Now that we’re into January, I wanted to do a write-up of how I did on my goals from last year, as an exercise in personal accountability. As you’ll see, I did well in some areas and poorly in others. To me, a good goal is one that gets you to change for the better, even if you don’t knock it out of the park.
The Good…
Of the ten goals I set for the year (nine that I set initially, and one I added part way through), I was able to achieve four of them all or most of the way. I’ll once again start with those…
- Return to the Philippines to Participate in the Philppines Urdanetta Temple dedication (4/28): The first goal we achieved was actually the first one on my list for the year. After serving a mission in the Philippines in 2000-2002, I had never been in a financial position to make a return visit until very recently. About 14yrs ago, my church announced that they were building a temple in Urdaneta, a town just two town only a few miles from two of the areas where I spent almost half of my mission (Calasiao and Binmaley). I decided that I wanted to try and be in a position to return to the Philippines to be there for the dedication. When they finally announced the dedication date last year, I set the goal to go there with Tiffany. I’m really glad we went. It was a beautiful experience seeing so many old friends, and seeing places I hadn’t seen in decades. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you can find more pictures and stories from that week near the end of April. We also got the chance to visit Taipei on our way home from the Philippines. Hopefully I can make it back to the Philippines again in the coming years, and maybe bring some of my boys along for the adventure.
- Help Jonny get his mission papers submitted (5/21): My second goal that I completed was helping Jonny get his application submitted to serve a mission for our church. It took a while to finalize things, but he received his “mission call” from the church in the fall, and has been assigned to serve for two years in the Los Angeles California mission, starting in early February.
- Help Peter and Jamie prepare for a 10K and run it with both of them (5/27 and 10/28): I had to adjust this goal a little bit. The original goal was to help them both prepare to run the Bolder Boulder 10K in May, but Jamie sprained his ankle in late March, and while he was out of a cast and walking before the race, we didn’t think it was wise to have him start training again right away. So Peter and I ran in May, with Peter beating his old time by nearly 15min (1:15:47), and I beat my old time by almost 10min (1:20:04). In the fall, we found a local Turkey Trot 10K, so we started training, and Jamie ran that 10K with me. That was Jamie’s first 10K, but he set the best time for the family (1:07:27), and I beat my old time by around 12min (1:07:48). Jonny and Peter also ran with us in the Turkey Trot, but they did the 5K loop. It took a lot of work, but I’m proud of my boys for persevering until they could accomplish something challenging.
- Reread the Book of Mormon cover to cover, marking all scriptures referencing Christ in red (12/20): This one I ended up modifying a bit fairly early on. I was originally planning on also marking some other types of scriptures in blue, but decided to focus on just the references to Christ.
In addition to those official goals, I had two unofficial goals I accomplished worth mentioning:
- Visit a Spanish-speaking country in Central or South America for a few days (11/1-11/7): This one was actually one of my goals from a previous year that I didn’t achieve then, but did successfully achieve this November. I’ve been teaching myself Spanish using Duolingo for almost a decade, and Pimsleur for a little over a year, but I wanted to go some place that would force me to actually use my Spanish language skills. I had a friend from Colorado who had take a job in Quito for two years, who had invited us to come down and visit him. After surviving the proposal silly season in October, we decided to take him up on the offer, and spent time in Panama on our way to and from Ecuador, and spent several days in Quito and the surrounding area. It was a wonderful adventure, and once again, I’m glad we did it. Between this and the Philippines trip in April, these were the only trips beyond the US and Canada that I had done since my mission in 2000-2002.
- Climb a 15er (11/5): Jamie told me in September or October that he wanted to hike a 14er (a mountain with a summit over 14,000ft) that year. The problem is that that was way too late in the season to do that safely, so I figured we’d have to punt until next year. But when my friend we were visiting in Quito sent us a list of things to do in the area, one of them was a hike of Ruku Pichincha, a volcano that was on the edge of Quito, and whose summit was 15,400ft — higher than any mountain in the continental US. Reading the reviews, it actually sounded like it was probably one of the easiest 15ers in the world, with a cable car going up to the 13,000ft level, most of the hike just a steep trail hike, and only some scrambling in the last quarter mile. We decided to go, and ended up hiking the mountain on one of the clearest days in Quito that our friends remembered. We safely made it up and down, thanks to our friend’s help, and a Boost Oxygen cylinder. I couldn’t think of a better place to be on Election Day than on a 15000ft volcano in the Andes.
…the Meh…
Ok, so not everything went according to plan. Three of my ten goals for the year were only partial successes:
- Complete Levels 1-5 in Pimsleur Spanish Lessons: I started the year with Level 1 lessons completed, but not the exercises, and by the end of the year I had made it a little more than half way through Level 4 with both the lessons and exercises. The lessons are ~30min each, and consist of a pre-recorded conversation that you participate in, and the exercises are about 10-15min worth of different tasks like saying phrases, cue cards, matching exercises, and reading. Because the lessons themselves were purely verbal, it made it convenient to do them while driving or going on a walk or a jog, but the exercises require eyes and thumbs, so a lot of time I’d get ahead on the lessons and then have to take time catching up on the exercises. It helped that I’ve done enough Duolingo to understand a lot of the grammar and vocabulary, but these lessons helped me start getting more used to conversational Spanish. I didn’t finish in 2024, but hope to finish this up in 2025.
- Invite neighbors, church friends, or friends over for dinner at least three times per quarter: I did ok with this, but didn’t hit it 100%, especially early in the year. If you don’t count feeding the missionaries, we only had one dinner with friends over in Q1 and one in Q2, but then ramped up to three in Q3, and four in Q4. One thing that helped was that half way through the year, the stake rearranged the boundaries of our ward (congregation), so half of the people were now people we didn’t know well, so we’ve been making a concerted effort to invite people over for dinners or desserts every few weeks. Even though we didn’t make it 100% on this one, I still think this was a successful goal, since it got me, even though I’m a total introvert, to reach out and invite people over on a regular basis.
- Complete Level 1 and 2 of Pimsleur Tagalog before the Philippines Trip: This wasn’t on my original goal list, but I realized in January or February that I really needed to brush up on my Tagalog before my trip, because I hadn’t used it regularly in two decades. Pimsleur only had two Levels for Tagalog, rather than five like they did for Spanish, but it was better than Duolingo, which basically has nothing for Tagalog. I didn’t do the exercises, just the lessons, and only made it through one Level worth of lessons before the trip, but getting through one still helped a lot. Coincidentally, doing this is probably part of why I wasn’t able to finish the Spanish Pimsleur levels, since I paused working on the Spanish while I was doing Tagalog. But still definitely worthwhile, even if not fully successful.
…and the Ugly
As with last year, I also had three goals that I did not complete, and only made modest progress on:
- Get my weight under 175lb before my birthday: This was my first time setting a weight-loss specific goal, and I only made it about halfway from 185 down to 175 by my birthday. I tried extending the deadline to the end of the year, but never managed to get back down below 177lb at my lightest. By the end of the year I was back around where I started (~185lb). That said, while I didn’t succeed in losing a lot of weight, I think trying to lose weight likely helped me avoid gaining more weight.
- Learn how to use my Snapmaker 2.0’s rotary 4th axis, 40W laser, and dual print head, and design and make at least two items using each process: I bought the Snapmaker, and a lot of upgrades in late 2023, and used a bunch of them for some consulting work in November/December 2023, but hadn’t had a chance to really learn how to use a lot of the tools. I had a chance to dabble with the 40W laser and dual print head, but not really figure them out. In the end, I only really managed to make time for the 40W laser in late November and December, and only for wood, not also for metal color engraving like I wanted to learn how to do. But I was able to make some two-layer maple/walnut temple ornaments for my Filipino friends (using a design my sister Julia helped me with), and we also made a rather cool Guinea Pig warrior pencil holder for Jamie. I still want to learn how to use the laser for colored laser engraving on stainless, and I haven’t even tried unboxing my 4th axis, so I think I may re-up this one for next year.
- Help teach each one of my boys one or two skills they want to learn: One of the things I did this year was arrange my work schedule so I could take extra time during the day on some weekdays to do homeschool activities with the boys. My original plan was to help each of them learn some sort of skill they wanted to learn, but the only one who was consistent at it was Peter, who I setup with some tutorials to learn how to use the Fusion 360 CAD program. He did make it all the way through the lessons, and even used it to design a medallion to 3d print for his choir director. So I’d count that as a success, but the others it was off and on if we even did anything formally on skills each week. I did cook some stuff with Jamie, and read some stories with Pip, but not as much as I had originally intended. I think next time, if I set a goal like this, it’ll be for a specific skill that they specifically asked me for help on.
Anyhow, that’s the reckoning for 2024 goals. Even for the goals that I wasn’t very successful on, I still think they were useful goals to have. I’m going to have to put a bit more thought into what I want to do for 2025. But remember, even if you don’t get 100% in a goal, if it gets you to be intentional about improving something you wanted to improve, it’s still worthwhile.