Rather than New Year’s Resolutions, a few friends set resolutions based on their birth year instead of the calendar year. I’ve decided to try this out.
I evidently turned 7 this year.
I’ve decided that this year on the Jon-ese calendar is going to be a big year. There’s plenty of people who have created a “30 while 30” type of goal list, and they tend to fall into a few categories I’m trying to avoid:
- Insignificant goals
“Pay for the person behind me at McDonald’s”
You won’t find me at McDonald’s, but this is still a silly goal. Sure it’s a nice thing to do, but I don’t want to set my sights on goals that require zero energy, a few dollars (if any), and no time.
- Impossible goals
“Write a best selling novel. Then host a television talk show. Then write a screenplay that is produced into a movie.”
While these goals may be noble, they’re totally impractical. Perhaps you could submit a novel for publication, but you can’t control whether it’s best selling, or when it gets published.
- Meaningless goals
“Fly a kite.”
Unless you have an irrational fear of kites, what’s the point? I’ve never held a tarantula, and I could go to the Butterfly Pavilion and hold one, which would be cool but not terribly meaningful to me.
- Unmeasurable goals
“Be a better dad.”
You can’t quantify that. Goals should be measurable. “Spend 20 Saturdays with my kid doing something fun just for him” is a better goal.
That brings me to what kind of goals I do want:
- Attainable (can be done)
- Meaningful (makes me a better person in some way)
- Difficult (requires effort, time, money, and/or planning)
- Quantifiable (I can check it off when it’s done)
.
As I thought about what I should have on my goal list, I realized I’ve got a lot of goals already to get started with that I’ve never completed. This is the year to get them done.
One of my goals is to blog more often (Yes, I need to quantify this), and another is to track my progress. So feel free to subscribe and follow along. (I’ll be blogging about other things as well.)
