Goals for a New Year, 2017 Edition

Welcome to 2017!  

Word cloud of this post in the form of 2017

Despite the craziness on the global level, we've arrived at 2017.  Politically, 2016 was a rough year.  Personally, I cannot complain.  I landed a new job, I've made progress in my PhD program, I've lost weight, and I earned personal bests in my running, despite injuries.  Overall, I'm healthy, happy, and loved.  But it's 2017 and I need some goals (for those new to this, you can check out my 2016 goals and how well I did with them).  I feel like these should all be doable this year, but who knows.  In reality, I probably won't hit all of them, but enough of them that like last year, I find this a valuable activity to get me focused on how to progress in the year.  

Give It a Tri

We all know that I have taken to running over the last 5 years.  This past summer, I returned to bicycling as well when my IT band was giving me trouble.  I also started working at college that has a pool, which means I started swimming as well.  My brother and a few other friends have been nudging me to try a triathlon in the last few years.  I always made a point to say that I wouldn't do one because it would require access to a pool and I wouldn't get a gym membership because I don't like the gym (too easy for me to convince myself not to go).  But now that I've got access to a pool and am swimming regularly, I think it's fair to say I should definitely do a triathlon.  Now, they train hardcore for Ironman races, which is NOT what I will be doing this year.  I figure that a few sprints and an Olympic are well within my range.  I figure that I will got for 3 in total for the year and see how it goes.    

15,000 a day

This will be a bit of a stretch goal in that I'm not sure I will be able to do this everyday, but I believe in the aggregate I will be able to meet this goal.  Basically, I want to aim for 15,000 a day.  I do this pretty regularly but feel like making the goal of 15,000 makes it a bit more challenging.  Mostly, I'm curious to see how long of a streak I can maintain if I start with the intention of doing 15,000 a day.  My previous streak was somewhere withing the 50-60 days mark.  

And Another 15

I've lost 15 or so pounds with Weight Watchers.  I actually lost more but the fall semester and winter holiday season got the best of me.  My goal here is to get down to my goal weight and maintain it.  210 is the goal and I feel it's highly doable and of maintaining so long as I take to heart the ideas that Weight Watchers advocates.  

Stay On Target

I'm taking a break from having running goals for this year.  I still plan to regularly run and do a few half-marathons and such, but I feel like a break from the goals is a good idea while working on other physical aspects.  This past year, I hit two personal bests (under 40-minute 5-mile; under 1:55 half-marathon) that I never thought was possible.  I want to appreciate that and enjoy running this year without trying to outdo myself.  Call it a victory lap if you will, but just a year of enjoying running without a strict goal to work towards.  

Focus on the Breath

I've practiced different methods of self-awareness and reflection over the years and I feel like this year, I want to use what I've learned to focus on my breathing.  Much of the literature about mindfulness, self-control, emotional well-being, etc all extol the importances of the breath and I feel like it is speaking to me right now as something important to hold onto and focus upon as this year feels like it has the potential to get increasingly challenging given I'll be going soon into year 3 of the doctoral program and of course, the political craziness that is the US right now.  Working to take the time to notice and practice breathing can only help to center me more in the days to come.  

Less mindlessness

Whether it's eating without being hungry, ceaselssly scrolling Facebook, constantly checking email, etc, I want to take my focus on the breath and use it to help me to shift away from things that feel too unncessary or without direction.  That's not to say I'm giving up social media but just aiming to use it more systematically than I have in years past.  I want to work more to be in tune with what I need, what I'm trying to accomplish, and what I may be trying to avoid.  

Complete the book

So the Teaching History With Comics book still remains unfinished but I am working with the publisher to have a clear and direct plan to get it complete, which is good because I think it will prime me well for the project that will come next.  I feel like I have a good sense of how to move forward with it and will just need to keep myself on a steady production schedule.  

Figure out my dissertation topic

Yeah, this one.  I'm starting to get a sense of what my specific topic might be but feel that I really have to focus it this year.  So, I plan on journaling on it weekly to help me further flesh it out and hopefully be able at this time next year to more substantively say what it is that I'm doing.  

Read more books

I'm making a pack with myself to give up graphic novels for the year (unless they are the few that I subscribe to) in order to clear out the books that are in my to-read pile (and have been for too long).  I have to do a lot of school reading but I want to return to reading books for pleasure and personal interest, so I'm going to drop the graphic novels for a while.  Hopefully then, I can clean out some of my way-to-long- "to read" pile that I've been itching to get to over the past decade or so (maybe finally finish The Wheel of Time series or all of Sara Douglass's books!).  

Politically Activate 

The 2016 election still hurts.  It hurts because it seems to be an utter failure of a healthy and well-informed democratic republic; it hurts because so much of what the new administration represents is not only antithetical to what our country represents in its most idealized form (a nation that fairly and equally represents the interests of its entire citizenry), but because the identity politics war waged so hard and ugly by the right in terms of the people they were willing to disregard as not American and the ways in which they dehumanized so many different groups just boggles the mind of anyone who believes in equity, fairness, and equality.  The election was a wake-up call for many and I hope to be part of the change that will undermine or at least limit the damage that the incoming administration represents.  

So those are the goals for 2017.  Tall order?  Probably.  But that gives me plenty of opportunity to hit, miss, and improve.  I've also decided that one way of staying more on target will be to actually update the blog bi-monthly with where I am with things.  Let's see if I manage to do that, right?  

What about you?  What are some of your goals for 2017?  What would you want to see accomplished by 2018?  

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