Turning the Calendar to 2022
New Year’s Eve is my favorite holiday. Favorite. By a landslide. I like Christmas presents, I like Easter’s pastel baby-animal decorations, I like Valentines full of chocolates. But New Year’s Eve is the greatest gift of all—a fresh start.
New Year’s Eve is my favorite for many other reasons, of course. It’s neither a religious holiday nor a patriotic holiday; everyone in the world has to turn the calendar. And I love dressing up and drinking champagne to celebrate no real accomplishment other than the passage of time. Life is merely passage of time, so it’s a celebration of life.
Some years I go out for a nice dinner or to see fireworks; other years I watch from home. But every year, I spend both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day prepping my planners/calendars for the upcoming year. Because I am truly a nerd when it comes to New Year’s resolutions.
I create a goal or two for several categories: adventures, fitness, relationship, art, and career—specifically writing, of course.
I have some goals that I keep year after year—not because I don’t meet the goal, but because I meet the goal every year and I want to do it again! Those goals include things like “visit two places I’ve never been” and “read 100 books.”
I batch my goals in 90-day windows, since yearlong goals are easily given up—90-day goals are so much more doable. My writing projects this year fall in line with four 90-day goals. (I have a journal for each 90-day goal. Because, as I’ve established, I’m a nerd.)
Every June, at my birthday, I do a six-month check-in for my yearly goals. What’s working? What’s not working? Is there anything that’s no longer relevant or no longer something I want to do? I realign and continue to the end of the year.
This process allowed me to do many things this year: finish/polish a manuscript and send it to an editor and agents, finish nearly a full first draft of a book with a much larger scope, create my new website, establish a social media presence, read 105 books, and visit several new places; among other successes. My writing goals are even more expansive this year as I won’t be spending the first 90 days working on getting a website up and running.
I won’t say I never stumbled, and I certainly won’t say I didn’t have some days when I felt like hurling my laptop into traffic, but as a whole, I look forward to lifting my champagne glass at midnight to honor the year that’s passing into memory. More importantly, I move onward and upward in 2022.
Happy 2022, world. Let’s be better, stronger, wiser, and kinder.
