Happy New Year!
I hope the Christmas holidays brought you much peace and joy with a chance to rest and recover amidst all the celebrating! As 2014 is approaching quickly, it seems appropriate to reflect on 2013 and consider how to make the best of the new year.
Review
Last January, I made a few New Year’s resolutions. I was very intentional about choosing goals in different areas of life: health, social, professional, and spiritual. I regret to say that I didn’t accomplish all that I set out to do in 2013. The one area where I had the most progress and met my goal was in health: I successfully completed a half-marathon. I believe part of my success in this area was the public accountability that I established through my regular workout postings to Facebook. If you want to make sure you achieve something in 2014, be sure to find an accountability partner or a public forum that will keep you on track and encourage you to keep going.
Raising the Bar
Even though I was never much of an athlete, after meeting my health goal for 2013, I have decided to raise the bar for 2014. Because I like a challenge, I have decided not simply to go for a full marathon, but to complete the Dopey Challenge in January 2015. Because this requires running a 5K, 10K, half-marathon, and then a full marathon over four days, I want to make you a challenge to come and run one of the races with me. Doing them all is probably nuts, but surely one of them could be your health goal for 2014!
Professional and Social
Honestly, I’m not 100% certain what my professional goal was for 2013. (Maybe that’s why I didn’t make it….) This year, my goal is to get my psalter printed and available for sales and distribution. I’m hoping there will be many other compositions that will follow along as well, but the psalm settings have been sitting on the back burner long enough that it’s time they went public! As a secondary goal for 2014, I’d also like to have my own CD available. I have ideas for over a dozen recording projects, so feel free to let me know what you think I should record first.
I’m going to include travel as a social activity this year. My long standing travel goal is to make it to all 50 states before I reach age 50. In my college days on choir tour and auditions, I was ahead of schedule (at one state per year), but then I left the continent to live in Europe, and so now, I’m behind. I’d really like to knock two or three more states off my list this year. Below is a map of where I’ve been so far. Only in airports in the red states, overnight in the orange ones, at least twice to the blue ones, and I have lived for extended times in the green ones. Alaska and Hawaii aren’t shown because I haven’t been there yet…. Create your own version here: http://www.defocus.net/visitedstates/
Spiritual
While I’ve had some wonderfully moving spiritual experiences during different worship services in 2013 (most notably at the RSCM Course in Tulsa, Advent Lessons and Carols, and The Messiah), my goal for 2013 was to go on a week long silent retreat. Because I was not able to do that in 2013, I am going to try again for 2014. I know now that I must schedule the time in advance on my calendar before other activities make it impossible for me to get away.
And what about you?
I’ve shared some of my goals and plans for 2014 with you. Will you share your plans now with me? Choose a couple of different areas in your life where you’d like to change or do something new and exciting. Let me know what they are, and if I can do anything to help you out or keep you on track, I’ll do my best to work with you so that we may all have a happy and prosperous new year!
Wishing you all the best for 2014!
Glenn
Newsletter Issue 12 – 2013 12 31
See the complete list of newsletter issues here.