How Are Your Goals Doing?
We’ve made it through our free trial period of 2024.
Our first 31 days of the year were free. We even get a bonus day in February.
Whether your year started on January 1 or “officially starts” on February 1, the end of every month is a good time to evaluate the previous 30-31 days.
Earlier this month, I shared my goals for 2024 as I felt that I had reached a point in my life where I could finally start enjoying things. Being happy and not feeling like I was Eeyore personified. If you made goals or resolutions this year, take a few minutes to check in and see your progress.
As I write this, January is not over, but I have read three books cover to cover - far and away the most I’ve read for pleasure in my life. It’s a shame that it took almost 42 years to discipline myself to read for pleasure.
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1. READ 20 PAGES EVERY NIGHT
My first goal for 2024 was to read 20 pages each night. On average, one chapter equates to roughly 20 pages, but what I noticed almost immediately was that I was reading more than 20 pages in a sitting. I read 40, 50, or 60 pages on a handful of nights. It wasn’t laborious or because “I had to” to check the box, but it was because I enjoyed it.
One caveat: I did not read every night. Through the first 27 days of January, I read a book on 24 of them. That’s a stellar Hall of Fame average if I do say so myself.
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From Simon and Schuster:
For over a decade, Taylor Lorenz has been the authority on internet culture, documenting its far-reaching effects on all corners of our lives. Her reporting is serious yet entertaining and illuminates deep truths about ourselves and the lives we create online. In her debut book, Extremely Online, she reveals how online influence came to upend the world, demolishing traditional barriers and creating whole new sectors of the economy. Lorenz shows this phenomenon to be one of the most disruptive changes in modern capitalism.
By tracing how the internet has changed what we want and how we go about getting it, Lorenz unearths how social platforms’ power users radically altered our expectations of content, connection, purchasing, and power. In this “deeply reported, behind-the-scenes chronicle of how everyday people built careers and empires from their sheer talent and algorithmic luck” (Sarah Frier, author of No Filter), Lorenz documents how moms who started blogging were among the first to monetize their personal brands online, how bored teens who began posting selfie videos reinvented fame as we know it, and how young creators on TikTok are leveraging opportunities to opt out of the traditional career pipeline. It’s the real social history of the internet.
Emerging seemingly out of nowhere, these shifts in how we use the internet seem easy to dismiss as fads. However, these social and economic transformations have resulted in a digital dynamic so unappreciated and insurgent that it ultimately created new approaches to work, entertainment, fame, and ambition in the 21st century.
“Extremely Online aims to tell a sociological story, not a psychological one, and in its breadth it demonstrates a new cultural logic emerging out of 21st-century media chaos” (The New York Times). Lorenz reveals the inside, untold story of what we have done to the internet, and what it has done to us.
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From Penguin Random House:
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals examines the critical art of rethinking: learning to question your opinions and open other people’s minds, which can position you for excellence at work and wisdom in life
Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.
With bold ideas and rigorous evidence, Adam Grant investigates how we can embrace the joy of being wrong, harness the advantages of impostor syndrome, bring nuance into charged conversations, and build schools, workplaces, and communities of lifelong learners. Think Again reveals that we don’t have to believe all our thoughts or internalize all our emotions. It’s an invitation to let go of views that are no longer serving us well and prize mental flexibility, humility, and curiosity over consistency.
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From HarperCollins:
Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.
In this lively and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.
STATUS: OFF TO A GREAT START
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2-3. JOURNALING AND FINALLY FINISHING THAT SECOND BOOK
Goals 2 and 3 of 2024 were writing-focused. I wanted to be more intentional by journaling twice per week and finally finishing that second book I’ve been talking about for the last five years.
This blog post is the most I’ve written this year, so that tells you all you need to know about these two goals.
However, when I thought more about my weekly journaling, I have journaled every day during the school year for the past five years. Both in written and digital form. The idioms and dadvice I type with my #DadLunchNotes posts on Instagram must count for journalism too, right?
Now, about that book….
STATUS: ONE OUT OF TWO AIN’T BAD
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4. GET MY ACCREDITATION IN PUBLIC RELATIONS IN 2024
January is almost over and the first step to getting my APR is almost done. Payment and paperwork have been submitted. Now it’s a matter of waiting for that approval email so my one-year clock can begin.
I have my study documents and texts printed. I am filling out additional paperwork for my panel presentation so that I can have everything pre-filled to get this second chance at an APR done as quickly as possible this year.
STATUS: IN PROGRESS
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Where are you in your goal-setting journey? Are you still marching toward your goals or have you already thrown in the towel? I hope you haven’t given up. You can always edit your goals or your progress markers as you go. There’s nothing wrong with making things more achievable in order to make yourself feel like you are accomplishing something.
