Not To Be Trusted With Knives

Goals For 2010

December 30, 2009 by Beth

In keeping with my desire to be a year-end cliché, here are my goals for the new year (in no particular order):

• Sleep.  Sleep is always the first thing I sacrifice when I take on too many jobs, which I do a lot.  I’m going to take advantage of the fact that I’m not teaching any courses this term, nor working any extra contracts at the moment, to get a proper night’s sleep at least four nights a week.
• Tackle 40 of my 101 things to do in 1001 days list.  Since I have 83 things left to do and only 650 days left to do them, I think getting 40 done in the next year would be reasonable.
• Reattempt the 100 pushups/200 situps/200 squats program, at which I was a spectacular failure. I think part of the problem was that, following my “Go Big or Go Home” philosophy of life, I tried to do all three programs at once, found it took a lot of time that I couldn’t quite fit into my day, and then bailed.  This time I will do each program separately.  And I’m not going to start until after I get back from vacation.
• Get back to running. I’ve already registered to run the 8 km race at Vancouver International and I’m planning to run the Scotiabank Half Marathon in June. And again, without the extra jobs, I’ll have more time to focus on this.
• Do a 30-day yoga challenge. Apparently one is coming up at February at my local Moksha Studio.
• Focus on fruits and veg. You’d think as a vegetarian I’d get lots of fresh fruit and veggies, but lately I’ve been a total slacker about getting groceries and my diet hasn’t been all that great.
• Lose 15 lbs.  My tagline lately has been: “Working in Public Health is making me fat!”  It’s not actually the job (though the constant supply of cakes and cookies at my office has not helped) – it’s more the owning of the car ((whereas I used to walk several blocks to bus stops every day – all those little bits add up!)), having an office on a second floor instead of a six floor ((I’m a stair walker and, again, little bits do add up)) and having a 1.5 hr commute each day ((=1.5 fewer hours to do any sort of activity)).  The above mentioned getting proper sleep ((research shows an association between getting less sleep and being overweight)), running, yoga, and fresh fruit and veggie eating should all help with this.
• Do a great purge!  Again, since I’m not teaching this term, I will have some time to prune my wardrobe ((i.e., bring any clothes I don’t wear anymore for donation to a thrift store)) and my paper files ((I have papers that I can most definitely get rid of!  Journal articles from my thesis research, I’m looking in your direction!))
• Hit a net worth of $0.  Thanks to my crushing student loan debts, my net worth is negative. Since both DreamBank and my “rampant begging” link on the sidebar of this blog have been uberFAIL at helping me pay off that student debt, I’ve had to do it the old fashion way- through my own cheapness frugal and responsible nature.  Due to my pension, RRSPs, TFSAs, and other savings, I’m on target to hit a net worth of $0 sometime in 2010, which I think is pretty awesome.
• Make $100,000. Now, I should say that my salary is *not* even close to $100,000 and this year, even with salary + several teaching gigs + contract work, I did not make $100,000. And I have no teaching nor contracts lined up for 2010. But I’ve decided I want to hit a six-figure income this year. I just need to figure out how to do it. Go big or go home, I always say.
• Invest 10% of my earnings. I keep reading that this is what you are “supposed” to do. And while I make payments to my pension and RRSPs every paycheque, right now I don’t know what percentage of my income I’m investing. So step 1 is to sit down and crunch my numbers and see what percentage I’m investing right now. Step 2 is to make any necessary adjustments. Step 3 – consider additional ways of investing.
• And, of course, what list of goals would be complete without my stalwart goal? In 2010, I’m going to blog every day!

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