Goals, not Resolutions

Happy New Year everyone!

I don't make resolutions on New Year's. They imply solutions, finite achievements in one's life, but life, if you've been paying attention to it, is too fluid and evolving. I guess the one true thing that's finite is death but even then, depending on what religion or spiritual form you follow, death doesn't end life. Some of us believe in an afterlife; a heaven or hell, a Valhalla where we live on in a divine sort of way. Some of us believe in the continuous cycle of life - reincarnation into another physical being - that sees life go on in a different way from a different perspective. Add to this that human beings are fluid and evolving. It might sound like a copout - I don't think it is - but making resolutions doesn't allow for failure and, as humans, we - I - am bound to fail. Sometimes we fail because of our own humanness and sometimes we fail because of setbacks that are not our doing. Failing to live up to our resolutions suggests a sense of "less than" and an inherent wrongness about who we are inside; that the person who failed is "bad."

Instead of making resolutions, I set goals. I make plans to achieve them and, if those plans are working, I stay with them. If they're not, I devise new ones. If I decide that the goals I set at the start of the year are too lofty or unrealistic, I change them. That's one of the great things about being human - we can change our minds and decide when/if/how/where we want to do things and how important those things are for us.

Having said all of that, here are my main goals for 2013.

1. Finish writing Sage Of Heaven and either secure an agent/publisher or self-publish it, working so it, and the series, gets picked up like Christopher Paolini's Eragon and its series.
2. Sixty pound weight loss, at five pounds a month, to get back to my pre-marriage weight by 1 January, 2014. In addition to improving my nutrition, this will be accomplished with, but not limited to, the following: at least 3x a week of regular Taekwondo practice, at least 4x a week of cardio training (minimum 30 minutes) and at least 3x a week of resistance training (each body part 1-2x per week).
3. Finish writing my Fil-Am short story collection, Five Corners. I'm talking about a first draft and not a finished manuscript.
4. Read, at least, 30 books in 2013. I read 24 in 2012.
5. Finish writing the first draft of the second book in my Sage Of Heaven series.

These, of course, are MY own goals; the ones that, while they do have bearing on my wife and son, they don't - or, at least, don't have to - involve them in terms of achieving them. Not directly, anyway. The goals involving my family are, say, less tangible, less measurable.

Anyway, there they are. I'm publicising them here to keep myself motivated and honest. And accountable. After all, it's easy to say them just to oneself. And when that's the case, as hard we humans try, it's easy to bail on them. I don't want to bail and I want to succeed so I'm putting them out there and I'll post updates in this blog and through my Twitter (@JuanRaderBas) and Facebook accounts. Feel free to ask me about my progress towards achieving them. In fact, I hope you do so I'll be even more motivated to achieve them so I can respond to you meaningfully. I'm aiming to achieve them either way but your encouragement, nagging, enquiry will serve me well like a drill instructor getting into his new recruits.

I thank you, in advance for your support and I wish you luck in achieving your own goals and, even, your resolutions.