2019 Recap
As I did at the very beginning of 2018, I spent a bit of last winter's vacation time working through the Get Bullish design your 2019 workbook. I have to admit: as the year went on, I relaxed a bit. I let some of the quantifying and achieving and tracking of the goals go. And that's fine! I had a general idea of where I was headed.
I have yet to start looking at the 2020 workbook. I booked a last-minute trip to Puerto Rico instead! And again, I think that's fine. As a not-very-spontaneous person, I'd even count the fact that I scrapped a goals exercise in favor of flying to a beach as a little achievement of its own.
Putting together a year recap, though, is a nice way of reminding yourself that even if your year was as unpredictable as mine, you probably did a lot more than you feel you did. And you should give yourself five minutes to be proud of that—whether you're setting a bunch of new goals or not. Here's my list of achievements (and un-achievements!) for 2019.
The stuff I did
I wasn't as rigid in breaking my goals into a set number this year. Instead, a did a bunch of little mini-goals. As the year went on, I focused on some and let others slide. Here's what got done:
Read books
I read 27 books this year, a few more than last year. Finally fixing my library card account and visiting my local branch was a little goal of mine. Beyond that (and a note to try more poetry), I let myself read whatever struck me at whatever pace I wanted. I don't think I'll be doing as much counting and tracking in future years—my reading habit seems to be sticking.
Here are a few favorite discoveries:
Build or find a community
In 2019, I wanted to do more meaningful things, and I didn't want to do them alone. Here are a few ways in which I tried to head towards community.
- With two collaborators, kicked off a large-scale survey and report on designers' salaries in Philly (the results are out next month!)
- Spoke at Ladies Get Paid, Inis Nua, and PhillyCHI
- Sat on a focus group to help kick off Collective Strength, a new feminist meetup offering work & life advice, skill development, and a space for honest conversations
- Joined Leadership Philadelphia's 2020 Keepers Cohort
- Added an FAQ to this here website, to essentially scale my inbox and help more people looking for specific kinds of resources and advice
I'm really happy with this list. It represents so many things I care about: promoting equality, working collaboratively to help each other get better, contributing to the city, the arts, and more. Collaborative work is slower and more tiring for me, but it's absolutely what I wanted to be doing this year.
Travel
I found it easier to travel this year! My mantra continues to be "you don't have to do what everyone else is doing if it stresses you out," and that's put me in a good mental space. This year I made it to:
What I didn't do
Here's a few times I took a swing and whiffed. I was supposed to:
- Clean all the junk out the basement. (I tidied up for like half an hour, a month ago.)
- "Make feeling good a priority." (I think this goal was too nebulous, maybe—I wanted to work on some aches and pains that accompany my life of sitting at a computer all day and then hiking all weekend. But I was unclear about whether I was trying to establish a more structured exercise routine, or be less rigid and let myself get pampered more. I am 100% shifting my mini-goal to "get access to a hot tub" to 2020, though.)
- Join a museum or nonprofit group. (I visited a few and volunteered a bunch, but never picked one to focus on.)