Goals for this year
Jan. 7th, 2020 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mk_tortieI don't feel like I'm quite finished working out what my goals are for this year, but some things are already clear to me. Firstly, I'm going back to my system of basing my personal goals around three areas: Creative/Thinking things, Fitness things, and Service things. I read somewhere once that the people who report the most satisfaction and contentment in their lives are people who are active in all three of those areas, and ever since then I've tried to make sure I'm always doing a mix of all three.
Creative/Thinking Goals
I always have so many of these, and I usually only manage to do a few of them, but that's ok - it's the trying that counts! Here are the ideas I have so far:
- Practice Japanese every day (meaningfully). I need to come up with a kind of schedule for myself of which skill areas to work on on which days, and I got a couple of new resources for Christmas, but I haven't had a chance to get this going just yet. Hopefully at the weekend! One advantage of being a language teacher is that I at least have some idea of the best ways to learn one, so that helps, but I've been finding it hard so far to get good beginner listening/reading materials.
- Read a book per week. At the moment I'm still on my Witcher re-read - right now I'm reading the Lady of the Lake, and that's my second book this year, so I'm on track! I've got a big list of books I want to read already, and I got a bunch of new ones for Christmas that I'm excited to start reading.
- Explore new music. I feel like I'm in a bit of a rut, musically - my Spotify playlist is starting to bore me and the recommendations aren't working for me, so clearly I need to mix things up a bit. I want to start exploring Korean and Japanese music more - any recommendations for singer-songwriter or Indie stuff, anyone?
- Bake more. I love baking but I never make time for it - this needs to change. First up: find a way to bake malt loaf that tastes like the real thing, since I can't buy it here!
- Make art regularly. I want to write a couple of songs this year (I only managed one last year, *sigh*), make another macrame wall-hanging, work on some watercolor art (I really want to have a go at making my own medieval snail art, haha), and make the 'house in a box' kit that my sister gave me for Christmas. Again, something I need to deliberately make time for!
- Write regularly. I didn't manage this last year, but Yuletide, as usual, reminded me how much I enjoy it, so I plan to actually make a habit of it this year. I've signed up for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
chocolateboxcomm as an incentive to get started, and I'd also like to start planning an original story, too. I came across Notebook AI and basically I just want an excuse to play with it... xD
Fitness Goals
I did a lot better in this area last year than I have in previous years, but I'd like to do more. My goals for this year:
- Dance 1-2 per week. I bought myself a pass for 10 classes at a local dance school, and I want to keep going to their beginner ballet classes, plus maybe their jazz classes too. Once I move in the summer, I'll be closer to the school anyway, so it'll be easier after that to go regularly - but I should make a start now, too!
- Swim once per week. I got goggles that are actually good for Christmas, so now I have no excuse!
Service Goals
This is the one area where I don't have any personal goals. I already do so much volunteer work through my actual work that I really feel like I've got it covered! Not going to talk about work stuff outside of f-lock, but I do really enjoy the weekend activities that I run, and I have a lot planned for this year.
Beyond those goals, I also have a nice list of video games to play this year, especially Persona 5 Royal and finishing Persona Q 2 and the main story of FFXIV!
So those are my thoughts so far... we'll see how well I'll stick to them. I might try and make a monthly post to track how I'm doing, as a way of reminding myself of all the fun things I want to do. The biggest challenge for me is making sure I have enough time for these things by not allowing work to take over my life and eat up my evenings, so I need to be really strict this year about leaving work at work. Fingers crossed, I can make it work!
Creative/Thinking Goals
I always have so many of these, and I usually only manage to do a few of them, but that's ok - it's the trying that counts! Here are the ideas I have so far:
- Practice Japanese every day (meaningfully). I need to come up with a kind of schedule for myself of which skill areas to work on on which days, and I got a couple of new resources for Christmas, but I haven't had a chance to get this going just yet. Hopefully at the weekend! One advantage of being a language teacher is that I at least have some idea of the best ways to learn one, so that helps, but I've been finding it hard so far to get good beginner listening/reading materials.
- Read a book per week. At the moment I'm still on my Witcher re-read - right now I'm reading the Lady of the Lake, and that's my second book this year, so I'm on track! I've got a big list of books I want to read already, and I got a bunch of new ones for Christmas that I'm excited to start reading.
- Explore new music. I feel like I'm in a bit of a rut, musically - my Spotify playlist is starting to bore me and the recommendations aren't working for me, so clearly I need to mix things up a bit. I want to start exploring Korean and Japanese music more - any recommendations for singer-songwriter or Indie stuff, anyone?
- Bake more. I love baking but I never make time for it - this needs to change. First up: find a way to bake malt loaf that tastes like the real thing, since I can't buy it here!
- Make art regularly. I want to write a couple of songs this year (I only managed one last year, *sigh*), make another macrame wall-hanging, work on some watercolor art (I really want to have a go at making my own medieval snail art, haha), and make the 'house in a box' kit that my sister gave me for Christmas. Again, something I need to deliberately make time for!
- Write regularly. I didn't manage this last year, but Yuletide, as usual, reminded me how much I enjoy it, so I plan to actually make a habit of it this year. I've signed up for
chocolateboxcomm as an incentive to get started, and I'd also like to start planning an original story, too. I came across Notebook AI and basically I just want an excuse to play with it... xDFitness Goals
I did a lot better in this area last year than I have in previous years, but I'd like to do more. My goals for this year:
- Dance 1-2 per week. I bought myself a pass for 10 classes at a local dance school, and I want to keep going to their beginner ballet classes, plus maybe their jazz classes too. Once I move in the summer, I'll be closer to the school anyway, so it'll be easier after that to go regularly - but I should make a start now, too!
- Swim once per week. I got goggles that are actually good for Christmas, so now I have no excuse!
Service Goals
This is the one area where I don't have any personal goals. I already do so much volunteer work through my actual work that I really feel like I've got it covered! Not going to talk about work stuff outside of f-lock, but I do really enjoy the weekend activities that I run, and I have a lot planned for this year.
Beyond those goals, I also have a nice list of video games to play this year, especially Persona 5 Royal and finishing Persona Q 2 and the main story of FFXIV!
So those are my thoughts so far... we'll see how well I'll stick to them. I might try and make a monthly post to track how I'm doing, as a way of reminding myself of all the fun things I want to do. The biggest challenge for me is making sure I have enough time for these things by not allowing work to take over my life and eat up my evenings, so I need to be really strict this year about leaving work at work. Fingers crossed, I can make it work!
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Date: 2020-01-08 01:09 pm (UTC)