End of 2007: prune my goals to those that drive my life forward or are big-time rewards for forward movement

I am a total nut!

1. Keep a sense of humour – try to be amused, and never angry!
2. Always take the other seriously and listen to them.
3. Don’t be hard on yourself, don’t be hard on anyone else.
4. Rigourously assess reality and flexibly adapt yourself to it.

• Pleasure and Bucket List
1. Go to Denmark for a work session
2. Micro Dermabrasion
3. Singing lessons – learn to sing again
4. Take an intramural sport – weekend
5. See more DVDs and movies.

• Work and money
1. Finish the 2007 year-end for little company and get the next fiscal year and process in order; put in 8-10 hours a week
2. To see about finding a position at Big Company that I can hold and excel at for the next 1.5 years
3. If not, get another job that will broaden my skills and my pocket book – can I get something paying $65 K?
4. Target long term career e.g. nonprofit management, and take a job that fits
   * Museum of Natural History
   * Veterinarians Without Borders

• Exercise, Health, and Beauty
1. Get in serious shape.
   * Pilates 2 x per week; dance class at MAA for a third session of exercise per week.
   * Do more aerobic exercise. My heart needs it.
2. Eat one green and one yellow vegetable per day, and protein,
   too.
3. Curl my hair
4. Get new glasses
5. Wear contacts more often
6. Regular visits to esthetician

• School
1. Maintain a B+ average. This means I need to get an A for
   every B or B-.
2. Learn how to lead a course at TMI.
   * Do the February workshop
   * The Spirit of Inquiry in April
3. Refocus MA degree to the specific subject
4. Take Law and Religion in summer before DK.

• Friendship
1. I am in charge of my social network, and I have been lax in
   its development. Friends are the key to a happy, successful
   life. In the end, they are more important than money.
2. Evaluate the friends I already have and see where I can develop my social network. The criteria I want amongst my friends is the quality of friendship they give to me and draw naturally from me, and the excellence of their lives. If they are mediocre, why do I keep them?
3. Make a weekend getaway happen with friends – all go North.
4. Make more friends, including among the men I date. Stay in touch with them.
5. Keep in touch with sport / school colleagues for friendship

• Love
1. The year of Yes. Get out there and date.
2. Try to follow The Rules if I really like a guy. They are written to ensure my peace of mind.
3. Sign up at the better online dating sites and visit them on Sundays and Wednesdays.
4. Do NOT stop believing that I will find the love I need.
5. Give a guided meditation class for Valentine’s day.
6. Deal with my issues
   * trust and openness
   * criticism, opinionated personal statements
   * directness, non-ambiguous, non-evasive
   * decisiveness
   * control/anger management
   * surrender vs. submission
7. Date in New York. Some New York men are interesting and want interesting women. Also, think about Boston; it’s closer. Make up for the time you lived both places and never dated because you were in a relationship.
8. Respond to the men who approach me, but more importantly, ask questions. Questions are powerful.

I think that the most useful aspect of 43 Things and the reason I joined in the first place is that people connect here through sharing common goals and exchanging comments related to helping one another achieve those goals. I also have fun here posting thoughts on random questions and topics and will continue to do so, but I wanted to take time to regain perspective and revisit why I have the goals I have. After reviewing and reordering these, what I need now is to get serious about taking positive steps toward accomplishing them…

Goal number one:

1. enjoy the first quarter of 2008 by having one new and fulfilling experience in January, February, and March

I like this goal because whether or not I accomplish it is the clearest indicator of whether I’m making at least a little progress in life, either with respect to the goals I list here or in some other way. If I can’t think of at least one new and fulfilling thing I’ve done each month, even if it’s something small or seemingly ordinary, then I’m going in the wrong direction.

Goals that develop skills I need to be more successful (not only on the job but in life in general):

2. be more assertive

3. declutter my life

4. manage my time more efficiently

5. fake it ‘til i make it

I was thinking of combining goals 3 and 4 into one goal to “be more organized”, but being organized really does involve these two distinct components as well as something else I’m probably missing but will figure out later. I was going to adopt a separate goal for stress management, but for now I think that better time management is correlated with lower stress. The motivation for goal 5 is that becoming a person with qualities you don’t currently have involves a certain element of “faking it” until you’re finally there naturally.

Professional goals:

6. improve my public speaking and presentation skills

7. finish my professional exams

Goals that focus on personal enrichment:

8. be more open-minded to try new things

9. read at least one book per month

10. Keep a journal

11. Have a kick ass body that stops traffic without jumping in front of it

12. Learn to swim

13. learn mandarin chinese

17. Never stop learning

18. take better pictures

23. cultivate peace

Goals that focus on improving my interpersonal skills:

14. be more trusting

15. be more open and honest with people

16. learn how to maintain and strengthen my existing friendships

If I’m more trusting, I can be more open and honest. If I’m more open and honest, then I’ll do a better job keeping my friends and maybe making new ones.

Goals I’m not going to make progress on immediately but that I want to be consistently reminded of:

19. cook more often and eat out less

20. earn a masters degree

21. buy my first house or condo

22. learn to ride a bike

Goals I’m giving up:

1. write at least one entry each week to monitor my progress on my top 5 goals

2. improve my fishing skills

3. Brush up on my French

I haven’t been and honestly am not going to be disciplined enough to write entries every week on each one of my top five goals. I’ll shoot for at least one. I’m just not going to be able to spend enough time fishing in the forseeable future to get really good at it; I’ll just have fun with it when I can. I realistically have time for only one language goal in the forseeable future, so I’ll brush up on my French when I’ve learned more Chinese…

Spread the word.

Too many people have goals that are actually Bucket List items or action items. They don’t actually integrate meaning and progress into lives. You know what I mean, “post lyrics of songs I like” things that are exclusively feel-good ways to waste time (not productive ways to R&R and gestate ideas). The ones up on 43T are the ones for documentation and encouragement, the ones kept on paper or in the computer at home are private or sporadic or one-offs.

I want to encourage everyone to really think about the linkages between their life projects and their bucket list rewards, and waste as little time as possible. The trouble with all of us is that we think we have time – more time than we actually have.