I never make New Year’s Resolutions — though I do have another New Year activity that I’ll write about another time. I struggle to set goals in the cold darkness of winter and life is too busy with social commitments for me to put thought into what I want for myself.
Instead, I set goals on my birthday at the end of June for what I’d like to do in the following year. I’ve done this for about twenty five years and have never once managed to complete all of the goals I set, but it means I have an annual snapshot of what is important to me and who I’d like to be. I’m contemplating my goals for this year as my birthday is suddenly just around the corner.
When I was younger, I tried to match the number of goals to the number of years I’d lived but as I’m rapidly approaching forty I’ve found that may be too many — the more goals I set, the fewer I achieve because my focus is too divided and even looking at the list is intimidating. I could try organizing the goals into categories or breaking large goals into smaller pieces if I wanted to keep doing that. It turns out it’s also just more challenging to come up with thirty-seven goals than it was to imagine fifteen!
Some goals have stayed on the list for many years. I always have at least one reading related goal and this year I will come very close to reaching the fifty books I was aiming to read. Next year, I’d like to read more fiction. I finally gave up on becoming fluent in French two years ago, after nearly twenty years of writing it down and doing very little work to achieve that one. It was something I thought would be professionally useful but held little passion for me. Instead, in the coming year I’m going to learn the basics of Anishinaabemowin. I’ve always wanted to ride a horse but despite regularly putting it on the list, I haven’t managed to reach my equestrian dreams. I don’t think I’m quite ready to let that one go yet.
Some goals are more fleeting. I reach them quickly and move on. Or I discover that they fit like clothes tailored for someone else — someone who is most definitely not me. I have often been described as ambitious but I suspect I will never again write “get a promotion at work” on one of these lists. The staff at the urgent care were pretty clear that I should abandon “run a 10k race” a few years ago.
I love looking back through these journal entries, seeing what I’ve checked off and where I struggled or lost interest. I’ve learned a lot about myself and how I have changed or stayed the same through the years and decades. I don’t know what all of my goals will be as I begin my thirty-eighth trip around the sun. I believe there will be themes of caring for my body and for my spiritual self. I’ll make goals focused on community building and social connections. Some will be big, some will be small. I’ll try to reach them all and I will fail, as always. And that’s okay. It’s enough to consider what I want and to see what sticks. And it’s enough to imagine who I might be a year from now.
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