop on TV. I’m off to sit with my family to watch a movie and see if i can convince them that watching the ball is a tradition worth keeping.

1. 1. 2014