About Those 2016 Goals....And the Year in General

At the end of each year, I take some time to look at and consider what are some of the goals I sought out for the year and what have I actually accomplished.  I did this with 2015 and set my goals for 2016.  My goals for 2016 were a mixed bag but my achievements for 2016 went well beyond what I set out in writing.  

Let's first look at what I set out to do:

Giving Thanks

Yes!  I totally nailed this one with a daily practice of giving thanks to different aspects of my life.  I will be writing a longer post on this but I definitely hit this one between the daily practice of acknowledging things to be grateful for and then also writing a letter once a week to thank someone in my life.  

Finish the Book

Well this was flubbed and is part of 2017's goals.  It just didn't happen and I should have prioritized it a bit more than I did.  Here's hoping 2017 isn't a repeat of 2016 in this regard.

Running Goals

So I didn't cross the 1500 threshold as I had an IT band issue that plagued me for months until I had to give up my Vibrams (still sad about that).  However, my two other running goals were totally accomplished.  I not only ran a 1:52 half-marathon in June (followed by a 24:30 5K two weeks later), but I also broke the 40-minute mark on my 5-miles, coming in at 39:59 on the annual Wild Turkey Run on Thanksgiving.  That win was particularly amazing after not running for a few months because of my injuries.  

Write more

I have gotten about half-way into a short story but have not done as much writing as I had wanted to--though given how much writing I'm doing for my PhD, that isn't entirely surprising and might be a bit of a pipe dream until I complete the dissertation.

Perform more

This didn't happen and like the writing, may not happen in the next few years for the same reasons.

Other Accomplishments

So the following are accomplishments that I didn't set out to do at the beginning of 2016 but picked up along the way.  

50 push ups

After creating a daily reminder towards the end of 2016 to do 10 push ups a day, I slowly increased it by 5 every couple weeks and now can (almost) effortlessly do 50 push ups.  Not a huge goal, but that I have never been able to do this before, it's something I certainly appreciate.  

Swimming

In taking a new job at a school that has a pool, I've taken to swimming and have been able to build up to swimming freestyle for 1/2 hour which I've never been able to do before as well.

15 pounds lighter

Ok, we'll have to reassess this one after the holidays for sure--hahaha.  But I started Weight Watchers in April and it has been quite useful.  I got down about 20-25 pounds and came back up to the 15-20 during the fall semester and winter break and will resume to a normal routine once life is back to a normal routine.  But it has been a great adaptation that has been quite helpful throughout the last 8 months.  

Most of my accomplishments this year were of a physical nature, which is not entirely surprising in that, it's the one with the most flexibility.  My intellectual goals are largely focused on the PhD program.  However, I am glad that I did manage some emotion goals with regards to learning to be more thankful and appreciative of the things in my life.  My achievements for next year will hopefully be a bit more balanced!  Regardless, I am glad that I was able to accomplish the things that I did and see those that I didn't as just something I need to reconsider and reconfigure to determine why these goals didn't happen this year and can I make it happen for next year.

What about you?  What were some of your goals and achievements for the year?  What are you setting up for 2017?

---

Did you enjoy this read? Let me know your thoughts down below or feel free to browse around and check out some of my other posts!. You might also want to keep up to date with my blog by signing up for them via email.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.