12/31/08 Goals

It turns out that its hallowed blogger law that everyone must recap their previous year’s highlights on December 31. Every blogger. Every year. Cause it’s the Bloggy law. Go ahead. Check some other blogs. If they’ve written today, chances are that it will be a year in review post. And I was all set to do it too because it’s an easy post that doesn’t require much thought.

But then I hesitated, and I found that I wasn’t really interested in just listing out a list of things that I did last year. Mostly because it’s an easy post that doesn’t require much thought. And because I have the entire year’s archive list over here to the right so if you’re into recaps, you should feel free to wander over there and run through your favorites. So this time, I’m ignoring bloggy law and scrapping the recap. (I know. I’m such a rebel). You can’t totally ignore December 31st introspection though, so instead of an easy year in review recap list, I’m going to share the New Year’s Resolutions that I made on New Year’s Day last year. Recappy, but still a little different. We’ll see how I did:


My New Year’s Goals, as written on December 31st, 2007:
Keep to my thesis schedule and don’t leave it all to the last minute- This time last year, I was just beginning my graduate thesis for school. It was long, it was boring (even for me), and it required lots and lots of slogging through less than perfect data. And I know how I love to procrastinate with stuff like that. But I’m happy to report that I did a pretty good job of staying on scheduled as I wrote it. It took 5 months to do, and while I tinkered with it all the way up until the very end, I hit just about every milestone deadline that I had set for myself. And got an A on the thesis. So this one was a check, and although I didn’t share this answer with the professor when he asked, the biggest lesson I learned from doing this thesis is that I don’t have to be intimidated by major, long term projects.

Finish school- this one was actually pretty easy, since I was in the home stretch by the time December 31st rolled around. I only had 9 more hours to complete for my degree, but I was also getting a pretty bad case of senior-itis, which is probably why that made the list. The good news is that I made it though. And while I love the free time, a little part of me misses going to class. I’m a student at heart. This probably won’t be the last time I’m enrolled in classes.

Exercise regularly- Doesn’t everybody have this on their New Year’s list? I admit it’s been on more than a few years for me. Actually, I did well enough that I feel like I can count this one as a win this year. I joined a gym at the beginning of April and have managed to get into the habit of going three times a week on a regular basis. (I also have my twice a week walking group at lunch, although the cold weather has put a bit of a damper on that lately). The trick for me was 1) scheduling gym time on my calendar, which only threat of death can remove and 2) going straight to the gym from work, because if I go home I’m not leaving again. I also joined some classes, which keep me motivated and on task and don’t let me slack off. The result is that I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I’ve missed a workout. I’ll keep this goal going for 2009.

Learn another language- I was thinking Spanish. Unfortunately, I didn’t hit this goal. No hablo español. Knoxville isn’t really known for its Spanish-speaking population (at least, none that I’ve come across anyway), so I don’t actually know anyone that I can speak it with, even if I did learn it. And it’s pretty hard to learn a language that you don’t practice on a daily basis. I’d still like to learn it though. I’ll put this on my list again at some point.

Do something I love- You know those few lucky people who really love what they do? I’m not one of them. Sure, I have a good enough job that isn’t difficult and pays the bills, but it isn’t my passion. I’d really find something where I would look forward to going into work in the mornings. For some reason, I thought that once I achieved the MBA, that would just magically happen. Like someone would knock on my door and be like, “Now that you have a graduate degree, we’d like to offer you your dream job!” Except that I don’t really know what my dream job would look like. (I haven’t decided what I want to be when I grow up). And then the economy got shaky and all the jobs dried up, dream or otherwise. So I’m still doing the same thing that I’ve been doing for the past five years, and for the moment, I’ll count myself lucky that I have it, even if it isn’t a passion.

All in all, not too bad. I hit some. I missed some. I accomplished some stuff that wasn’t on the list (which still counts in my book). I’d tell you what this year’s goals would be, but I haven’t finished thinking of them yet, so that’ll have to be another post. How about you? Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? Did you accomplish any from last year? I’m curious.