Some 2021 Goals

The end of 2020 ended up being a situation where I was not able to focus on any goals for 2021. I gave it zero thought and I typically always have some goals, especially recently, for the new year. So, rather than rush some goals that I wasn’t sure I wanted to do, I gave it some thought, and now, in the middle of February during a blizzard for the ages in what I hope is the ass-end of a pandemic, I’ve got some goals for the year.

Read of a book of poetry.

It’s been since college that I’ve read a book of poetry. In fact, I tend to stay away from poetry entirely because it’s something that really requires me to think about things that require more brain power than I have available. I’ve chosen a book of poems from my favorite author, Jim Harrison. Harrison wrote three of my favorite books, Dalva, True North, and Returning to Earth. Harrison also wrote a short story called, Legends of the Fall. I’ve chosen Jim Harrison, The Essential Poems edited by Joseph Bednarik. Will let you know how this goes, but it is something that I have to sit with for a while and staring at he words and I think that’s a good thing.

Two minutes of planks every day.

This is ridiculously easy for me because I just do this right after I do push-ups. I simply finish my push-ups and then do some planks and it’s gotten much easier since I first started at the beginning of the year. Doing these after running 15 miles or so? Not really fun.

Take another online class.

One of those things that I’m not sure if this is truly beneficial, but I enjoyed the class that I took last year, the class on Happiness at Yale. This year I’m taking a class at Penn called “Resilience Skills in a Time of Uncertainty“. I try to work on this on Sunday mornings when I have some quiet time. I do think that I want to do a bit more and if you need a place where you can find free online courses, then look no further than Open Culture. A ton of these are on iTunes for those of you who are normally stuck in the car for good stretches and maybe you’re a bit over-podcasted.

Run ultramarathon #2.

This has been the most difficult thing for me to do, but it should be the easiest thing for me to do because I’ve been training for this for 2 years since my last ultramarathon. I promised myself that I would not run another ultramarathon until I went for a yearly physical and got more life insurance. I’m in the process of getting more life insurance and I don’t want to get a physical until I get the insurance done.

I want to run the the 50k at the Coyote Trail Run where I’d take 4 laps around the Cleburne State Park. This is relatively close to my house (like a couple of hours) and would require just one night away, the night before the race and then I could just go home after the race.

But back to the two prerequisites, I like to get the yearly physical done each year, but last year I didn’t get it done because of Covid-19, I didn’t want to go to the doctor unless it was necessary. The life insurance is something that I wanted to do for a while because my life has changed when I got my first term policy. By holding the race as the carrot, I accomplish two things that need to get done. So, I’m waiting to sign up, but I think I should go ahead and sign up so I can get this off of my list of things to do.

I always reserve the idea that goal-setting isn’t something that you should do halfway through the year, but instead should do it during the course of the year. There’s always time to get better, even if it is incrementally.