New Year's Goals, an End of January Reflection

At the beginning of a new year it's always fun to make new goals, and I feel like I came into 2020 being a little bit smarter about making goals for myself I could actually keep.  

Last year I set a goal for a number of books I'd like to read (slightly higher than my goal in 2018 to keep things interesting), and I picked a yearly Bible reading plan that would have me read the entire Bible in 2019.  For all the other things I thought I'd like to accomplish I had a long list. Two of these categories worked out well for me.

I met my reading goal because I love to read, and I made it a priority to read for the first 30 minutes I was awake every day.  Regardless of how much reading time happened during the rest of the day I could count on that morning time.  

I read through the Bible last year, and I'm so glad I stuck to the plan!  I didn't read through the New Testament twice as this plan suggested, though, because once I'd done it once, I liked only having two chapters to read each day instead of four.  It made it so much easier to make up previous day's reading when I inevitably missed a day.  

As for the long list of things I'd like to do?  I did 1 1/2 to 2 of them?  I basically made a list and looked at it in June and December and forgot about it the rest of the time. 

I decided to make 2020 the year of the Deep Dive.  For my Bible reading and study I plan to pick a book each month to really focus in on, 20/20 vision and all that (my daughter informs me this joke is overdone).  For the month of January I followed this plan for reading the book of Luke that included videos from The Bible Project.  It's my first time watching these videos, and they are good summaries and super-engaging to watch.  

I set a numerical book goal again, but continuing the theme of the Deep Dive, I decided to pick a theme for my reading each month.  January's theme has been books in the Fantasy genre.  I've loved having a reading theme!  It gives me focus, but there's a lot of variety within that focus.  I've been able to read a poem dating from the late 1300s, the writing of George MacDonald in the 1800s, all the way up to 21st century novels written by an author we met last month.  Right now I think February's theme is going to be France, which can include novels, history, and biographies.  I'm excited.

As far as other goals go, I'm trying to take Laura Vanderkam's advice and make quarterly goals.  Picking just a few things for three months at a time will hopefully give me a lot more success.  I'm also making more measurable goals.  For example, instead of a vague 2020 goal of "lose extra weight," I made a first quarter goal of completing the Couch to 5K running plan.  I've also been working through a Calligraphy workbook and in the spirit of taking advantage of living in France, walking to la boulangerie for evening baguettes more often.

So far, the year of the Deep Dive is really working for me.  To me, so many things sound interesting and worth pursuing, so it's really helping me to have a sharper focus and actually do the things I want to do.

What about you?  Did you make any New Year's Resolutions/plans/goals for 2020?  How are they going?