2016: Gratitude & Excitement
I’m little overdue on setting up my goals for 2016 (you can see my 2015 recap here)… and a little overdue on my 1-month progress update. So here’s the whole thing laid out at once:
This year, I’m really honing in on a major goal within a few different categories… it’s a bit of a twist on my sister’s post on How to Conduct a Year-End Evaluation on Yourself. In it, she outlines the following broad areas for possible achievement and improvement: Professional, Financial, Social, Spiritual, Philanthropic, Physical, Marital, and Parental.
I also decided to pick a macro-theme for 2016. As you might have guessed from the title, the theme is “Gratitude and Excitement.”
I chose gratitude because it provides a new, more positive, lens through which you can view the world: crappy day? What’s something you can be grateful for that happened because of/in spite of it? Bad situation? What’s the thing you learned you’ll be grateful you now know when confronted with it later? New lens, new you.
Excitement is something I’ve observed in others that I admire that I really want to emulate. I can be pretty reserved with people I don’t know well, and I always am amazed at the extroverts who can just go have a conversation. But I realized, I can do that, too! And I watched how they were doing it: by being interested and excited to meet the person. People give you back what you give them, so if you’re excited to see them (and express it!), they’ll be excited to see you, too. Since it’s not normal for me to be exuberant in this way, I’m going to try it on for a while, and see if I can make it normal.
There are are few goals within those microthemes that are out-of-bounds for public consumption (and some that don’t apply yet). But for those that a little public accountability is a good thing, my 2016 goals (and first-ish month progress) are as follows:
Professional:
1. Improving my network: Make one new business contact per week.
My progress to-date has been great! So far in 2016, I’ve met or been introduced to seven new people in five weeks. Part of the progress here has been to focus on what I can give to my network, as opposed to what I can take from my network… which leads directly into my second goal in this category:
2. Deepening and activating my network: follow-up with at least one contact per week.
By “follow-up”, I mean one of a few things. It may just be that I’m literally following-up on a conversation I’ve initiated, or following up with a new contact after someone has introduced us. But more importantly, what I’ve been trying to emphasize is how I can add value to my contacts, who I can introduce them to that will make their day/work easier. Progress to-date has also been great for this goal: 13 follow-ups in five weeks.
3. Write a science/clean tech article every two weeks.
This is part of developing my writing and voice within the industry. I was able to get a research update out, but was only 1/2 last month for the goal. I have some ideas in the bank, but I need to keep it a priority. The time to do this is on the weekends when I have a few free minutes.
Social:
1. Staying in better touch: reaching out to family and friends more regularly.
Two things on this one: I have specific metrics I’d like to hit (with regards to frequency of contact with particular people). I’m not sharing them. But despite the non-specificity, I think this is a goal with sharing because it is inherently a public-facing idea: the idea that I want to know what’s going on with you more than I have been showing/communicating in recent years. This ties directly back into the central theme for the year: I’m grateful for the people I have in my life, and I’m excited to learn more about them and engage.
So far this goal has been going well… but I still have a lot of room for improvement. It’s very easy for the end-of-the-day phone call to be the priority that gets drops: I’ve been very busy, I’m tired, dealing with time-zones and other people’s work schedules is tough. However, all of those excuses are the reason I’ve been bad at staying in touch in the past. The whole point of the goal is to recognize those for what they are: excuses, and things to be accounted for, planned around and overcome.
Spiritual:
For a while I’ve been wanting to develop a more intentional and productive morning routine. To make that a goal for the year, I shaped my morning routine around three spiritual-ish goals that I’ve also been wanting to make a priority. So, with good consistency, my morning has looked like this (almost) every day right after I wake up:
1. Read something enriching every day.
Since I’ve been pretty good at reincorporating reading as a habit, I want to make sure that some of what I read is profound and challenges me in a way that, say, a sci-fi novel doesn’t. So for this goal I’m mostly thinking non-fluffy books/essays that are in the genres of philosophy, poetry, or religion/spirituality. Progress so far: I have an 82% success rate. Those misses (seven of them in six weeks) have come either (i) during a week-long conference, or (ii) on the weekend (which just means I need to be more diligent during those times). After starting this goal, I’m two chapters from finishing Nietzsche: Life as Literature, which I read in parts in college but never cover-to-cover.
2. Keep a gratitude journal every day.
The relationship between this and my macro-theme should be self evident, but there’s nothing like setting the tone for your day by actually writing down what you’re thankful for. So far I’ve been really good with this (95% success rate over six weeks). It’s so quick and easy, there’s really no excuse.
3. Meditate every day.
This has been a habit of many successful/happy people that I’ve been reading/learning about. And for me it’s been something I’ve wanted to make a habit for a while: a calibration button for the mind for the day. So far I’m at a 88% success rate for doing this.
To help me, I’ve been using the Headspace app, which has been a super useful tool. Having never meditated before, I found the guided meditation to be a good primer and the different modules help keep me consistent while focusing on different aspects of my mental hygiene/health. I’d definitely recommend it, and if you’d like to give it a try, I think I have an offer code for a free month somewhere in my inbox, so just reach out!
Philanthropic/Marital:
1. Volunteer with Hillary once per month.
We dropped the ball on this is January, but we’d like to make donating our time for a day a month a priority. I think part of the reason we missed it is because we never completed the thought of where we’d do this, and who it would be supporting. So we’ll need to do that first and then get back to it!
2. Attend one cultural event together per month.
Be it an “artsy” film, or a Broadway show, spending time together consuming a bit of culture has always been something that bring Hillary and me joy. We’ve let the habit slip, and now we want to bring it back. Like with the philanthropy, we missed January, but we’ve already got February on the books: we’re going to see Hamilton on Saturday!
Physical:
1. Qualify for the Boston Marathon.
For my age group the qualifying time is 3:05:00. Based on recent history, I actually need to be more than a minute below that to get into the marathon. So to be safe, I’m targeting 3:00:00.
That’s a 6:52 min/mi pace. The reason I’m thinking this is possible is because last Labor Day I set a PR on the half marathon at 1:29:19 (chasing Todd, the speed demon, above), which is a 6:49 min/mi pace. However, you get slower as you add distance… so based on that half marathon PR, it’d be expected that I could run a 3:06:13 marathon… so I’m close, but not there yet. Also, my current marathon PR is 3:21:28… which is much slower than that prediction, so this is one of those “I’ll believe it when I see it” type of things.
However, a target that’s a stretch, but is also within striking distance is a perfect goal for me. So this year I’m dropping the nonsense and really focusing on developing speed while keeping my mileage up… or at least I will once I can get outside :-/ …running in Boston in February sucks. So far I’m at about 110 running miles for the year. Once the weather’s nicer I’d like that to get to >35 mi, with at least one interval/tempo run and one long run, per week.
I’m thinking of targeting a race in ~May to see how it’s going… and then another in the late fall where I’ll really go for it. So, if successful, I’d likely get into the 2018 marathon (rather than 2017) based on the timing of registration.
