2023 Goal Reflection

What a year 2023 was.  I met some cool milestones and went through many a challenge.  But this post isn't entirely about that.  At the start of this year, I set some goals for myself and I'm taking a moment to check back on how accomplishing those goals went!

✅ Learn how to do something new around the house.  I feel like when you move into a house, you can't help but learn something new.  In my case, we moved into a house that is over 120 years old and was most recently a rental property before we bought it.  There's plenty to do around here!  I learned how to do a board and batten wall in my entry way and I learned a lot about fitting doors into older properties (and just how difficult this actually is).  I'm excited to learn more going forward!

❌ 365 days of gratitude.  This was a very big goal.  It's not that it was hard to do, but the amount of time was a huge barrier.  I think I made it to March before I had too much of a backlog of gratitude.  Then it felt like a chore to do.  I don't want to 100% let this go, but I think I need to adjust my goal.  Maybe 52 weekly posts rather than 365 daily posts, if that makes sense.  That might be more do-able.

✅ Successfully cultivate a sourdough starter.  I managed to do this!  The problem is, it didn't last more than a month.  Cultivating sour dough starter is kind of a full-time job.  You can't let it go for too long or the starter goes bad.  I'd like to try it again in the future, but perhaps at a time when I'm better able to put more attention on it.

🤏 Complete 5 exercise programs through Beach Body.  I, like many others out there I'm sure, have a complicated relationship with exercise.  It's not enough for me to simply set a goal and then accomplish it.  I completed more programs than I have in the past, but I need more supports that I thought in order to do this.  Next time, I don't want to tie my success to just one program.  But I'm still looking for ways to stay active and find interest in what I'm doing rather than it just becoming a chore.  So this is a complicated success.

❌ Get my first tattoo.  This is still important to me to do.  There was just an issue with finding an artist, finding the time, and having the money available to do this.

✅ Learn how to preserve food.  I did this!  I now know how to make tomato sauce, fruit jam, and pickles!  I also have some fun new tools to make this job easier.  Immersion blenders are amazing :). I'm looking to expand my garden even more this year so that I can use more of what I grow!  Especially towards the end of the season, I wanted to keep canning things, so I relied on what I could find at the grocery store.  Maybe next year I'll have enough where I don't have to worry about that so much.

✅ Learn how to make food items I would normally buy out of convenience at the grocery store.  This is related to number 6.  I have ketchup and pasta sauce in mind.  This could help us save money, use what we grow in our garden, and make healthier convenience food.

❌ Find the best farmer's market in my area.  To be honest, this one ceased to be important to me.  That happens with goals sometimes.  I'm gracefully letting go of this

✅ Take up blogging again.  Technically, yes, I did take up blogging again.  Was I consistent though?  Not in the least.  I'll be extending this in my 2024 goals-- I'll elaborate in a future post.

🤏 Explore 10 places in my neighborhood and around Minnesota that I've never visited before.  I'll call this one partially accomplished.  I don't know that I visited 10 new places (unless I count individual places, not just new towns... then maybe...), but I did get to visit some new places around Minnesota!  We crossed off a few state parks when we went camping (blogs incoming this January/early February)

❌ Get my nose pierced.  Again, time and money didn't align for this goal, but I still want to do it!  I'll be moving this over to my 2024 goals.

While I didn't accomplish all of my goals this year, I'm really proud of what I did get to do.  Some of these goals will stop here and others will be let go of, which is also okay, especially if I don't find importance in them anymore.  Just because I set a goal does not mean I can't re-examine my priorities and values in the moment.  

Stay tuned for 2024 goals!

5 Things I Learned In My Twenties

I am officially 30!

This is usually a time of life where people freak out.  29-year-olds are freaking out because they're "getting old" and their "best years" are behind them (or something like that).  I've definitely joked that I'm getting old, but I'm actually looking forward to my 30s!  I'm proud of what my 20s were, but I'm feeling ready to move on to a new decade.  I feel lucky that I've gotten to live such a full life already-- there are things I've gotten to do that some people get to do later in life or possibly not at all:

1. Lived abroad --> 2014
2. Earned 2 degrees (Bachelors and Masters) --> 2016 and 2023
3. Got married (to my high school sweetheart) --> 2016
4. Went on my first road trip (LA to San Diego to the Grand Canyon) --> 2017
5. Became a full-time teacher --> 2017
6. Had a baby --> 2020
7. Lived through a pandemic --> 2020-2022/???
8. Bought a house and ended apartment life --> 2022
9. Sought ADHD diagnosis --> 2023

Not to mention the amount of travel I've gotten to do, especially before we grew our family, and the smaller milestones and cool things I got to do within/leading up to these bigger milestones.  

That's not to say that my 20s were easy and without its challenges or that I never made mistakes.  There's plenty that I would change if I had to do it all over again.  But if I went back in time to fix things, there's a lot I would miss out on learning too.  These are 5 things I've learned or started to learn in my 20s:

1.  You don't have to have everything figured out or know where things will lead.  In fact, you can't have everything figured out or know exactly where each action you take will lead.  Priorities will change, interests shift, and circumstances will be altered... so much is out of our control, so it's rather naive to think that decisions you make as a teenager will last forever.  But that is how I thought.  So that being said, I've been learning that there really isn't such thing as wasted time.  The things that I choose to spend my time on could lead me to unexpected places and opportunities, even if that wasn't the plan with them in the first place.  Even if my hobbies don't lead to any new opportunities, that doesn't make them bad or not worthwhile.
   
   
2. Your job isn't your personality.  Maybe this is a byproduct of spending most of my 20s in school working towards becoming a teacher.  I put so much time and energy into becoming a teacher that in time, I didn't have anything else that I really cared to talk about.  I lost sight of hobbies that I used to enjoy and all of my free time was devoted to my job (planning, grading, contacting home for students).  But since having my son, I feel like I've woken up a little bit.  I realized how much of my life was devoted to work and not to my family or to my interests.  I'm never going to claim to be perfect at this balance, but I think I've made some good steps in re-evaluating different parts of my life so they're more in balance with my job.
   
   
3. It's not enough to be silent around those who hurt you if you also want change to happen.  Silence is communication, but I can't say it's always the clearest form of communication.  If I'm angry because my wife said or did something that hurt me, nothing improves by giving her the cold shoulder.  She's just left to wonder why (or ignore me if she chooses, but she usually doesn't).  If a family member or a friend screws up and I just decide to cut them off, how are they ever going to understand why I'm reacting this way if I don't say something?  
   
   
4. Appreciate where you are.  There is beauty in the journey to wherever you're headed next.  Thinking of the difficult things I've been through in the last decade, I'm realizing that this was when I found the supporters in my life.  This is when the quiet moments meant more than the loud celebrations at times.  This is where I would be forced to listen to myself in a way that I didn't always used to.  Those are all good things to come from hard times.  The end goals will come, the day-to-day appreciation of the mundane is what can take work sometimes.
   
   
5. Leaning on others is not a weakness.  I'm still learning to accept help when it's offered and to ask for it, but I'm getting better at it.  I'm a very independent person, but no one can be strong all of the time and there are times when others know better.

May I continue to bear these lessons in mind as I enter my 30s and may I be open to what I have to learn in the coming decade.