I Crushed 2018

This was my 10th year of creating and publishing a list of unreasonable goals. I’m happy to say that this year was my most successful! In 2018 I had a 128% success rate. Now, does this mean I achieved all of my goals? Nope. But it does mean that I achieved many of them, and some of them I exceeded.

Most importantly, I finished school this year. Grad school, even. 10 years ago, my Unreasonable Goal list included ‘take one college class’. At that time, I was 30 credits away from my undergraduate degree. I had a 3-year-old. That ‘take one class’ moved from year to year for a long time. But, then I did. I took one class, and another and another. Three days after I completed my BA, I filled out the application for the Stonecoast MFA program. I got in. I went. In July, I finished. I will admit, that it feels a bit strange to not have any school related goals on my list this year. I will continue to learn, though. I got a year pass to the Master Class online program, after a friend gifted me the Margaret Atwood class. I loved it, and am sure I will enjoy others.

I hit my reading goal this year, and my knitted items goal for the first time in a long time. Success due, I’m sure, to my being done with school. I got my garden in, I didn’t keep it alive, but I planted it and I’m going to count it as a success.

I spent a lot more time with friends this year, despite the fact that I quit drinking in February (more on that another time) so my go-to ‘let’s meet for drinks’ was no longer in my repertoire for inviting people to hang out. Being a person in Maine, at age 40, and suffering from social anxiety, it can be hard to learn new ways of putting yourself out there. But I did, and I’m pretty proud.

I wrote a novel! It is in terrible shape, and needs many more drafts, but it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. I a lot of ideas on how to fix it up, and I will. I submitted A LOT of work this year. I got A LOT of rejections, but I also published 3 pieces of fiction, 2 pieces of non-fiction, and have another piece of fiction forthcoming in 2019. So – holy shit that’s amazing, right?

I got elected to the school board! Yes, I was the only person that ran, but who cares? I am loving the work for my community and hope the community feels the same way. Becoming more active in my community, and joining a board has also been a goal of mine for a long time. I highly recommend it to everyone. Get involved. Your towns, schools, libraries, non-profits, etc. need you.

Shamefully, I still have not purchased passports for our family. That has been on the list for a lonnngggg time. Back on the list for 2019! I’ll do it! I swear! It’s just all about filling out the things and getting the pictures and going to the place. It’s really time-sucky and annoying.

I tried a new thing with my goals last year and put a bunch of 30 day challenges on it. That was a dumb idea. I didn’t complete any of them. I did cheat a bit with the yoga goal, because although I didn’t do 30 days of yoga in a row, I definitely did 30 days of yoga over the course of the year. The judges (me) will allow it.

I have a new list of goals for 2019 pretty much finished. I will post them tomorrow. This post is already too long.

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