Resolving again, anew

It’s New Year’s Eve, so I spent part of the day setting up my goals for the New Year. I’m not a fan of big, grandiose resolutions, but I like setting and tracking small, attainable goals.

In the past, I’ve set monthly goals I’ve had spotty success with–some months I stay on track, and other months I don’t–so this year I’ve decided to take the advice of a CNN story on Monday resolutions, setting up a recurring reminder on my Monday to-do list to review my goals for the previous week.

Most of my goals for 2019 are the same as my goals for 2018. Each day, I want to meditate, write in my journal, log at least 15,000 steps, and take and post to Flickr at least one photo. Each week, I want to blog at least three times and write at least one letter. Each month, I want to go to a museum once and the Zen Center twice. And over the course of the year, I want to read at least 50 books.

I know from the past that I tend to meet my daily meditation, photo-taking, and step-count goals as well as my annual reading goal. I’m far less faithful when it comes to blogging, museum and Zen Center attendance, and letter-writing: given my work and household obligations, those activities are the first to fall to the wayside. But the whole point of goal-setting is to give oneself a push, so I welcome the excuse of a New Year to get a New Start. If nothing else, sitting down and deciding what you want to do in the New Year is inspiring, even if you sometimes fall short of your goals.