2020 YEAR GOALS AND 2019 GOALS REVIEW

Hello hi,

Happy Sunday. This is my second post of the year. I hope the year has been going good for you all. I’m trying hard to achieve personal goals and objectives that I have set out for myself and that includes blogging J . So today, I would like to share with you a review of my 2019 goals and my goals for 2020. I always like to make plans, whether I keep them is a different story, hee hee. However, I feel that sharing them helps to keep me accountable – first, it means that I have it not only written down but also posted on the internet and like they say, the internet never forgets. So even if I forget what my goals are, I can always scroll on my blog or I’m pretty sure that some of my tatafo (gossip) blog readers would remind me or ask me about them at some point, lol. So that’s why I post them on my blog. In the past, I would pin them to my office board right next to me, because that was where I used to spend the most of my time but last year, I decided to start putting them on my fridge with a magnet. In a way, it was me reminding myself that I should spend more time at home or at least have a work-life balance, which I really tried to do last year. So here were my 2019 and 2020 goals and my 2019 self-score below:

Spot the difference between the 2 year goals.

So basically, I scored myself 3 out of 10 for my last year goals, how ridiculous! Looking back at my goals, most of them were not unrealistic but somehow I had not managed to meet them. For example, the weight goal - there were times I weighed 58kg but I could hardly maintain it. However, I know I was not unfit, as I had spent a lot of time last year doing physical activity and exercise – Zumba 4-5 days a week, ballroom dance once a week, and walking half an hour every day. So I suspect that the extra 2 kg I had were muscle weight. Therefore, I’m not mad at myself even though I’d still prefer the former weight and so I have carried this over to this year.

Dating at least twice a month…where do I even start from? I had began last year with this goal and of course I signed up on dating websites to catch some big fish. For the most part, I ended up catching tiny fish, eels, snails, crayfish etc. instead of the fresh fish or whale I had hoped for. So yes, I was able to go out on dates to meet my goals but they were not fruitful and were time-consuming. There were times I would be on a date and even though I would have nothing else to do at home, lying down on my bed seemed preferable to me. And it was not because I did not like to date people but rather because I could see no future with these guys, in addition to the fact that they bored the heck out of me. I will write about some of them on my blog later. Don’t get me wrong though, I had some pretty good dates and experiences including going to an opera which I enjoyed (plus it was free J ). However, no one went much further and at some point, these dates started becoming a pain rather than an achievement to me. Therefore, as one who values herself and time, I had to re-evaluate this particular goal by the end of April. Did I want quantity over quality? Was it more important to achieve this goal but lose myself? In the end, I decided to scrap it and by the end of May, I had left those sites and started to feel free again. That’s not to say that I’ll never date or go to those sites again but I’ve learnt that this is NOT a goal for me and so I’m not carrying it or any type of relationship goal over. One less goal, Phew!

Next – publishing at least 10 academic papers. When 1 of my colleagues saw this, she said I was crazy and maybe she’s right. If you are in the academic world, you’d understand how hard it is to publish 1 paper, not to talk about 10 in one year, except you are a PI (Principal investigator) and you have some expert data analysts and students helping you do a lot of the work. And yet, the over-ambitious me put this down as a goal. I only published 2 articles – 1 first-author one in a nice journal (high-impact factor, see here) and an editorial (here) but at least I wrote a few manuscripts so hopefully I can meet up this year. Maybe I’m still crazy to hope to achieve this during this year but I love to be hopeful.

Writing competition – You know what, I should score myself fully for this because I actually entered into one competition which I did not win,  but it does not matter because the goal was not about winning. Also, I wrote an academic grant which I believe counts because it is a competition and I had not specified what type of competition. So scrap the half mark, I give myself a full mark which means I have 3 and a half marks now. Yay!

Oui, French! Everyone says I have improved including my French teacher but I am not yet where I wish to be so I’ll keep working on it. I’m also going to double my efforts so I can see more results.

As for swimming and biking, I had no time during the summer last year as my special guest was around. If you read my previous story here, you’ll understand why I could not achieve swimming in 2018. But this year, I think I’ll consider signing up for swim class even outside the summer since it’ll be an indoor pool anyway. And as for biking, maybe I’ll just go to the Netherlands or any similar European country for a few months and that will force me to learn, ha ha.

Arts - I went for one paint class last year and I enjoyed it so I hope to go for more this year. I also want to get myself a keyboard before the end of next month so I’ll see how that goes. I did not start any money-making business, I don’t even think I had one in mind but I’ll think harder this year so I’ve left it out for now.

Finally, I registered to volunteer with an organization to mentor women, which I am excited about but I have not yet officially started because last year, my schedule never fit well. So I hope to start this year, thus I gave myself half mark.

And that’s it for my 2019 goal review. I have made my 2020 goals, some of which are similar to 2019’s – spot the difference. As I said, I will make more efforts this year by God’s special grace but ultimately I leave everything in the hands of my creator. As long as I have peace, I feel fulfilled. I also joined a vision group where we are to encourage each other in meeting our goals. So I had to make this vision board below. How about you, what are your 2020 goals? Are they similar to mine?

Thank you for reading my post and please leave a comment and share. I will be updating you along the year. In the meantime, keep visiting my blog and follow my Instagram page @lavivsblog and twitter @vivio_gogo for more updates. My main Instagram page is @ugochiukah

Have a beautiful week ahead. x