Jan 8, 2010

Goal Formation for 2010

I need some big hairy audacious goals this year.....I want to go for broke....I want a better story filled with passion and zeal. I want to strive and reach further than my grasp can reach. I don't want to settle; I don't want to shirk; I want to live abundantly!


I want to have more of the 3 R's in my life this year:

Reading, Running, & Writing!


I have started my goals. I have the different areas I want to cover, which include Family, Physical, Emotional, Spiritual, Writing, and Work.
Here are the goals I have so far:
Family:
I want to go out to breakfast with each of my kids on a separate Saturday of each month.
I want to go out on a date once with my wife (Not including Anniversary and Birthdays).
While not a goal necessarily, Becky are attending 7 week parenting class to just brush up things and get some good perspectives on parenting.
Physical Health:
I want to run a Half Marathon this year. I will most likely be running in a Half Marathon in San Francisco on November 7th of this year. I created a schedule on a spreadsheet, like I did when I trained for the 5K I ran in September. I will be running about every other day, slowly increasing my time & distance; the schedule is made through March 31st. As part of my training & motivation I registered for a 5K on April 11th and a 10K on August 15th, both in San Francisco through San Francisco Dolphin South End Runners Club. I will create a new schedule a couple weeks before that time based on my progress that has taken place. I will also start doing some cross-training and core exercises to improve my overall health and strength. Eating will be something I will look at as well; I think I have been too friendly with the donuts at work :-)
Emotional/Mental Health:
I want to go to counseling through my EAP program. I went to a counselor and talked about depression, stress and how I interact with people. I talked about how more or less I get swept up by other people’s stress at times. She said that sometimes people who have permissive parents have a hard time with “boundaries,” this can lead to reacting. Also, the counselor recommended that I get a book called, SOS Help for Emotions, which I ordered on Amazon but found the first chapter online as a PDF. I also want to explore the possible need for medication for depression instead of just St. John's Wort, but at the moment I will stay the course and continue on with
exercise, etc for depression. I want to seek out new friendships and maintain/grow my existing friendships. I want to be content where I am and not always think that grass is greener somewhere else.

Spiritual Health:
This one is still in formation but I want these elements. Music worship, Journaling, and God's word. I need more specifics for this and will think and pray on this area.
Writing:
I will participate in National Poetry Writing Month in April, as I have the past two years. I want to possibly also commit to writing 100+ poems this year. I will write some longer piece of fiction, a short story or a childrens' book. As part of this, I am going to have a night, or day of the week where I take a break from online activities and do reading and writing. Currently I'm leaning towards doing this on Sunday or Sunday night.
Work:
I'm not sure what I want to do in this area. Will have to do more think on this. I am attending a class later this month and that may help in pointing me in the right direction.
I would like to take a lunch every day for an hour. Most days I don't take a lunch away from my desk. I also would like to implement more principals of Inbox Zero and take more control on how I spend my time, being more intentional in what I do as opposed to being reactive and obsessive. I'm not paid be good at moving emails around. There possibly needs to be more thought on this area.

In all of these goals I want to frame them in Better Stories. I read A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller and want to implement a lot of the ideas he laid out in his book. The subtitle says a lot about it,
"What I Learned While Editing My Life." He talks about Writing a better life and allowing the Author of Life, Jesus, to help you in doing that, editing your life into a better story.

I want to have more passion, more zeal, more "life" in living in 2010.