Themeattics

Do or do not. There is no try.

Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back

I’ve come to accept the fact that none of my ambitions get done if I’m not tracking them, and even then it’s difficult to keep on task if I’m not having someone keep me accountable. I have terrible discipline – something I’m pretty sure I’ve covered ad nauseum by now. That’s fine. Well, “fine.” I understand it, I live with it, whatever. All that means is every so often I sit down, pull up a doc, and get to work planning.

Which is just what I did for the last part of the year. And now I get to pester the lot of you with it and hope that I can inspire a bit of a year-closing push for everyone reading. Let’s consider it an End-Year’s Resolution.

Now, I did end up making a more forward-thinking list when I went through the process. I started at lifetime goals – the things I want to have done or be doing by my own personal End of Days. Obviously, these are more nebulous and harder to pin down, but they make a good baseline to build actionable items as I go. I went with five (I’ll go into these in some other article – this one isn’t about the big picture) and split them into 6 timings. A twenty-five-year plan, a ten, five, three, one, and end-of-year.

Figuring out goals for that far away isn’t exactly a science, and it will certainly change over time, but it helps to work backwards for me and think about what I might need then to plan how to get there now. For example, in a few years’ time there’s going to be another driver in the house, then another, then another. Best to start setting money aside now in preparation.

So, shut up Tom, this was supposed to be about this year, right? Right. Why don’t we get on that, then. In no particular order:

1. Hit 185lbs
   • I haven’t been reliably sub-195 in AGES, and it’s been a battle to get there. This one is pretty damn ambitious, knowing how hard I seem to elastic-band back to it and, frankly, how much I like food. But, hey, it’s me. Why make things easy? There are 11 weeks left, that’s not even a pound a week! So… so simple…
   • Currently at 193.
2. 20 pull-ups without break.
   • I had this combined with a 60 push-ups without break goal, but that one I already managed to hit, which felt fantastic. Now I’m just seeing how far I can push it by the end of the year. Pull-ups have been a bigger challenge, though, and part of it might be how much I hate the bar I’m using. Either way, on Saturday/Sunday I do one or two sessions of each to see where my number falls.
   • Currently at 18.
3. Weekly family night
   • Life’s become very, VERY busy. With sports, dance, after-school events, household things to handle, my own personal goals to accomplish, and so on, I’ve felt that our time together has suffered. Sure, we spend time together in most of what I mentioned above, but not as a full family unit. So, I want to have one night a week where we do just that. Hang out, watch a movie, play a game, etc. I wish it could be a specific day each week, but I’m not stupid enough to think I can block time like that anymore.
   • Plan to start this week. One will be easy, though – the difficulty is making this happen EVERY week.
4. Eliminate some debt
   • There’s little in my personal life I hate more than owing people money. Having to pay for what I can just own outright (And with interest, no less!) drives me nuts. Don’t get me started on the subscription economy. Anyway, our smallest loan currently is for the windows we replaced when we bought our new home.
   • I’ve already paid all the extra I need to make sure this is done. Our last payment is scheduled for December.
5. Eliminate unnecessary things
   • Of any goal I have for the end of the year, this one is the most nebulous. We have, well… a lot of stuff. Stuff is the best word I can give it. We’ve got instruments and Legos and nerf guns and tabletop games and clothes and boxes and and and. Everywhere I go there’s just more stuff. It’s gotta go. However, since this isn’t a quantifiable goal, it really just hinges on me being satisfied that enough useless junk has been tossed.
   • And we’re almost there. Yesterday was a major purge of the garage that led to a lot of donations, and I’ve got plans in place for that same sort of thing inside. Speaking of which, if you want some second-hand tabletop games, let me know and I’ll see what we can work out.
6. Lector
   • For reasons I don’t quite know, my name fell off the list of lectors for Sunday mass. I need to get back on, I really enjoy being able to participate so directly. Plus, I think it’s a good thing for the kiddos to see.
   • The next training to get on the roles is set for this Wednesday, so I’ll be there and then I can have this one checked off.
7. Daily rosary
   • I’d be a liar if I said my prayer life has been less than stellar of late. That needs fixing. As wonderful as it’s been listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, that’s just the first step. I need to keep working on my personal relationship with God.
   • Since we already do one every week on Sunday, might as well make this the day I start.
8. Quarterly confession
   • Speaking of that personal relationship with God – it’s been a hot minute since I’ve been to confession. That has to change.
   • I need to check into when a good time would be for the whole family to go, and we can make a time of it.
9. Residuum v2.5
   • I have been miserably lax on trying to get my first novel published. We all know the story by now, I’ve got a problem with rejection and failure, so I allow things to sit and rot instead of facing them head on. It’s like I expect some magic to descend and ordain the book published and put into stores. I got fed up with myself enough to get over this stupid idea. Aside from family night (And does that really count?) it’s the only goal I have that relies on other people. I try very hard not to make goals like that, but no novel is ready for publishing without having eyes from others on it. I need to know where things are missed, what can be improved, and what just flat out doesn’t work. Then I can refine.
   • Not much time left here. My original goal was to get a certain number of reviews AND have my edits done for version 2.5 by the end of the year. Now, I’ll be lucky to get that number of reviews by then. That hasn’t changed the goal, though. Maybe people will turn around reviews quickly and I can push full steam ahead. We’ll see! Either way, I’m not dropping this ball again.
10. Catalyst
    • My next novel had a fantastic showing with some people in a writer’s group where we exchanged chapters for review as we wrote. All until I hit a snag and their questions brought out a glaring problem in the narrative that couldn’t be ignored and was so foundational, I had to drop the whole damn project and go back to the drawing board. That’s where I am now.
    • When I set a goal for this, I considered doing another NaNoWriMo for the book, but I simply don’t have the time in my day to devote to one thing like this. Not at the expense of ignoring all the rest. So, the new plan is to have the book well and truly outlined by the end of either October or November, and the first few chapters done by the end of the year. Turns out this goal might be more nebulous than I’d like, so I might spend some time trying to pin it down.
11. Celestial
    • Hey, remember how I’m a huge nerd? Remember how I’ve been sucked into fighting games? Or how I really, really gravitate towards improvement in general? WELL, a friend and I are both gunning to reach the top “rank” of Guilty Gear -Strive- by the end of the year. A little healthy competition and trash talk never hurt anything, right?
    • I’m currently one step away, but it’s a hell of a step. To reach that “rank” (I use quotes because it’s actually a floor of a tower, it’s a weird system), I need to qualify for a trial wherein I match up against people either already in that rank or people also trying out for it and win 5 of 6 games. Lose 2 games and I’m booted out and have to re-qualify again, which is a pain in and of itself. So, yeah. I’m skirting the edges, but it’s rough.

And there we go. 11 goals, 11 weeks. Nice how that lined up, I suppose. Will be fun to check back in with you at the close of the year and see how this panned out.

As always, cheers to you readers. Go make goals and crush them. Make the world a better place by making something of yourselves.