Toward the end of 2012 I was lucky enough to attend a goal-setting workshop held by Lululemon. I had never done anything quite so official and written out before, and it was eye opening to spend focused time thinking about what I want and how to get there.

Even though I didn’t think about my goals as consistently or as focused-ly for the rest of the year, they were lingering in the back of my head, inspiring me one way or the other.

I revisited them recently and was surprised to see how many of my one-year goals I did make progress on or accomplish.

Now it’s time to sit down and think about my one-year goals for 2014 but, before I do, let me recap for the year at close.

CAREER:

I have a job with better pay and less stress (still in something I love).

By some miracle, and with minimal effort, I accomplished this — what I thought would be the most painstaking and time consuming one of all to do.

Now I even have my own nameplate:

And sometimes I fly to work!

I write one essay per month.

While I did not meet the quota for this, I did write considerably more, and also got back into reading regularly, which helps inspire my writing.

I also went public with one of my essays for the first time, which was quite cathartic (and it was great to receive such a positive response!). I contributed it to Allison’s NoExNo project, and you can read it here. The photo below relates to it, I swear.

I attend monthly writing workshops with Allison (and/or others).

We were actually pretty good about doing these! Having the writing workshops correspond with wine/pizza parties helped considerably, but who’s counting?

Here’s what we look like if we haven’t had our daily allotment of pizza. I mean, writing:

I post three blog posts per week (any blog) and promote one of them.

NOPE. Didn’t happen. But, I did switch all my blogs over to WordPress and think about them sometimes.

HEALTH:

I incorporate fresh veggies into my own cooking twice per week.

I finally made it to the Midtown Farmers’ Market at the end of November. Not that that means I didn’t eat fresh vegetables until November, but it does give a little insight into this goal: kind of happened, kind of didn’t.

Here’s me after chopping some vegetables, to prove to you I am capable:

I run a half-marathon in 1:45 (faster than Sarah Palin).

This plan got foiled by the fact that I jumped over a hedge and broke my foot. So, instead of a picture of me gloriously defeating Sarah Palin, here’s a pretty gross picture of my foot:

PERSONAL GOALS:

I walk instead of drive three times per week.

When I was working downtown, I started biking to work every day instead of driving — it was actually a quicker commute! Now that I work farther from home, I no longer bike to work, but I still make a point to walk to meet up with friends, do my shopping, etc.

I also decided to get safe about it after I saw a bicyclist get smashed by a truck, and I bought a really sweet bike helmet. I know I had a really nerdy picture of me in said bike helmet, but I can’t find it on my computer, so this photo of me biking into the sunset will have to do:

I save 5% of every paycheck.

I did this, but I can’t really prove it to you without showing you a screenshot of my bank account, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Here’s a really awesome graphic of a sloth as a consolation prize:

I take a full week off work for vacation.

Glad I got this one done when I was still working a job that gave me paid vacation time. I spent a week in Ohio and Kentucky and checked two Capitols off my bucket list!

Columbus, Ohio:

And Frankfort, Kentucky:

I buy one piece of original artwork (that I love).

This one was seemingly the easiest on my list, but I didn’t start on it until I had an epiphany a couple weeks ago and commissioned Dan Simmons to create a handlettered art piece out of the haiku Jamie Stewart wrote for me:

Can’t wait to see the final product!

I attend a regular weekly get-together with my girlfriends.

Haley, Haley, Allison, and I started HAHA Happy Hour in early January 2013 and it has been going strong throughout the entire year, and even grown to include ladies not named Haley or Al(l)ison. What a great tradition. Here’s the founding pinky swear:

Cheers to another great year!