It’s tiiiiime for another check-in on my 2022 goals! Yay! We’ve just past the mid-point of 2022 and it’s time to take stock of the goals I set for myself and figure out if there are any I want to change. Because why continue striving for a goal that no longer makes sense with my life? This is the downside of making annual goals, of course. Life can change so much in the course of the year, but that’s why I think it’s just fine to edit your yearly goals. You’ll find a few new goals on this list!
Three Big Goals
1) Reduce my sugar intake. I am really not tracking this goal as well as I should. I don’t think I’ve reduced my sugar intake in any meaningful way this year, though. Here are some small goals I want to think about in Q3 to help with this goal:
- Drink one small can of soda (7.5 ounces) per day. NO soda at restaurants.
- Drink more water, goddammit.
- Track how many desserts/snacks I have every day (generally, I’m not a fan of tracking food/calories, but I’m going to do this as an EXPERIMENT and I reserve the right to stop the experiment if it’s affecting my mental health).
2) Save $4,000 for a down payment. No progress made. I’m not even sure I want to own a home at this point. It really is nice not to worry about all the expenses that come with being a homeowner.
3) Reorganize my blogging categories/tags. I set myself a specific goal for each quarter to tackle this massive goal. In Q2, I wanted to work through my blog posts from 2016-2021 and continue listing out each blog post and labeling the posts with a category and some tags. I didn’t quite get this done in Q2 as I’m still working on 2021 blog posts. In Q3, the plan is to come up with a list of 10 blogging categories and to begin recategorizing/retagging blog posts from 2009-2012.
20 Fun Goals
1) Buy a new mattress. Not complete. I have $900 saved up, though! I want to save another $600 or so, which will put me right where I need to be. Probably will get this done in Q4.
2) Complete the 2022 Unread Shelf Project. In progress. So far, I’ve read:
- January (the book you’ve been putting off reading): The English Wife by Lauren Willig ★★★☆☆
- February (a title you couldn’t resist): Wordslut by Amanda Montell ★★★☆☆
- March (a memoir or biography): Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling ★★★★☆
- April (a book by an indie publisher or small press): When She Woke by Hillary Jordan ★★★★★
- May (the shortest unread book on your shelf): The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin ★★★★☆
- June (a book about a journey): Outlawed by Anna North ★★★☆☆
3) Read all of the books added to my Goodreads TBR in 2017. (8/21) I am slightly behind where I need to be for this goal. I need to read at least 2 books per month from this list from here on out!
Columbine by Dave Cullen★★★★★I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy NelsonDNF- All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca SolnitDNFAccidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People by Nadia Bolz-Weber★★★☆☆- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
- The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Killing Young Women by Jessica Valenti
Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley★★★★☆- Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane★★★★☆- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
- Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer
- A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold
- Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
- How to Be a Person in the World: Ask Polly’s Guide Through the Paradoxes of Modern Life by Heather Havrilesky
Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian’s Pilgrimage in Search of God in America by Jeff Chu★★★☆☆Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon★★★★☆- Close Enough to Touch by Colleen Oakley
- The Nix by Nathan Hill
- The Names They Gave Us by Emery Lord
4) Do 100 Peloton workouts. (44/100) I’m behind schedule with this goal by 6 workouts, which is slightly less than I was behind in Q1. Progress! I am hoping to catch up with my goal of doing 31 Peloton workouts in July.
5) Restart my novel. No progress made.
6) Go back to therapy. Complete! I have been going to regular therapy since April and I really like my therapist.
7) Watch 12 movies standup specials. (3/12) I’m changing this goal from watching 12 movies to watching 12 standup specials because, while I am not a movies person, I do really love a good standup special. So far, I’ve watched 3:
- Taylor Tomlinson, Quarter-Life Crisis ★★★★★ (I cried with laughter from this one. A must-watch!)
- Nate Bargatze, The Greatest Average American ★★★☆☆ (There were some chuckles, but overall, kinda blah.)
- Mike Birbiglia, Thank God for Jokes ★★★★☆ (A bit more heartfelt than funny, but still a good special.)
8) Watch 6 TV series. (4/6)
- Only Murders in the Building – I watched season 1 earlier this year and I’m excited to watch season 2 soon!
- Ted Lasso – I watched seasons 1 and 2 in May/June.
- Abbott Elementary – I just finished season 1, and it was excellent. Season 2 premieres this fall!
- Good Girls – My friend Mikaela implored me to watch this show, and I finished season 1 this weekend. It’s so good!
9) Visit NYC at Christmastime Launch two seasons of our podcast. The trip to NYC won’t be happening since my mom and I booked a cruise for my birthday (which is at the end of November). Instead, I’m changing this to something I didn’t even know I’d be doing 7 months ago: making a podcast! My goal is for us to release two seasons by the end of the year.
10) Get my third tattoo. No progress made.
11) Walk one 5k a month, in a different place each time. (3/12) I am woefully behind on this goal.
- January 17, 2022 – Seminole Park – 2.82 miles with my mom and the dogs in 1 hour, 12 minutes
- February 20, 2022 – Walsingham Park – 3.1 miles solo in 1 hour, 16 minutes
- May 14, 2022 – Crescent Lake Park – 3.1 miles solo in 1 hour, 14 minutes
12) Redo my bathroom. I am slowly making some progress! I finally decided on the shower curtain I want and bought that over the weekend. I’ve also been accumulating other items, like a new shower curtain liner and new towels. I’m hoping to get this done in Q3!
13) Get microdermabrasion or laser treatment—whatever is the better option for dealing with my acne scars. No progress made.
14) Read Moby-Dick Emma Learn how to French braid. I abandoned Moby-Dick and then I abandoned Emma. The classics just aren’t for me. Instead, let’s add a fun goal to this list: I’d love to learn how to French braid my hair this year.
15) Go on one date a month. We’re still at zero. Maybe I should change this goal to, “Go on at least one date this year.”
16) Put an extra $1,000 toward my car loan. (40%) I put $400 extra toward my car loan in Q2, but I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to add another $600 by the end of the year. Time will tell!
17) Make 12 new recipes. (6/12) I’m doing well with this goal so far. It’s a pretty easy one!
- January: Air fryer chicken breasts from Skinnytaste (not a keeper)
- February: Baked mac and cheese from Mom on Timeout (delicious but time-consuming; I need to choose different cheeses + use less topping next time)
- March: Crockpot chicken and gravy from Plain Chicken (tasted great on the first night, but wasn’t appealing as leftovers)
- April: One-pot cheesburger pasta from Budget Bytes (tasted like homemade hamburger helper. Delicious!)
- May: Slow cooker pesto mozzarella chicken pasta from The Magical Slow Cooker. (Lauren posted about this recipe on her blog and I knew I had to give it a try. It was so, so good.)
- June: BBQ cheddar baked chicken from Budget Bytes (it was fine, but not outstanding enough to add to my regular routine)
18) Make a recipe book. No progress made.
19) Cut gluten out of my diet for one month. No progress made.
20) Buy a coffee table and a floor lamp. Complete! I bought a cute coffee table in January and a floor lamp in March.
I love reading about others goals, and I love how you have adjusted your goals! I am not too surprised you abandoned Emma. I just do not enjoy Jane Austen books! I am almost done w/ Count but I think it’s going to be a 3-star read… I don’t know it’s the fact that I’m reading it in small snippets but I just don’t love it, but I like it enough to finish it so I can see what happens.
Aww, I’m sorry The Count of Monte Cristo wasn’t a hit for you! It is such a long book, so I can understand growing tired/disinterested in it.
Ha ha…. I love how you replaced “read Moby Dick” with “learn how to french braid.” I didn’t like Moby Dick either! And I read the whole thing because I somehow felt like I “had” to (I’ll never get those hours back.) I do like Jane Austen- but to each his own.
You have good goals. And it’s good to reassess halfway through the year. It’s unrealistic to think that the same things that were important in January will still be important in July. It’s also nice to see the goals you have achieved, and what you have to do to achieve some others that are still important to you..
I just want to learn how to French braid! I need to watch lots of Youtube videos to figure out how other people do it so easily.
As always, I’m so impressed with how honest you are in these reviews. When I don’t meet my goals, I tend to make excuses, but you just admit it and move on. There’s something admirable about that and it makes me reflect on how I write about my own goals. .
Once I took caffeine out of my diet (my doctor recommended it – it didn’t help with the issue I was/am having, but now I don’t see a reason to bring back caffeine except for the fact that I miss Diet Coke with every ounce of my being), it was a lot easier for me to make a deal with myself that if I’m outside of the house, I can only have water. Now, sometimes I splurge and get a carbonated water, but because I feel like I don’t really have a beverage choice, it’s been a sneaky way to get more water. I think your no soda at restaurants goal will be very helpful!
I think it helps that I don’t see my yearly goals as anything more than something fun to strive for. If I mark them complete, great! If I don’t, the world will not end. And it doesn’t have to mean anything about ME as to why I didn’t achieve them. Can you tell I’ve been in therapy for a long time? Ha!
I love how you’ve adjusted goals, too. I tend to do this after the fact. I don’t check in on my goals very often, but at the end of the year sit down and review everything. If something doesn’t get done, I’ll try to find something in the same category I DID accomplish.
Say I wrote down: Read 3 books with the kids. If that didn’t happen, I might write beside that goal: “But…I did go on a 3-week roadtrip with them.” Most of my goals fit into some broader category (health, home, relationships etc), and so if I didn’t accomplish the specific idea I came up with in January, chances are high that I WILL have done something positive that fits in the same niche of my life?
Oh, I love that you do that! What a fun practice. Instead of feeling like you failed at a goal because you didn’t accomplish a specific task that you thought you’d do, you can find another way you succeeded at another goal that wasn’t even in your head to do at the beginning of the year.
Those are all great goals/ adjustments to goals. I really admire how you can pivot on them – it’s such a smart and healthy way to be! I am going to take that lesson to heart. I like a good comedy special as well, so I think I’ll look into two of the ones you mentioned.
A summer goal of mine is to make one new recipe/ dish a week. So far, I’ve done that – actually, I’ve done more than that but one of the recipes was just for me (a cauliflower wrap when the guys were having chicken) and one of the recipes was not a huge hit. I mean, I have teens, they ATE it but didn’t love it (pesto pasta salad).
I love fun goals – this was really good to read.
A new recipe every week is a big goal! I’m attempting a new one every month since it’s so easy for me to get caught up in food ruts, and it’s been an enjoyable experience.
I love these, too, and the fact that you adjusted them. I’d also like to point out that you are pretty strict in how you define success for some of them. For example – the 5K every month? Um, didn’t you walk while you were on your trip to Niagara? And wasn’t that multiple different places? So, in my opinion, you’ve kind of rocked that one, even if you weren’t doing timed 5K’s each month. 🙂 I’m also impressed with your achievement for the trying new recipes goal – it can be so hard to break out of our ruts, and I find it particularly hard in the kitchen! So I admire you for doing this. (And isn’t the Air Fryer the BEST? I loooove mine!)
The point of the “walk a 5k in a new park every month” was to explore some of the parks around town, so I don’t necessarily want to count vacation walking into this goal. I don’t think I’m usually very strict when it comes to defining success with my goals; that one had a very specific measuring stick, though, and I feel compelled to stick to it.
Ahh, that makes sense! Obviously I wasn’t in your head. 🙂 Clearly, if you wanted to have that specific outcome, then vacation walking doesn’t count. I hope you’ll be able to explore more local parks in the next few months, as it (maybe?) cools down!