Coincidentally shifting priorities just before the start of a new twelve month period of time

I’m not really one to make New Year resolutions. My theory for New Year resolutions has always been the same as it is for giving presents on Valentine’s Day. If you want to do something, go ahead and do it; don’t wait for a specific date. That being said, it just so happens that I have been shifting my priorities around as this new year comes up and I’ll admit, though I’ve already started doing some of this in my life, the start of a new month, which happens to coincide with the start of the new year, makes it easier to have a fixed goal.

So I have a few goals for this next 12-month period which I will break down to monthly goals. I will outline my goals and what I want to accomplish in the next month.

In order of my priorities:

Education: As a lifelong learner I’m always studying but recently I have decided to be more focused. I’ve now applied, been accepted into and paid for a long distance Master of Administration program which I will be talking about more as it happens but for now the important part is that it starts on January 13^th. My goal for this year, education wise, is to complete the core module for my new Masters. My goal for January is to settle into my classes and new schedule. In order to do this, I’ll be dedicating Thursday and Friday nights to working on my classes, as they will come out on Thursday and Friday, and completing any leftover work on the weekend.

Language: I want to become fluent in Chinese, at least to an HSK 5 level. My goal for the next 12 months is to pass the HSK 4 test. My goal for January is to know all the characters of the HSK 3 level by heart with a goal of passing the HSK 3 at the end of February. In order to do this, I am reviewing all 300 characters for the HSK 3 every day.

Writing: My writing has fallen a bit by the wayside so I want to get it going again. “Daughter of Barra” is waiting in the wings for a 2^nd rewrite or editing, depending on how I feel when I read it again (or finally get some feedback from alpha readers) but at the moment I am working on a fantasy novel. I would like to have finished the first draft by the end of June but it is a bit hard to say how long it will take as I don’t know how long the story will be or how many chapters it will be. My goal for January is to finish the first eight chapters. I am currently three quarters through the 4^th chapter so that should average to about a chapter a week, with each chapter between 7000-8000 words. In order to do this, I will be dedicating two week nights to writing and two – three hours per day on the weekend.

Health: Since July, I’ve managed to drop from 105 kilos to 97 kilos. My goal is to get to 85 kilos or a BMI of 20 % (currently around 30ish) by the end of the year. In order to do this, I will be doing daily HIIT bodyweight exercises and intermittent fasting along with an OMAD diet. My goal for January is to get to 95 kilos.

Sadly, the only way I can keep up with my goals is if I reduce my gaming time. While I am a gamer at heart and don’t believe that there is anything wrong with gaming, being able to game without worry presupposes that the rest of your life is where you want it to be and as you can see, there are many areas I want to progress in so I’ll have to spend my time a bit differently. I’ll be reserving one night a week for Eve online (shoutout to my long suffering wingman Andrew Butcher) and on weekends will only game after the rest of the weekly priorities have been completed. I’ll be posting an end of January update on my goals as well as the goals for February. There are many other aspects of my life that I will be working on but some are more personal and I don’t want to create too many goals. There’s a school of thought that says you should focus on 3 results, daily, weekly, monthly, but I’ll go with four for now.