New Year, New Goals: 2023

New Year, New Goals: 2023

I meant to do a New Years’ post at the start of the year, but there was a little hiccup: a little dude stole half my wife and my DNA, mooched off my wife for 9 months, then emerged as a demanding bundle of joy the first week of 2023. Wonderful news for me and my family, awful news for my spare time, which is now practically non-existent. Anyways…

It’s already 2023?

Whoooo boy. It’s 2023. Didn’t I just write my “Goals To Grow: 2022!” blog post?

I guess it’s time to look back on what I said I would do in 2022, see if I’ve accomplished any of it, and see if any of it is even still on my radar. And I guess I might as well provide a life update too. Let’s start with that.

Quick Life Update: 2023

2022 was a huge year for me: I went full adulting – bought a house, bought a car, and we got pregnant with our first son…All while raising a teenager, maintaining a job, and keeping up with friends and family. It meant that a lot of what I was planning to do had to fall by the wayside as I took care of stuff that had to be done.

What did I want to achieve at the start of 2022, and how much have I accomplished?

The main thing I wanted to achieve in 2022 is balance and stability. Getting to stable meant making a lot of big waves: getting set financially, getting a solid place to live, and getting the family set up with some solid daily habits so we can start to get into the groove of life. As I put it one year ago: establish a “new normal”.

Honestly, I feel like I achieved that pretty well. With all the stuff I mentioned before (house, job, car), I feel like as we got into the later part of 2022, I really started to fall into the rhythm of my new life and things started to take shape: what time do I wake up? What time do I get home from work? What do I need to do on weekends for house maintenance? What kind of fatherly/husbandly tasks am I expected to do daily? The big, overall picture sort of worked it’s way out.

What about the small stuff?

Let’s go over the list of things I wanted to accomplish in 2022, and give a quick one-sentence update:

• Have more climate talks with people around me – I sort of scratched the surface on this one. I had a solid climate chat with my wife and daughter which was pretty big. I still want to do more of this.
• Be more proud of what I do: Tell more people about my podcast or my YouTube channel! – This is one that I also started to do a little bit, but could do a lot more of. I’m generally really bad at promoting myself and pushing my content onto others.
• Focus content on helping others (Blog/Instagram/YouTube thinking about how to help) – Instagram has completely fallen off and I don’t feel like I get much return on the time investment there, but YouTube I’d really like to get back into. Blog posting has become a lot more regular, which is good, but now I think I need more quality.
• Start a new evolution of YouTube videos that are more concise, entertaining, and much more useful to a specifically targeted group. – Nope, didn’t happen. Just didn’t make this enough of a priority.
• Get onto a schedule and rhythm for better work/life balance – Smashed it, daily life has taken shape, but there’s always room for improvement.
• Get more active (Climate action, more volunteering for the environment) – I got really close to this one, in that I tried to sign up for a couple volunteer events, but failed. Something came up every time. Still something I really want to do.

So overall, I’d give myself a score of “Great job stabilizing, what about everything else?”. 2022 was good to get the basics set up, but now it’s time to go beyond that for 2023.

2023 and Beyond: ways in which I want to evolve from here on out

I’m now in as good of a situation as I’m ever going to be: solid job, decent work schedule, home that I own…If there’s going to be a time to work towards some goals, this is it. So that begs the question: what do I want to achieve in 2023?

A lot of my goals from 2022 are still biggies: I want to do more with YouTube, have more engaging conversations with others, and get my hands dirty (volunteering, food garden at home, etc.). I’d also add that on top of getting some solid goals, I’d also like to really train myself to have the discipline and habits neessary to make and keep a solid, goal-oriented schedule and to-do list.

Last year I also feel like I didn’t have the mental capacity to try to live more sustainably, so I need to push a bit on that front. Can’t lead in sustainability if you’re not living sustainably!

I’d like to get in some good basic habits too: eating healthy, sleeping well, meditating and using time well.

So let’s get a preliminary list down.

Things I want to accomplish in 2023:

• Train good habits, work on self-discipine
• Make clearer goals, properly portioned each month
• Eat better: more plant-based meals, learn to cook more dishes without packaging or meat
• Regularly scheduled exercise – a keystone habit that just makes everything else better
• Sleep early, wake up early – Energy starts with getting good sleep.
• Meditate – Another keystone habit that just makes for better focus and appreciation for your life.
• Journal regularly as a way to self-manage thoughts and feelings
• Make a podcast/YouTube channel that requires minimal editing but a lot more engaging with others.
• Volunteer at least once a month
• Do more to stand out. Get noticed. Get our of your comfort zone.
• Get out into nature more (more hikes and snorkeling)
• Make some headway in sustainable living (food garden??)
• Involve the family more in sustainable practices

I feel like this is a really solid list, but still kinda vague and wishy-washy. I’ll need to break this down into achievable steps before I can start making big strides, but I think this is a start. I think if I’m going to pick two descriptor goals for 2023, they’re going to be bold and growth: I’ve stabilized life best as I can (though the baby is trying really hard to destabilize it!), and now I want to grow, which I feel like will require really getting out of my comfort zone and being bold. To be completely honest, I don’t feel really confident that I can do it, but who knows, maybe I’ll surprise me.

This year I also hope for a lot more blogging and focusing my blog a bit more on who I am, how I think, and just becoming a more relatable, easier to read/listen to/watch person. Try to open up the ol’ heart to let more of you dear readers in. Wish me luck in 2023!

How about all of you out there? Are you making any resolutions or goals to get more sustainable out there? Let me know down in the comments below what you’re aiming to do in 2023!

Thanks for reading!