Goals for 2023, 1-Month Update

I started the year copying Matthew Dicks’ and his ongoing tracking daily, monthly, yearly, and lifelong goals. He’s got 49 things on his list. I have 11 things. Well, now I have 12.

This is a fun experiment. First, it lays bear all my goals and the progress. It’s humbling. But it also is helping me focus. It would help anyone focus who dares write down his goals. This ideas of “writing down your goals” is nothing new. Matthew Dicks didn’t invent it. I’m not one of a handful of people toying around with this idea of writing things down. If you doubt it, just Google “write things down to better achieve goals” and you can spend a week reading all the articles. So, let’s get to my 2023 and Forever-Goals.

1: DON’T GET ALZHEIMER’S: Everyone has a phobia or fear. This is mine. Now it’s time to be very specific about how I’m going to do that. Eat less sugar. Or, how about no sugar. That’s what I’ll start now. I mean, some sugar is OK. But I gotta stop eating candy, cookies, or drinking sugary drinks. Maybe I’ll start with “no extra useless sugar Sunday-Thursdays. Oh, and I’ll do this with good, quality sleep and #3 …the exercise.

2: LOSE 20 POUNDS:  I lost 5 pounds. I think that’s mostly from drinking a gallon of water every day, but that’s a start.

3: 5-HOURS OF WALKING-PLUS-SPRINTING PER WEEK:  Done. This one’s pretty easy. It’s my selfish time. It’s when I sit and mull over a problem or project OR it’s me listening to a good Podcast, a good audio book, or just some new music.

4: LIFT WEIGHTS 3 TIMES PER WEEK:  I think I averaged 1-day-a-week with weights. Here’s what they don’t tell you. Spend a day throwing weights around for an hour and the next few days …your body hurts. Yes. I just need to toughen up.

5: WRITE FOR 1-HOUR EVERY DAY:  Major fail. Not sure why I’m not sitting myself in front of my keyboard every day. Or journaling.

6: FINISH 3 BOOKS:  See above. Since I didn’t spend any time writing every day …guess how much progress I made on my three books?

7: ATTEND 6 MOTH EVENTS WITH THE HOPE OF GETTING PICKED TO TELL A STORY: I simply had a scheduling conflict. But I think my Calendar is open March 2nd and April 6th. I’m going!

8: WRITE A LOVE LETTER TO MY WIFE EVERY DAY:  14 days out of 31 in month-1. I ain’t stopping this.

9: LEARN HOW TO SUBMIT ARTICLES TO WEBSITES and MAGAZINES:  See above. Big fail. Didn’t write, so how could I ever get this one done.  Thing is, I like to write. I think I have some good ideas. I’m almost 50. I do some things (sales, hike, parent, stay-married) quite well. There are websites and eNewsletters and magazines I read and I think I could contribute something. Back when I did freelance writing, I got paid to write ghost-Blogs and actually ghost-wrote an entire book, so I know writing is hard and people need writing and writers. Gonna do it (or figure it out).

10: READ FOR HALF-HOUR PER DAY:  Yes. Loved this one. This made me happy. And I don’t even mean articles or a screen. I read a paper book. Every night. And I have these cool clip-on lights that attached to my book. I actually went to bed a little early just to read more (could be an excuse for avoiding writing).

11: FINISH DESIGNING A BOARD GAME WITH MY BROTHER-IN-LAW AND HIS FRIEND: No progress. Maybe this month.

*** NEW *** 12:  Listen and learn a new musical artist I really never got into. In January I told myself I’m going to figure out what’s the big deal about Crosby, Stills, and Nash. And what’s the difference between Crosby, Stills, and Nash (aka CSN) and Crosby, Still, Nash, and Young. Figured it was some slow evolution and that Young was in the band and then left but whoa was I wrong. Learned all the Cs, the Ss, the Ns, and the Y had solo careers before CSN and CSNY and learned CSN debuted in ’69 and then CSNY in ’70 and he joined for the tour and then YEARS went by before CSN or CSNY released any additional music and… phew. Wow, what I didn’t know. I’m halfway through a biography (audio book) on the band. It’s incredible. February is going to be all about Smashing Pumpkins and their new ATUM rock opera (parts 1 & 2 are out, and part 3 will be, soon).

*** NEW *** 13:  Memorize a full song every month. I’m an idiot. I like to sing along to songs. If I had a magic lamp and could make a wish, I would wish that I could sing or hold a tune. Either way, I’ll sing badly along with songs. I want to memorize a new song monthly. Dig into the lyrics and what they mean.

There it is. One month in the books. I’m going to start tracking in a Google Sheet and figure out my success ratio or, I guess you could say, “give myself a letter grade.”

Tomorrow on the blog… Jurassic World Makes Dinosaurs Cry