Goals for 2012

The past few years I've chosen not to make resolutions for the new year. Instead, I've set goals. It may seem an insignificant difference (especially when the end result is that I make positive changes in my life), but it's a big difference to me. To me, resolutions are ironclad promises you make to yourself of things that have changed or things you will or will not do. They are... resolute. Goals, on the other hand, are things you'd like to do or stop doing, but you're realistic in that it will take time and effort.

If I make a resolution and break it or don't achieve it, I feel bad. If I make a goal and don't meet it, I keep trying.

Big difference.

So I'd like to share with you a few of the goals I've set for myself for 2012.

I would like to read 100+ books in 2012. I know it's a lot. I used to read voraciously. Motherhood sort of changed my priorities so I don't read as much. This year I'm taking a reading challenge, and even if I don't hit that magical number, I'll still have read a lot more than I would have otherwise!

I would like to finish the coffee house book in 2012. By "finish," I mean I'd like to write, edit, and polish the manuscript and have it ready to send out on queries. I've been working on this story for a long, long time, and it's time to tell it in its entirety.

I would like to reduce/eliminate negativity in my life in 2012. I know it's just about impossible to completely eliminate negativity in my life. And that's fine. But there was too much of it in my life in 2011, so I would like to work on distancing myself from overly negative people, as well as working on being more positive myself.

I would like to get healthy in 2012. I have a specific goal weight I would like to achieve, as well as some other health-related goals, but for the sake of this blog, I'll just say I'm going to "get healthy." On the short-term end of that goal, my mom and I intend to run our first 5K race this spring, so I have a lot of "get healthy"ing to do between now and then.

There are other goals, as well. There are things I'd like to do or see or change about my life. I've told many people already that, for me, 2012 is the year of change. But those are the big ones.

It's going to be a good year. I just know it.