2020 Resolutions Goals
Looking back at last year's goals and setting goals for 2020
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Also please note: this blog post includes mature language. If you don’t like that then obviously you’ve never hung out with me.
Also please note: this blog post is crazy long. Like a novella. #sorrynotsorry I’m verbose
::sigh:: You know that feeling where you just get SO far behind on something that it just keeps piling up and becomes even more daunting than it should be? Like…taxes. Or cleaning the bathroom. Or telling your spouse you signed up for another race. Or going to the dentist. You keep putting it off and somehow it keeps putting on more significance, like it’s growing into this heavy thing that will break you whenever you finally get around to it.
Goals are sometimes like that. You start working on something, building towards a goal or a consistent habit, and then something happens to derail you, and if you get far enough behind it just seems impossible to try to catch up again.
That’s what happened to me and blogging last year. I got so far behind on my goals posts and race reports and all the big ideas I had that it seemed impossible to ever catch up. So the new year is a nice break to reset, reassess, and move forward. Of course, I kept up with my goals personally - I started a bullet journal! - but it’s a very different experience when you share your goals with the whole world. (Accountability. Ugh.)
So. Without further ado - 2019 in review!
2019 Goals Review
McCrae and I took a two-week vacation in France this summer. It was motivated by several things: celebrating our one-year anniversary, seeing the FIFA Women’s World Cup, going on some big adventures, and seeing family. But I think one of the most important aspects of that vacation was our ability to disconnect, unplug, and mentally reset. Being six hours ahead of all our friends meant that we could spend most of our day free from all the mindless distractions. It was late in the afternoon when we started getting Facebook and Instagram notifications, and we’d already lived most of our day distraction-free, and I’ve got to admit: it was absolutely liberating. My days were full of writing and reading and exploring - I felt once again like my default processes were analog and it was glorious. I paid attention to people instead of my phone. I wrote things down in pen and paper instead of tapping notes on my computer. I spent more time doing deep thinking inside my head instead of mindlessly scrolling. And I was happier for it. I was more creative for it. It felt like this dirty sewage-type blockage finally dislodged and my authenticity and creativity came back.
It’s been six months now since our vacation and while I’ve struggled to maintain that mental clarity, I’ve made a few steps to prioritize the creative mindset. Part of that was to check in on my 2019 goals and adjust course. Even though I haven’t been publicizing my goals and achievements, I have been diligently tracking them: first with monthly goals on scratch paper, regular creative writing, and more recently with a bullet journal. And while part of me loves not posting online and worrying about likes and page views, another part of me feels like the whole point of creative writing, outdoor adventures, and personal growth is to share the journey with others and spread some ideas. It’s not my responsibility to tell anyone “here’s the formula for how to be successful” or “here’s the formula for how to run your first marathon” but it is my responsibility to share my own story, to add to the narrative (and possibly to the noise) of human experience. If it helps, great! If it doesn’t, well the only harm is my wallet paying for this website, and that’s better than bottling everything up and suffocating my own ideas.
So. Where were we?
2019 Goals
Writing
Focus. Write like a motherfucker.
Commit to your writing. Make it a priority. Every year I say I’m going to write more, write short stories, or write a novel. Every year I feel like a big ol’ failure with this goal. I’m not good enough, my writing sucks, nobody will want to read it, I don’t have time, I have nothing worth saying. EVERY YEAR I vow to push past my fears and actually put pen to paper. EVERY YEAR I’m dissatisfied with what I’ve done. On the one hand, that’s the curse of the creative - the act of doing and creating will make you better at the thing, so at the end of the creative process you’ll look back and all you’ll see are your flaws. And having a non-measurable goal such as “commit to my writing” makes it impossible for me to achieve the goal, because it will always feel like I could have done more.
So. How do I fix this? How do I either make it measurable or create the scaffolds I need to succeed?
The first thing I did (like any good project manager does) was to look at my past performance. Since it’s a new decade it seemed the easiest approach was to count pages written in my journals per year as a rough measure of writing volume. There are several flaws with this, since not all my writing goes into my journals and most of my journals (especially from ten years ago) are unique, so it’s a bit unfair to equate a page of 1.5 inch ruled lines of a cheap journal from college to the 0.5cm ruled lines of Leuchtturm 1917s* (my recent journal of choice). Still, it was the most efficient measure across the years (since it was too time-consuming and distracting to attempt a word count by year). Plus it was a way for me to personally reflect across the decade, which offered some insights which I won’t publish here.
| Year | Pages Written |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 318 |
| 2011 | 306 |
| 2012 | 229 |
| 2013 | 484 |
| 2014 | 303 |
| 2015 | 329 |
| 2016 | 453 |
| 2017 | 581 |
| 2018 | 442 |
| 2019 | 495 |
So just looking at the raw numbers 2019 wasn’t such a bad year for writing - it had my second highest number of pages written in a year (and one of the journals was a Leuchtturm with the very tightly lined pages). Plus I wrote two very crap short stories! So even though it’s not what I wanted to achieve (novels and short stories and chap books galore!!) it’s still a trend in the right direction.
Photography
Make your own light.
Don’t just capture the light that’s out there. Make your own light. In 2019 was more mindful and meaningful with manipulating light in my photography work: I used strobes, scrims, and reflectors regularly and more proficiently for both indoor and outdoor setups. I think overall I’m making light literally in a more proficient manner, but I’m still struggling on the personal metaphor for being the candle. 2018 was a big year of growth for me - my first marathons and ultramarathon, taking on high visibility projects at work, getting married - that 2019 couldn’t help but feel a little anti-climatic. That sense of not quite being enough has permeated me; I feel like I’m not being the best version of me. I know it’s not just me - the truth lies somewhere on a spectrum between “imposter syndrome,” “Millennial competition and ambition,” “the gig culture,” “FOMO,” “falsely curated social media accounts,” and some desire to always outdo and outperform my past - but I still can’t quite shake that nagging feeling of personal failure. Though, I should remind myself, failure is a learning experience, not a taboo - no matter how culturally engrained that taboo may be.
“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
Running
Go faster. Go farther. Keep going. But don’t go it alone.
Run another 50K. I ran a 50K this year! I ran Grayson Highlands 50K in May and it was awesome - I mean helloooooo wild ponies!! 😍
Run two marathons. I ran Wrightsville Beach Marathon in March of this year and Greenbrier River Trail Marathon in October - check and check!
Run a 4:30 marathon. I DID THIS! My current PR is 4:23:51 at Wrightsville Beach Marathon! “Liz, you’re faster than Oprah!” Heck yeah I am!
Run a sub-2:10 half marathon. Guess what race distance I once again skipped last year? lol yep a half marathon. But apparently I ran a 2:04 half marathon during the Wrightsville Beach Marathon so does that count??
Run a sub-27:00 5K. Haha you know what else I didn’t sign up for last year? A 5K. Ughhhhh the idea of running a 5K just seems so painful. It’s a totally different pain cave than distance running, and I don’t relish that sort of pain. In fact, I miiiiiight have said “5Ks sound painful, I’d rather run 100 miles” at a track workout in the last six months. Okay, okay, I’ll try to sign up for one this year. Or just run on on my own. We’ll see how that goes.
Run 1000 miles in a year. I DID THIS! I ran 1296 miles in 2019, which is the most I’ve ever run in a year. I ran 982 miles in 2018, so this was the first time I broke 1000 miles in a year.
| Year | Miles Run |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 105 |
| 2011 | 230 |
| 2012 | 132 |
| 2013 | 229 |
| 2014 | 471 |
| 2015 | 527 |
| 2016 | 547 |
| 2017 | 527 |
| 2018 | 982 |
| 2019 | 1296 |
Hiking/Backpacking
Have fun out there. And spend as much time as possible outside.
Go backpacking 5 times. I went backpacking once in 2019, yikes. And it wasn’t even like a big backpacking trip or anything - it was a one-mile hike into camp and then day hike the rest of the time. And that’s worthy and everything, but it’s still not the same as the big backpacking weekends I was doing in previous years. Granted, I’ve been prioritizing my running (particularly trail running) and I’ve discovered the joys of car camping: I can have a more luxurious experience at a base camp and then trail run during the day. No heavy weight, cover more miles, see more stuff, and still come back to base camp to a hot shower, hot food (even restaurant food!) and a comfy blow-up bed? I have to admit I strongly prefer that trail running/car camping approach, but at the same time it’s good to go at a slower pace. There’s a sort of discovery and rejuvenation that goes along with backpacking. It’s no wonder that many long-distance hiking trails are often treated as a pilgrimage journey, and even though it’s less exciting to go on a weekend pilgrimage, weekend backpacking trips are something I never regret.
Hike 50 miles on the Appalachian Trail. Eeeek I have barely been on the AT this year! I did an informal trail race from Carver’s Gap to 19E in May and that covered about 17 miles and then I did 10 miles (total out and back) from Grayson Highlands to the summit of Mount Rogers but that’s mostly mileage I’ve already seen. It was a very different experience trail running this section than backpacking it, but it was still just as beautiful as always. So that’s a total of 22(ish) miles on the AT, most of which is mileage I’ve done before. Eeek.
Hike 50 miles on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. I have a slightly better track record with this than with the AT - but only slightly. Right now I’ve got 23 miles done along the MST - and all but two of those miles were on training runs. Most of my miles towards this goal have kinda been dumb luck rather than any purposeful planning so I’m amazed I even got 23 miles.
Complete the 52 Hike Challenge. In 2019 I completed 48 hikes! Okay, most of them were trail runs, but that’s still a lot closer than I’ve gotten in previous years. Here are the final stats for 2019:
| # Hikes | Miles Covered | Elevation Gain (in feet) |
|---|---|---|
| 48 | 425 | 58,009 |
Hike abroad. I hiked abroad! We went to France this summer and spent several days in Chamonix where we ran the Mont Blanc 10K and hiked part of one of the classic Mont Blanc summit routes. Fun! Goal achieved!
Complete Wilderness First Aid training. Unfortunately this didn’t happen in 2019, but I would love to carry this goal forward.
Do at least one Sunday Stroll a month. Ohhhhhhh you know what I did NOT do this year? Sunday Strolls. I did a grand total of two. TWO. Ouch. Sorry, Dad!
Climbing
Push your comfort zone.
Climb 5.10 routes. I’ve been climbing 5.10s! Not consistently and not well, but I can do them. My successful sends are definitely based on the style of the route - if it plays to my strengths then I do well and can finish sending a 5.10, but if it’s some technique or move that I struggle with then all bets are off as to whether or not I’ll finish it.
Climb outdoors. I did this! Multiple times! Heck, the last time McCrae and I went climbing outdoors BY OURSELVES! Look at us being all grown-up responsible climbers and what-not.
Get lead certified. Okay, I didn’t get lead certified but I did take the lead class and I feel pretty good that I could pass the lead certification test. I’m still just a little spooked by the idea of leading and would really love some more practice. Which I can get if I’m lead certified. Hmm.
Take some climbing clinics. Ehhhhh I didn’t do a lot of climbing clinics but I did a couple of the basic ones. Mostly the lead climbing class.
Boulder at V2 level. So….I kinda do this. I have completed a few V2s but mostly I like working on V2s and V3s without the pressure of finishing the problem if I get too spooked by the heights.
Go check out a climbing gym in a different city. Haha well we checked out Gnarwall (get it…gnar wall…narwhal…) in Winston-Salem a while back so technically this counts!
Do a pull-up. Still can’t do this, but I have been specifically training for pull-ups on and off. I could be more consistent with this training, but at least it feels like the important muscle groups are actually getting engaged in the movement now.
Other Fitness
Get stronger.
Get flexible again. I made a point of stretching before a run as often as possible, and I sometimes made a point of just stretching, but not enough to be “flexible” again. Basically I did enough to not lose any flexibility, but not enough to improve my flexibility.
Do a 40 mile bike ride. Haha I still haven’t done this! Lots and lots of running this year so there was very little biking involved.
Get stronger. I incorporated some strength training into my training cycles, but not enough. I could do better.
Keep coming up with super fun RhoTREATS outings! And do a few outings open to everyone I know. I did a few RhoTREATS events, but some had poor turnout because of bad weather, and then I just started losing steam towards the end of the year.
Reading
Take time to read.
Read 20 books. I was pretty darn close with this - I read 19 of 20 books. My main reading material in 2019 was Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels* (My Brilliant Friend*, etc.)
Read 2 books in German. Mmmm not quite. I completed Harry Potter book 1 in German, got a good start on Harry Potter book 2 in German, and re-read Kafka’s Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis*) in German, but I wasn’t very thorough with my re-reading.
Travel
Move and be moved.
Go to France. WE WENT TO FRANCE!!
Get 10 more stamps in my NC State Parks passport. Ha! I did this! Or at least, I went to 10 NC state parks in one year. Not bad.
Blogging
Stop stressing over this and just have fun.
Grow the blog. Hahahaha well my primary goal was to stop stressing and just have fun. Apparently “stop stressing” and “just have fun” = “totally abandon the blog.” Whoops, my bad.
Have fun with some video. Nope, nothing here. Though I did buy McCrae a drone for Christmas so maybe we’ll play around with some video soon….
Do a blog series. Also didn’t happen.
Personal
You don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to work to be better.
Budget. I was actually really on top of this in 2019, yay!
Don’t completely neglect the house. Ughhhhh house stuff. I hate doing house stuff. But it’s actually slowly starting to get some attention from me.
Eat like you’re a grown-up. For the most part I did this. There was still way too much junk food and visits to Mexican restaurants, but I’ve got a somewhat complex list of dietary guidelines - it’s not a “diet” per se, it’s more like eating guidelines to help me make healthier choices. Anyways, the point is it’s helping me eat a little better. Definitely room for improvement, but it’s the right direction.
Sleep 8 hours per night. Hahaha this was a stretch goal and I didn’t even track my sleep that much so I don’t know for sure how off I was from this goal, but it was a good thing for me to aim for every night.
Study French. I studied some French! Enough to be kinda useful and for the guy working at the coffee bar in Paris to understand my order every morning, but not enough to explain to a medic how I tripped on the trail and bloodied up my knee. ::shrug::
Stay current on German. My bedtime stories regularly consist of Harry Potter in German so while I may not be staying current on my German at least I’m kinda using it sometimes.
Make one more habitual change to reduce waste. I didn’t really make more improvements towards zero waste, but I maintained all the things I’ve been doing: reusable coffee mugs, reusable grocery bags, etc. One improvement I guess for both my budget and the environment is I only went to a coffeeshop once a week for a special treat rather than almost every day.
Regularly send snail mail. Ughhhh I didn’t do this.
Put some letters at the end of your name. ::rolls eyes:: So…this isn’t really my fault. Work was really crazy with lots of turnover so my requests for professional development never got approved. But I’ve been given the green light on a cert I want to do asap, so I’m working on this now.
2019 Summary
I keep sitting here thinking that 2019 was a dud year, but honestly the data doesn’t support that. It was a good growth year personally and professionally and included an exciting trip to France plus plenty of other adventures, so I need to quit feeling down about 2019. All in all it was fine. I had a lot of ambitious goals and I executed on a lot of them. I just didn’t have any big huge extraordinary accomplishments, so after the grandeur of 2018 this past year of 2019 felt a little…flat. Even though it wasn’t. Does that make sense? Perception of 2019 =/= reality of 2019.
2020 Goals
So. 2020. One of the biggest things I’d like to do this year is not over-stretch myself. Or rather, don’t compromise on the things I want to do by doing things I feel obligated to do. And by obligations I don’t mean “quit your day job and live in a van” sort of extremes, but more like focusing on activities I want to do and saying no to things that don’t align with my priorities and goals. It’s not enough to invest time and energy into your goals, you have to actively remove obstacles and distractions as well (though I want to acknowledge some distractions are good distractions - time for mental play and creativity and flow - rather than distractions that are unproductive and unfulfilling).
Writing
Make it a habit. Make it measurable so you can feel encouragement at finding success.
Honestly, my writing goals bother me the most. How do I set specific goals without cutting into my creativity? How do I allow myself to write what I want to write while still having metrics of success?
Create a habit of writing. This is probably something that would be most productive for me - to have a place (a “room of my own”) and dedicated time for writing. The freedom to write badly and prolifically. But a place to write and time to write don’t just magically appear; I have to carve out that space and time, to make it a consistent habit before it becomes excellence. I want to leave this a little open-ended because I’m not quite sure what would work best for me - write a little bit every day, or have one or two days dedicated to longer periods of writing? I’ll do some experimenting for the first few months of 2020 to determine what works best.
Write 10 stories. Already I’m regretting this high number, but I’ll only write stories better if I wrote more stories. So I’m going to aim for 10 bad stories this year so that next year maybe I’ll write a “not so terrible” story.
Write something you’re proud of. Even if it’s just a sentence, I want to write something that isn’t cringe-worthy.
Submit something. Time to embrace rejections!
Join a writers’ group. I was a member of a couple writers’ group a while back and I just fell out of the habit of attending the meet-ups. I may go back to that writers’ group or I may join up a different group, I’m not quite sure. I just know that having a community for support and ideas and growth is so important.
Do a workshop. Workshops are fun! Workshops are helpful. I should take a workshop.
Photography
Say no.
Pull back. Shoot what you want to shoot. Say no. Charge what you’re worth. In the past few years I said “yes” to a lot of photography gigs, and while I learned from all of them and loved all my clients, I’ve gotten to the point every fall where I’m just stretched too thin. So in 2020 I want to balance that a little better by shooting what I want to shoot (which typically looks like sessions I’m creatively and emotionally invested in), saying no to work that doesn’t align with my goals, and charging what I’m worth.
Running
Be brave.
Run 1500 miles in a year. I have been ramping up my miles over the year, so I’m curious if I can break 1500 miles in 2020.
Run another 50K. Because I’m not just extra, I’m ultra. 😉
Run a 40 miler. Wooooooo higher mileage!
Run a 12 hour race. Sing it with me. NO. SLEEP. ‘TIL THE FINISH LINE!!
Run a 100 miler! Omg wait no just kidding I’m not doing this. ::checks race registration history:: Okay just kidding, I guess I am doing this in 2020.
Run a sub-2:10 half marathon. Come onnnnn so doable, I just have to sign up and try!
Run a sub-4:20 marathon. I feel like my PR of 4:23 is pretty accurate for my current fitness, but I’m curious if I can improve and squeak a few minutes off my PR.
Run a sub-28:00 5K. 9:00 miles for 3 miles. Should be doable.
Knock out 3 states for 50 States 50 Marathons. Run all the races, eat all the carbs!
Climbing
Look ma, no hands!
Climb 5.10s consistently. I can climb them. I just need to do it more consistently.
Climb a 5.11! I want to feel more comfortable on lower grades so I can do some interesting outdoor climbs, which means trying to push the grades I climb indoors a little more.
Climb outdoors 5 times. We got a ton of fun gear for Christmas so it’s time to put it all to good use this year!
Get lead certified. Ughhhh I can do it, I just simultaneously really don’t want to/really want to. Scared and excited. All at the same time.
Boulder consistently at V2. Get strong!
Complete a V3. Projects! Lots and lots of projects!
Do a pull-up. One of these days I’ll do one…
Learn to set my own anchors. I want to feel confident with my safety knowledge and how to set top-rope and other anchors while climbing outdoors.
Learn to clean. Well, if I don’t want to lead then I’ll probably need to know how to clean, right?
Take a climbing class/clinic. Knowledge is safety!
Hiking/Exploring
See something amazing!
Go backpacking 5 times. For realsies this time, I want to have a few long slow weekends outside.
Complete the 52 hike challenge. (Honestly I just like having this as a goal so I can track how many miles and vert I do on trails.)
Bag some peaks! Like the 52 hike challenge, I want to track how many summits I get in 2020, yay!
Climb 60,000+ feet in a year. Since I’m already tracking elevation gain I might as well see if I can exceed the elevation gain I got in 2019.
Go to 10 state parks. Every year I pick up a fresh NC State Parks Passport to see how many state parks I can tick off in one year.
Touch another glacier! The glaciers are disappearing and McCrae and I have a cool habit right now of touching a glacier on our wedding/anniversary, so it would be fun to continue that.
Visit Shenandoah National Park. It’s not like it’s far away, I’ve just never been there! Preferably I’d like to visit in fall foliage time.
Other Fitness
Do yoga once a week. Even if I’m just doing it on my own for 15 minutes, I want to make sure I’m getting in some strength and flexibility.
Strength train once a week. Time to get stronger!
Reading
Read 20 books. Besides writing a lot, reading a lot is the best thing to improve your writing. Plus it’s fun.
Read 2 books in German. Because I like being multi-lingual.
Read enough magazines to declutter the house. Eeek related personal goal: don’t be a hoarder. 😬
Travel
Go somewhere interesting. I’m not going to be super-ambitious with this goal because I’ve got some other big goals, but I’d like to do one big trip (maybe domestic) this year.
Blogging
Just have fun. I’m not going to set any goals since blogging isn’t my highest priority right now. I’d be happy blogging more because it’s beneficial to write for a specific audience, but I don’t want to sacrifice other writing or sleep for this. If I just post monthly goals and race reports I’ll be plenty happy with that.
Personal
Budget. I actually found this pretty effective in 2019 so I want to continue this.
Complete some house projects. I’ve got a few ideas in mind to improve the aesthetics and function of my home - even if those projects are things like “organize all my running and climbing gear” lol
Study Spanish. Switching over to Spanish this year. Just because.
Put some letters at the end of your name. Yay certifications! Yay professional development!
Summary
I’m up 2 goals from last year - this year I set 44 goals - but I’m focusing more on just a couple areas of my life, so hopefully this year will be a little more manageable and fulfilling. On the one hand I love having goals to focus on, but on the other hand I want to make sure I’ve got some time to let my mind wander. Not like “scroll on Instagram” sort of wander, but more like sit at my easel and just doodle or watch the clouds or tinker around sort of wander. Goals require deep work, but a major element of deep work is rest. So I need to make sure I build in periods of rest this year to avoid burnout and to ensure I stay creative and keep some plasticity in my mind.
Additionally, while some of the 44 items for 2020 are goals, some of those goals are just to track what I do (like track my hikes and peaks) without putting any pressure to achieve anything new or arbitrary. I feel like I’m getting to the point where I’m happier with the things I’m doing and I just want to do more of those things, so it’s less of a resolution sort of goal where I want to change my existing behavior, and more of an expansion sort of goal where I want to grow a behavior or habit that I already have.
What about you? Are you trying to set goals/resolutions that change your current behavior or are you trying to set goals/resolutions that expand on your current habits? Let me know in the comments!
Bees and clover
Is anyone else just so ready for spring?! I was mulling over what I wanted to do for my March bullet journal for a while and kept thinking about spring and St. Patrick’s Day and wishing the cold rain would stop so I could get out into my garden. And I kept coming back to this idea of bees and clovers — so I ran with it! I love this month’s design, and I hope you enjoy it too!