2014 Goals

Source

A little late in deciding these is better than never, right?

I’m not that good at goals. I go into January certain I’m going to accomplish everything ever and then slowly the year wears me down with minutiae and I lose what I want to accomplish. But, it’s still worth making some goals, and trying to stick to them. Here are mine:

• Either start, or at least sign up and pay for in 2015, a real class again at the university. A language or a creative writing class, or perhaps photography.
• Get better at taking pictures! Take more pictures with what I currently have and learn a little bit more about how to take good ones. Take at least a picture a week.
• Cook real food more often, rather than ready meals / takeaway / going out. I actually tried really hard at this for most of the latter half of 2013 and then totally fell off the wagon in November and December. I want to cook from scratch more often because it’s both healthier and more satisfying, not to mention cheaper. Goal here is to make lunch for work and cook from scratch 4 days a week (doesn’t have to be the same days).
• Exercise. The perpetual goal, and again, totally gave up in November and December. Christmas didn’t count, but the previous month and a half sure did. I’d like to exercise 3 times a week at minimum. I don’t need to lose weight (very thankfully) but I do get creaky and sore and out of shape when I don’t make the effort.

With reading goals, I’m actually relatively happy with my reading this year. I still think it’s worth setting some goals:

• Read 150 books. I’m going to stick with this. I think it’s a reasonably healthy, realistic amount for my own personal reading speed and with everything else above going on.
• Read more non-fiction. I set this goal last year with a specific number – more than 18. Instead I only read 17, probably because I wasn’t really keeping track. But I tend to really, really enjoy the non-fiction, especially history, that I do read, and it’s crazy that these are just a small fraction of my total number of books read. I’ll go for more than 17, this year.
• Read more books that have been on the TBR for longer. Again, the same goal as last year, although amazingly when I do pull books out and decide to read them I seem to manage. It took me most of the year, but I did read all of last year’s Long-Awaited Reads. I’m really hoping that magic works again this year. Last year’s goal was to read one book a month acquired pre-2011. I only read 6, so I got halfway there (I managed 37 books I’d acquired before 2013, which still isn’t a great amount). This year I’ll just say books acquired 2012 and earlier, one per month.
• Start making a genuine effort to diversify my reading. I’d like to read more books by people of color and either set or written outside the UK / US. I need to grow my awareness of this a lot because I currently don’t pay that much attention except for special events, and I should, because I know the world is big and if I don’t encourage diversity in my reading it isn’t very likely to happen naturally. It’s not much but again I’m going to aim for one book per month on each here.

What are your goals for 2014?