I mentioned at the end of my last post (Personal Goals for 2009) that another goal I’m working on for this year will be through a concept called CHANGES.
The idea is to make small, incremental changes that will improve the quality of my life. You’ve heard the expression: “How do you eat an elephant?” One bite at a time.
How do you improve the quality of your life? One change at a time.
So I took this concept and made a list of changes that I believe would improve the quality of life. To be fair, I was partially inspired by a blog devoted to this idea called 99 Changes and the website 43 Things, which is basically a goal setting community. I also just came across the new site Stickk.com, which is along the same lines as well but with a twist…interesting concept.
Nonetheless, I wanted to think of simple things I’ve been meaning to do or should do that will improve or enhance my life. Some of these are changes, others are experiences, and some are just things I’ve been putting off that need to get done. In addition, some of these are one time occurrences and others may involve a month or more of developing a new habit or learning a new skill.
The idea for me is to continue to develop this list on an ongoing basis and work to complete 3-4 of them each month. I may even occasionally post here on my blog what changes I’m working on and how progress is coming along.
So without further delay, here is the list I’ve come up with for 2009…
- Get a physical at the Dr’s office – It’s pretty rare that I get sick, so I couldn’t tell you the last time I went to the doctor (knock on wood). I’m planning on running a half marathon this year, so I better make sure I’m healthy.
- Organize digital photos (back up files) – I’m sure like most people, we’ve got a few thousand digital pictures we’ve accumulated over the years. A lot of them need to be better organized, several of them could stand to be deleted, and I’d like all of them to be backed up somewhere.
- Organize my closet – My closet My portion of the closet (notice I didn’t say half) could be touched up a bit. I’ve got plenty of things I don’t wear anymore that could be given away.
- Develop a workout system/routine – I’ve got a training schedule for preparing for some of the races I’ll run this year, but I just want something consistent so there is purpose behind my workouts.
- Cook a fancy 3 course meal for Sheila – Ultimately, I’d like to learn how to cook really well, but I didn’t put “learn to cook” on my list, because that would seem to be more of a lifelong learning process. So we’ll start with a nice meal and let Sheila reap the benefits…
- Go on a road trip with no predetermined destination – Why not?
- Have a backyard camping trip with my girls – This will need to be on a night where sleep doesn’t sound appealing…
- Play in the rain with my daughters – Again…why not?
- Make a bucket list – I’ve wanted to do this for a while, so it made sense to add to this list.
- Learn to solve a Rubik’s cube – Enough people have these that it would be fun to grab one at random and just knock it out. My brother can do this. I’m jealous.
- Get my passport – You would think with all my travels that I’d have this, but I’ve just never taken the time to get it.
- Make a will – My wife and I have talked about this numerous times and actually have the materials to do it ourselves, but just need to sit down and do it.
- Eat something I would never normally try – You only live once. Hopefully whatever the food would be won’t kill me though.
- Make a movie starring my family – I’m looking for a reason to play with iMovie on my new Mac, plus this would be a great memory for the family.
- Skydive – This was the only one my wife wasn’t a fan of when I read the list to her. I’ll keep trying to convince her otherwise.
- Take vitamins – I used to do this pretty consistently but lately just haven’t.
- Wake up earlier – Because I don’t have a “job” to get to, I don’t have a really consistent wake up time. Thankfully, I have two small children who help with this.
- Send more notes (thank you notes, encouragement, birthday) – I write a decent amount of thank you notes, but handwritten notes are extremely valuable to people, so I want to do more of this.
- Drink more water – My wife questioned this one because she said, “You drink more water than anyone I know.” But there’s always room for more water. Unless, my body decides it doesn’t need anymore and then I’ll just…well…you know what happens.
- Learn to speed read – I read a lot, so it probably wouldn’t hurt to pick up the pace.
What would you add to the list?
What would you put on YOUR list?
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One Comment
Great idea, but will this work over the long run?
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