Welcome 2020 - Planning for a New Year and Decade
Can you believe it’s 2020!!
I remember when I was younger, all the ways I thought the world would change by 2020. On that end, I’m a little disappointed that we don’t have flying cars or the ability to teleport everywhere. I guess I will have to wait another decade—but 2030 better not disappoint!
As this new year also ushers in a new decade, I decided to beef up my yearly goals and add one additional element…a theme! Initially, I wanted to come up with a theme that could hold up for an entire decade, but I decided against that idea. My past is a good indication that life does not follow a prescribed plan, and if I set too many concrete goals, then it becomes difficult to achieve them. Instead, I want to add a theme to 2020 because it feels like it needs an iconic start.
The theme for 2020 is…
Imagination
As excited as I am to start my new career, it isn’t as inherently creative as my teaching career. For that reason, I need to build in space, energy, and creativity to fuel my adventures, blog, and life.
To keep this a central focus of the year, I bought a journal that I will carry with me. This journal will be used to fuel my imagination. I foresee it turning into a part-scrapbook—part-random thought collector. No ideas will be off-limits!
As in previous years, I still have four central goals aligned with the four major pillars of my life, but I have aligned them with my yearly theme in order to really push myself creatively this year.
Emotional Goal
I want to embrace rejection this year to train myself that failure is a necessary part of growth, and not shy away from it. To accomplish this, I want to have 50 rejections or failures for the year. Some of the items below may be successful, so I will need to remain flexible and add more attempts to reach 50. The numbers below are merely estimates and I am confident that as the year progresses, I can add additional categories of failures to this list.
Send my manuscript of my memior to 10 book publishers
Audition for 30 voice-over acting gigs
Enter 5 photography competitions
Ask out 5 guys
Intellectual Goal
Read 52 books. However, they must be from 52 different authors, and only 20 of them can be non-fiction (as that is what I typically read). I already have a spreadsheet with 57 books. I look forward to testing new authors, book genres, and literary styles. In the past few years, I haven’t read as much as I usually do. I will continue my yearly tradition to re-read my favorite books (Harry Potter series, Phantom, etc.), so the final total of books read for the year will be more than 52. I am also using this goal to decrease how much video streaming I watch. Please share some of your favorite books! I love getting recommendations and I am especially interested in authors from different cultural backgrounds and perspectives.
Spiritual Goal
I purchased a study guide to accompanying our Church’s scripture study for the year. Last year our scripture focus was the New Testament; this year, it is the Book of Mormon. This new study guide is enormous, and there is lots of space for me to write down my learning as I study this year. The goal is to completely fill the entire book. I’m also excited that it will allow me opportunities to use my imagination as there is plenty of space to doodle and draw.
Physical Goal
I will continue the goal to workout 3 times a week with coordinated exercising. However, now that I have a Fitbit, I want to add another element. My weekly “active minutes,” as noted by Fitbit, needs to be an average of 130 minutes a week. That is a little less than 20 minutes of intentional movement a day. Without trying, I have averaged 100 minutes a week, so I don’t foresee adding 30 additional minutes will be difficult. The goal is to continue to add more movement in my life.
Since this is a big year, I’ve decided to add a special bonus category to my goals.
Imagination Goal
The goal is to experience or try 12 new things this year. This can be new foods, visiting new locations, learning a new skill, etc. I am adding one caveat—4 of the 12 have to be related to doing things in and around where I live. I want to get to know my new surroundings better and grow to love my new community. Attempting to try at least one new thing a month should be a fun way to pursue my imagination goal and create some fun memories. I will definitely be posting my imagination goal items on Instagram so feel free to follow me (@kboivie). Here is a list of tentative things that sound like they could be fun to try:
Conversational French
Abstract Painting
Musical instrument (Piano/Guitar)
Floral Arranging
Calligraphy
Sports (self-defense course)
Cooking (Bread, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, pasta, sauces, etc.)
Travel (Puerto Rico, Russia, New Orleans, Atlanta, Memphis)
Museums or local events
I am all ready for the new year! I spent last week getting my goals all set up. I've already printed and glued them into my new imagination journal so that I will have them with me wherever I may be. I also created calendar appointments to give myself deadlines for some of these items because when I schedule something, it is more likely to happen.
I know that 2020 will be a challenging and exciting year, and I hope that you find ways to feel inspired this year!
Please share what your plans are for 2020!
