I’ve played around with goals and themes for the past few years. In 2021 it was travel lighter, in 2022 it was amplify and reduce, in 2023 it was reading, and in 2024 it was renewal (yeah, queue the groaning, I know). As you might guess, all of those themes, aside from reading, were pretty amorphous and annoying (and not super successful). This year, I want to go back to some goals.
Yes, for 2025, I intended to stick with a theme, but the thought of using another ambiguous term like “connection” seemed less than helpful. Almost as if on queue, my wife surprised us all at the dinner table by passing out little sheets of paper and pens and asking us each to write down what some of our goals were for 2025. It was a classic thing that we amazing parents do, which makes their kids shutter and moan and leads to awkward moments of staring at each other and then down at the table, but that actually ends up being pretty funny and, dare I say it, something that bonds us closer together.
Here is what I ended up writing down the following goals:
- Celebrate my 10-year wedding anniversary in style with my wife
- Find a house in our new home (and moving…again)
- Run a marathon (or two)
- Make some new (local) friends
I like this list. It feels good. Everything else should hopefully be stuff I do in service of, or during gaps between, trying to accomplish these 4 things.
As I look at my list, it maps pretty neatly to the four categories of a deep life as outlined by Cal Newport (and that I followed in my amplify and reduce exercise in 2022):
- community (family, friends, etc.) – making friends and finding a house/community covers this
- craft (work and quality leisure) – OK, not exactly a goal but I do have a sabbatical this year which I planned thoughtfully and which I plan to utilize to further accomplish these 4 goals
- constitution (health) – running a marathon, obviously
- contemplation (matters of the soul) – if my marriage and life together with my wife isn’t good matter for the soul, I don’t know what is
Of course, you never know what the year will bring. Who knows if an injury will delay my marathon goal, if the real estate gods will keep houses out of reach, or no one wants to be friends? Hell, the friends goal looks like the hardest goal to achieve at the moment. Meeting new adults as an busy parent is pretty hard, let alone finding cool adults and then, even if you do, finding a reason (and a slot in the calendar) to hang out.
Wish me luck!
Comments welcome!