Goodbye, 2017!
It's been a crazy year full of ups and downs for me. Honestly, it hasn't been easy. I try and keep up a pretty brave face, but 2017 kicked my butt. I've questioned myself and God's purpose and plan for me a lot. I lost my confidence, something I'm still struggling to regain. But, I've also been humbled and in my weakness have felt God lift me up and carry me through.
All that said, I want this post to be sort of my accounting for 2017. I love looking back on my goals from last New Year's and seeing how I did before setting new goals for the coming year. So today I'm going to share some of my goals for 2017 and how I did on them. Then in another post I'll share my goals for the New Year. Let's get started!
NEW EXPERIENCES
One of my favorites goals I set for 2017 was to try something new every month. After my dad died, I felt so strongly the need to live my life to the fullest and get out of comfort zone. I hold myself back from a lot of things I want to do or try because of fear. This goal was meant to help me push past that fear and gain confidence. And it was a great goal for me! Here's the breakdown of the new things I tried each month in 2017.
January - Ate sushi for the first time.
February - Started a new job as a copywriter at Sunplay.
March- Flew a kite for the first time in YEARS.
April- Made cheesecake for the first time!
May- Entered a contest to win a trip to the Pyeongchang Olympics. I didn't win, unfortunately, but it was still fun and strangely enough gave me a much needed vision lift.
June- Learned to make curry.
July- Tried go-kart racing for the first time.
August- Started volunteering as a piano player at Ogden Regional.
September- Submitted an article to the Ensign magazine. Also, went to my first REAL game.
October- Was hired by Soompi and got my first article published. (You can check out all my articles by clicking here.)
November- Got bangs.
December- Did a Facebook live of playing the piano with my mom.
So, see! I did things this year! Even though almost nothing else went the way I was expecting in 2017, at least I can point to this list and say "But, I did get to experience a lot of new things."
READING GOAL
Another goal I met this year was my reading goal! In 2016 I set a goal to read 32 books during the year. I didn't make it in 2016, so I renewed the goal for 2017 and this year I did it! I read 32 books. A couple of the more memorable reads of the year were:
Do you have any recommendations for books I should read in 2018?
DAILY SCRIPTURE READING
One of my spiritual goals for the year was to read something from the scriptures every day. I even bought a fancy, year-long sticker chart to help me keep track. This one was kind of hit and miss. Sometimes I would just read 1 verse so I could put a sticker on my chart for the day before slipping into bed. But, hey. That's one more scripture than I would have read without the goal. Here's a look at how the chart looked after 1 year.
AND . . . MY NOT SO SUCCESSFUL GOALS . . .
Even though I'm proud of how well I did on some of my goals, there are others that did not go very well. Like my goal to attend the temple 8 times . . . I ended up going 3. I mean, that's not AWFUL, but it's far from where I want to be. Especially as someone who has a temple 10 minutes from her house and usually has plenty of free time. Improving my temple worship is definitely something I want to work on in 2018.
And then there was my goal to have a perfect Visiting Teaching record in 2017. HA! Yeah, I didn't do so great with that one either.
Then, I also had a goal to study a different topic every quarter by reviewing my college textbooks and subjects I was interested in. That didn't happen. I mean, I might have done it for the first week of 2017, but then that just fell away.
I think I might have bitten off a little more than I could chew with all my goals for 2017.
But, I will not give up on my goal-setting and achieving efforts, even if I'm not perfect. If there's anything 2017 taught me, it's the value of getting back up when you stumble or fall. I'm doing my best to stand up inside and not let my mistakes or failures or imperfections keep me down.
MOVING FORWARD
I'm going to sit down tomorrow and officially set my goals for 2018. If any of you are looking to set some goals for the new year, I highly recommend "Go for it!" by Elder Ballard. This is a talk I've loved for years and gives some great advice and thoughts about setting goals and learning how to reach those goals. Knowledge which I desperately need.
Thanks for reading this! Thank you for caring about me enough to read this and for supporting me! I hope the New Year brings you hope and happiness.
And to 2017: BYE! I won't miss you!
