Resolutions? Nope. Goals

I’ve never made a new year’s resolution. I was never passionate enough about a year-long change to make one. If I make goals, they are to be met in an attainable time-frame, and not confined to a specific time. If I make a lifestyle change, it’s for the better – not just for a year. Make sense? Ok, moving on...

This year, however, I did try something along those lines. I made a list of things I wanted to do before the end of the year. Some are goals, some are bucket-list items, and some are simply “to do” items that if I put on a list they were more likely to get done. After I made the list, I realized there were 12 items, one for each month. Convenient.

While these items don’t completely fit into the box of being completed in a specific month, it’s slowly working out that way. It’s April, and I have four goals completed. I’m currently working on two that should both be completed in May and June. Two others are planned for July and August. Brilliant! I make sure I’m always working on one or two items on the list at a time. They are panning out themselves. It’s quite nice, and proof that I should chill out more.

Since I’m trying to be more open, I’m going to actually share them with you.

::deep breath::

To do:

-Golf. For the first time ever. (This is a bucket-list-type-of-entry). Completed June 17, 2013.

-Pay off student loans (scheduled to happen the end of May. YAY!) Completed May 1, 2013.

-Do a day of RAGBRAI (This bike ride across Iowa in July conveniently goes through Des Moines this year).

-Get to XYZ weight. (Yea, not telling you that, sorrynotsorry)

-Run a 5K in 30 minutes. (Probably my loftiest of the bunch)

-Take Alpha course at church. (We’re signed up for the May-June session)

-Submit pictures to the Iowa State Fair (For August. I’ve done this before, just need to get my butt in gear. Trip to Colorado will help). Completed June 15, 2013.

-Cookbook. I want to make a cookbook of all the recipes I have and use most frequently – in a standard format. (This one stresses me out the most)

Completed:

-Make a will (Legalzoom made this a breeze)

-Get a new car (THIS goal is one I'd had on the list since I graduated college. Felt great to achieve).

-Buy a life insurance policy (these are all so adult!)

-Renew my passport with married name (easy, but expensive)
-Pay off student loans (Due to a miscalculation, we got this one done a month early)
-Submit pictures to the Iowa State Fair
-Golf

In general, I feel I got the easiest ones out of the way first. Maybe they just feel easy now that they’re done. I’d like to keep you updated with my progress throughout. Now that I’ve shown them to the world, I feel obligated to complete all of them. This will be especially helpful in the weight-related item. Something tells me I’ll push myself to achieve these before the year is out.

What are YOUR 2013 goals? Do you make and/or keep resolutions? How do you make yourself accountable for those goals? Share, SHARE!!!