It’s January 1, 2018. A new year. A new day. A chance to recalibrate, reorient, and reset. I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions in and of themselves. I don’t typically wait until January 1st to try to improve my life with new habits, as that seems arbitrary to me. If I want to change something, I generally try to implement that change into life immediately. (Perhaps that’s because I’m what Gretchen Rubin, author of The Four Tendencies, would term a Questioner – more driven by internal expectations than external ones. If you’ve not read her book, it’s worth a look)
However, questioner tendency aside, what I do like to do on January 1st is to evaluate and update my current list of goals and priorities. One of those is to do a little more blogging in 2018, so sharing the rest of my plans seemed like a good idea. Who knows, maybe I’ll give you an idea or two also. So… here goes:
Things I want to do every day in 2018:
- Meditate
- Walk / Run at least 1 mile
- Yoga
- 5-minute journal
- Play Guitar
- Write Lyrics
- Do A Creativity Exercise
- Read for at least 10 minutes
- 100 Push Ups
- 25 Pull Ups / Chin Ups
I like to use the app “Streaks” on my iPhone to track my progress. It’s got big giant buttons, gives you a big giant check mark, integrates with Apple Watch and Apple Health, and is really easy to use. It also has push notifications that you can customize to time of day, so that it’s easy to remember. I’m a huge fan of trying to build a streak of consecutive days doing something, and this app seems to be just simple enough to help me accomplish that.
I fully understand that I will likely fail at accomplishing all of these things every single day. Heck, I doubt that I’ll accomplish any single one of them every day. But, I’m going to see what kind of streaks I can run up for 2018. If I can even do 1/2 of these things for 1/2 of the days in 2018 I’ll be doing ok. I’ll likely set up some internal constraints like no email or social media in the morning until morning activities are done, and similarly, do the same in the evening. The reality is that sometimes life gets in the way of a good streak, but I’ll do my best to do my best. Wish me luck.
In addition to daily goals/activities that are very quantifiable and action-oriented, I am going to work on some bigger things in 2018 as well. This list includes:
- Listen more often and more carefully
- Ask more and better questions
- Live life in the present moment
- Say Thank You more
- Send fewer emails and have more face to face conversations
- Walk / Run at least 1,000 miles (which means I’ll need to regularly exceed my daily minimum goal)
- Create more memorable Moments (See The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath)
- Complete one of Seth Godin’s courses
- Better understand and serve those I work with and work for
- Volunteer time for non-for profits
- Garden
- Record More Songs
- Play Live Music
- Coach Youth Sports
- Help with homework
- Blog more often
- Go on fun family adventures, especially adventures across Ohio
- Mountain Bike
- Skateboard
- Kayak
- Try new things and regularly get out of my comfort zone
- Own my mistakes, learn from them, and grow as a person
- Laugh, especially at myself
- Be intentional with my time
- Speak up respectfully but passionately for things I believe in
- Help Sherrod Brown win re-election to the Senate
- Follow the advice Seth Godin and make a ruckus
- Be the best husband and father I can be, and always try to do it better than the day before
I approach 2018 with gratitude and grit ready to be more curious, creative, courageous, and compassionate. May your year be filled with happiness and joy and may you accomplish all you hope to do and more.
And with all that said, I’ll hit publish, with the first of what I hope to be many posts for 2018. Let’s do this.
