Personal Goals for 2019

While a lot of people set resolutions at the start of January I like to wait at least week or two before brainstorming my goals for the upcoming year. This helps keep me from going overboard with resolutions and committing to things that I might regret later. Earlier this month I shared my writing goals for 2019 and now I think I’ve gotten my personal goals figured out. Below are some of my personal goals for 2019 and if I’m still writing at the start of 2020 I’ll let you know how they panned out.

 

Return to Japan and/or Korea

This is easily my most ambitious goal for 2019 and the one I’m the most uncertain about accomplishing. If I do return to Japan and/or Korea it will be in the second half of the year, probably around October. I only want to undertake this journey if I can spend at least full month over there and at the moment I simply don’t know if that will be possible or not.

 

Learn some basic Japanese or Korean (assuming I’m able to return to Japan and/or Korea)

There’s no way I’d gain anything even remotely close to fluency in either Japanese or Korean before my potential return trip to one or both countries, even if I started right now, but if the trip looks likely then I’ll commit to learning some basic skills of one or both languages. This will be particularly important if I’m going to be traveling to lesser-known destinations where English speakers are rare.

 

Be able to regularly do 10 pull-ups

At the moment I can regularly do 6 or 7 pull-ups and if I come at it fresh and really push myself I max out at 9. Increasing the number of pull-ups that I can normally do on a moment’s notice will take a while to accomplish but shouldn’t be too hard so long as I just keep working at it and eating healthy.

 

Finish at least 12 new games

When I say “new” I mean a game I’ve never played before. Remakes and remastered versions of games will count towards the total, so long as it’s the first time I’ve played them. In my college days this would have been an easy goal to accomplish and I’d knock it out quickly but these days I’ll need to push myself to play through at least one new game per month.

 

Spend less time on Youtube

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time on Youtube and the more I think about it the more it is clear that I’m not getting much out of it. The time I’m wasting on Youtube is taking away my focus from more important things and so for 2019 I’m going to make an effort to reduce my Youtube consumption. If nothing else this should help me accomplish my goal of playing at least a dozen new games.

 

Finish the Bolder Boulder 10k in less than 60 minutes

I skipped the Bolder Boulder last year due to an injury but I should be in the race again this year. My goal for the race is the same as always—to finish in under an hour. As a stretch goal I’d like to break my personal best time of 58:47 that I set back in 2016.