Six Goals

I think instead of making New Year's resolutions, which I was never inclined to do aside from a couple of idealistic years in high school, it's time for me to set some specific goals. If I'm going to become a better person, I need to be intentional about it, it's not just going to happen by me coasting into it. I don't want to be the same person in 5 years that I am now. I want to be better. I know January is halfway over, but 50 weeks is still pretty good. So I'm thinking to myself what are some goals in different areas of life that I could set that would be challenging, but attainable and would show some real personal growth...

Before I get into these, I'm thinking I should take a minute and figure out what areas of life could use goals. I can boil this down into six categories of life and I feel as though each one needs a goal. I was going to make just five, but that's just not enough in this case.

The first thing that comes to mind is finances. Finances have always been a little bit intimidating for me. I have seen so many money issues in my family and I would like to take control of it instead of it controlling me. So that is a definite part of my life to target.

As far as my career goes, it's hard for me to isolate anything besides general improvement. I'm not getting promoted, I don't expect to get much of a raise. More than anything, I want to earn the trust and respect of my colleagues.

My physical life is doing pretty well. I'm in pretty decent shape, I've even dropped a few pounds in the last few months. But I can be better. I would like to lose a few inches off my waist line. My food habits have been a little hard to change, and that's probably the first thing that I need to do in order to make that happen.

As far as mental goals are concerned, the challenge is coming up with something that's definitive and measurable. I could very easily say practice more positive self talk and not be so critical of myself. But as tough as I am on myself, that's never going to work. I want to come up with something different.

In terms of my spiritual life, I've kind of been coasting for a while. Yes I go to church, yes I volunteer, yes I'm in a community group, and I've even started giving a little money regularly! That took years to start. But I don't do a whole lot for myself. I certainly have my standards and my values, but I have slacked sorely on my devotion time and Bible reading. If I'm going to become more like the man God wants me to become, then I need to make time with him a priority again.

My social life is a tricky deal. I have neglected it over the last 6 months or so due to work reasons. Seems like most of my human interactions are either at work or on social media, definitely not the best way to go. So this is something that I can look to improve on.

With all those thoughts in mind, these are the six goals that I will focus on accomplishing between today and December 31, 2019, in other words, before I see 2020...

1. Financial
Pay off my final student loan

I have a shade under $5,000 to pay off from my Master's. With that sneaky interest amount always going up, it's pretty much right at $5,000 though! In 2015, I agreed to a 10 year repayment plan. It's about three years gone by now and I've paid about half of it off, so I'm already ahead of my minimum payment requirements by about 18 months. But I want to get even more aggressive. I want it paid off in less than one year. Now I've already paid $400 in January and plan to pay another $100 at the end of the month. So looking at the next 11 months, that's going to take $450 per month through December. Once that is done, I will be debt free.

On a side note, I've been living on a budget since last October. It's been a great thing for me and I plan to continue doing so for as long as I'm alive.

2. Career

Develop myself in this job where I am a valued member of the team and I gain increased responsibilities.

I can't make this about a raise or a promotion. I've been in this job for 6 and a half months. But it's only been in the last 3 months that I really started growing and coming into my own. I have good days and I have days when I'm scared, even when I shouldn't have to be. It's like I am now responsible for events that took place before I started here and that's a little daunting.

3. Physical
Reduce my waist to 30 inches

What I really want to say is I can see my six pack again. And this seems so far away. I have not seen it since I was in first or second grade. That's 30 years. I'm an Italian boy, I love my bread, what can I say. But I want to be able to go to the beach or pool and not have to suck in my gut. I know 33 inches isn't horrible, but it can be better. I just downloaded an app for a 30 day ab workout. While I'm sure it can help, it won't matter if I don't eat a proper diet.

Also, I have signed up to run two races on back-to-back days for the first time in my life. In downtown Norfolk in November, I will be running a 5K and then a 10K with just a 24 hour break in between.

4. Mental
Quit swearing to myself

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this will be the toughest one of all. I don't know if I'm ready to say I will quit swearing completely. But it's the idea of getting angry at myself. And it's not enough to just substitute different words. No, it's about the thoughts, the self-image. That's what has to be better. What does that mean? Not beating myself up for the mistakes I make. And when trouble comes, not acting like my independence is being snatched from me. And also not being angry at God when things are not going how they should.

This one is about perspective about how I see me and how I see God and how I see the world. Admittedly, I don't have a lot faith in the goodness of people.

5. Spiritual

Complete a 1 year a Bible reading plan and record what convicts me

Bible reading is exactly what I need to start doing. Yes, I want to commit more scripture to memory. I pretty much have four verses memorized right now. Now I admit I missed the whole month of January. So I'll start it in February and go through January 1.

6. Social
Make 5 new local friends

Now when I say this, the word "local" is vital. I am leaving out social media connections. Those are too easy to fall back on and while I have made many friends through them, it has become a crutch and I don't really want more computer-based friends. I'm talking about making friends that I can go out and do things with. They have me over to their place, I can have them over to mine.