10 Goals for 2016

Leave it to me to wait until we're halfway through the first month of 2016 to record my goals for the year.

I've been reading a lot of posts from others that decry the method, instead reversing to a simple resolution to fulfill for the year. That doesn't work for me.

Resolutions are tough to track and are painfully anticlimactic for list-makers. So I'm going to stick to the devil I know, the one that has historically led to positive change.

I've been setting goals since 2008. I'm batting about.700, which is right where I want to be. I've been able to do this consistently by spreading goals out over a year (vs. aiming to fulfill them all at once), and creating a nice combination of moon shot and roof shot ambitions.

Learning

  1. Read 40 books*.

  2. Get back to basics with social media. I've never been one to shy away from new platforms, it's just been hard to choose based on the usual content I create. This goal may sound trite, but it's the quickest way to alleviate my biggest fear: falling out of touch.

  3. Conquer one item in my Skills to Learn in Life list (attached separately).

  4. Become a certified leadership coach (goal 7 1/2: re-enter the world of traditional education).

Health & Fitness

  1. Upgrade to category 2 in competitive cycling.

  2. Full-time intermittent fasting, starting in February.

  3. Don't consume added sugar at least six days per week.

Personal

  1. [previously redacted] — Welcome our baby girl to the world!

  2. Write one long-form post per month (posted on Medium).

  3. Capture the broad strokes of my day in a daily Snapchat story. I suck at telling stories. Using Snapchat will force me to spontaneously build a narrative. Snapchat is also pleasantly low-risk in that the stories will disappear after 24 hours. My Snapchat username is findmyke.

The list above is (of course) in addition to the ongoing, less tangible goals that are the most important: be a better husband, be a better leader, and practice my core values of empathy, transparency, authenticity, and curiosity as much as possible.

*including audio books. My wife doesn't consider audio books reading. Fair enough. I hope to actually read 15 to 20 books, but it'd be silly to break that into two separate goals. So 40 it is, properly reading as many as I possibly can.

Written on Jan 19th, 2016