Hello everyone! Let me start by wishing everyone a great 2024. Although, I always say: “Don’t just wish for a good year. Make it so!” 2024 is going to bring a lot of new stuff to the table for me, as I’m going to start branching out into new territory with content creation. I have plans for recording a podcast about mindfulness and the Stoic mindset, but I’m also going to start streaming (Retro) video games and follow my passions there.

Shifting Goal Setting

People who have been following my blog know that I love efficiency and goal setting for myself. I am passionate about learning new stuff and broadening my horizons. For years I used to set annual goals and review them quarterly, but I have been reading up on some psychological material and one thing I have learned from them is that us Humans, we have a lot of trouble with long term goals and are much better at grasping the concept of goals if they are in the near future. This doesn’t mean we can’t work on large scope projects, but it does help if we chop them up into smaller parts and work on those, as they are more manageable.

If > Then Goal Setting

Our brains are wonderfully capable of thinking in an If > Then pattern. That’s why when we set goals it’s a great idea to make them SMART, because this adds a time component to the goal and makes it much more clear what the goal is exactly.

For example, I’ve set dates for my gym times. Every Monday evening from 19:30-20:30, Wednesday and Friday afternoon from 16:00-17:00. That way, I’ll get into this If > Then mindset much easier and it will become a habit much sooner. It is said that we usually need between 60 to 70 repetitions before something becomes a habit. This works much better with things you repeat on a daily basis, of course.

Another of my daily goals is to meditate and I usually do this shortly after waking up. This is already a habit, but I still found it important to track it. Especially because I have a tendency not to meditate during the weekends, but I feel that I really should take 15 minutes a day to meditate and get a kick-start.

Creative goals

I’m aiming to write a weekly blog at least. Blogging still is a great way of putting my thoughts out there and sharing my knowledge. I’ll be adding episodes of my podcast here as well and links to my (live) streams. There’s still a bit of research I have to do, which is what I’ll be focusing my attention to during the first half of the month. After that, it’s showtime!

Writing a new novel is also something I’m striving for this year. I plan to rewrite the first chapter of the original Kevar novel this month and I’ve been considering just putting it out here on my blog for everyone to read. A lot of people share their stories on blogs and then bundle them up as a novel, so why not try that tactic for a change? My goal has always been to entertain people with my creativeness and if there’s a way to make a living doing it, that’s even better, but I mostly do it because I love doing it.

Summarizing the goals

So, that seems like quite a lot, right? Well, I think it’s all in the eye of the beholder and to me it seems very doable, because these are things that give me energy. My goals for this month are:

1. Gym Time (3x a week)
2. Daily Meditation
3. Record my first Podcast and publish it
4. Stream (Retro) Video Games for the first time (probably via Twitch)
5. Blog Weekly
6. Rewrite the first chapter of my novel and publish it on my blog
7. Re-plot the story of my novel by the end of this month

Have you set any goals, or made new years resolutions? Please let me know in the comments below!

Happy Goal setting!

Jeffrey