2018

Deja Vu now, time is flying so fast that I find myself at the same juncture again. On the threshold of new year.
Somehow the time is flying so fast that the year gone by is over in a flash. Still for most of time in last year it was a drag, especially the time spend in traveling between office and home.
Going by the most stereotypical of stereotype, I should be euphoric right now, full of positive energy and intent, ready to pounce upon the list of resolutions, with my confidence at all time high.
But this is not the case right now, on the contrary, I'm more into the depressed frame of mind right now, partly as now its around one month since New Year day. And partly because I'm doing this activity for last many years now but not able to get satisfactory results ever. And gradually you realize that you are running out of options . alternatives. Options / alternatives to convince yourself that this year will be different in terms of goals achieved. Options / alternatives to setting the goals or achieving the goals differently.

Since last many years, My goals are more or less same, Its the same topics that are making up the entries. So the good thing is that my priorities are same. The bad thing is that I don't seems to have any clue regarding how to achieve them.
Every year at this crucial juncture of time; I'm faced with this dilemma regarding how to paint a rosy picture whereas all the evidence from last year points otherwise. Now the situation is like that I'm running out of all the excuses. As I said earlier; my goals are more or less, I dont want to change them for the simple reason that I'm unable to achieve them. Hence the fault lies somewhere in my method of achieving them.
Hence my new year goals for this year should also contains some idea regarding what different method I'm going to employ this year for achieving the goals. One of the learning from past years is that I'm tried really complicating the things but It wont work. Hence better to keep it simple and sticking to basics. My goals the good and relevant. I still cant find anything wrong with them. Probably they are too many to concentrate, Probably I have not given a thought regarding how to achieve them. Plus one year is a long time to set and stick to same goals throughout.
Also I make this promise that if I failed this year too. I will not set the same goals next time. It looks really superficial to keep on setting the same goals when you can't fulfill them.
So I'm going to start with small list and probably expand it later depending on the progress made.

So here goes nothing :
Health (Reducing weight / FAT, Participating in Half Marathon)- 

Judging solely by my blog posts at starting of every year. It seems that health is my top priority. Whereas the reality is that the only major effort I had made towards this goal is writing lot of blog post on this topic. Probably a good exercise for the fingers. Regarding the weight fluctuation, As per my height the ideal weight should be around 70kg. I had touched the peak of 80-82 at one point of time when I had no control over my tongue and low of 72-73 when I was in Malaysia and having food related issues. At the staring of this year, I was at 75.5 kg. My goal is same as last year; to reduce it to 70-72.
What different I can do this time -
Major part will be to regularly monitor the same. Simple as it may sound, I was not able to do this last year. Also need to break the goal into smaller segment; i.e total weight reduction target of 5.5 per year translates into around 0.5 weight loss every month. I will be tracking it this time and taking appropriate steps.
The second part of same goals is regarding building stamina as only weight reduction is not enough. Due to my sedantry and unhealthy life-style. Weight increase is an issue but overall lack of health / stamina is a bigger issue. I was able to make some small progress in first part of weight reduction but absolutely nil in second part. I had identified running / half marathon as mean to achieve this goal long time ago but still not able to make any progress. Part lethargy, part genuine shortage of time ; but I cant even start any work on this goal. Not even in the starting month on year when normally I at least make an effort to start some work on my goals. buoyant by the new year motivation (Maybe due to winter conditions).
What different I will do this time -
This is tricky,For once I need to really start this part. Half marathon is 21 km and its variant for beginners is around 10 km. I dont think I can even run 1 km right now. Once I get started, then only further planning makes sense.

Reading / Writing (Blog posts / Books reading target / Writing book)
My book reading target should not even be in this post as I have been achieving this target since last many years without any great difficulty. I love reading books and for this one particular hobby I've been able to find time also (Thanks  to ebooks!). The reason this still figures in my to-do list is that I intend to maintain this hobby and moreover now I seek to move towards quality from quantity. Just meeting the no of books to be read for a particular year is not a big deal. I could literally finish books in one night. But those the books from a particular genre. Thrillers / mythfiction books only. What I want to do is to broaden my horizon. To include books from other genre. To read books that are difficult to read. Hence my book reading target reads 20 books this year. But I'll be keeping close eye to type of books to be read. I may omit books which I have read but not good enough as per me. And at least 6 books will be away from my comfort zone. Only then this target will be deemed completed.
Regarding tracking the progress, We have goodread (https://www.goodreads.com/) which does more than decent gob of tracking the book reading challenge
Second part is writing blog posts. As I love reading books. I look upto the writers and aspire to become one. One of the starting block for the same is Blog posts. Another advantage this platforms offers me to vent out the feeling / opinions / anger that otherwise I keep within myself. Moreover since I'm a very introvert kind of person with very limited friend circle. Blogging offers me a opportunity to sort / introspect myself and remove the cobwebs in my thinking. Here again, if we go by trends from past year. The highest I have achieve is 8-9 posts per year and lowest is 4 posts. My target for some years has been 12 blog posts (one per month) but I'm not yet able to achieve the same. Regarding what different I will go this year. Honestly I dont have answer to this question. The blogger itself does fine job of tracking the monthly progress specially if my goals is also monthly. But still I'm not able to achieve the goals. Major excuse that I give myself is lack of time and mental peace. Last year I started this goal with a bang. I was way ahead of target but then I become complacent and at the end of the year, I was not in right frame of mind for blogging. This year I can only strive to be more disciplined toward this goal.
Another related goal is regarding writing my own book. I'm well aware regarding how difficult this goal is. Perhaps the most difficult of all my goal and definitely not the one, That I could finish in one year. But my main problem is that I have not even started any work on this. Considering the long road to be traveled. It is absolutely imperative to take first few steps at the earliest.
This year. I will be tracking this on monthly basis and force myself to meet some monthly target toward this goal

The Year gone by - 2017

It’s that time of the year again. Time for making resolutions with our motivation at all-time high. The time when you are positive like never - before regarding achieving your goals related to health, carrier among other areas.

It’s the first day of new year. Fortunately, it’s not a working day for me (one small ray of light amongst employee unfriendly policies formulated by my company). Hence, I can afford to be in a somewhat relaxed frame of mind. Have some moments of pause before the usual madness and rat-race starts. For the past few years; I have been following the practice of setting goals / resolution for the new year and striving to follow them. Although the progress is not too great. But like I said before, you get a blank slate this time of the year where-in you can write whatever you want.

But before that, need to look at progress against goals set for last year.

I set a lot of goals last year (Eight! in total) and divided them into two main categories of Physical health and Mental health.

Physical health was regarding improvement in health and stamina. The obvious stereotypes of reducing weight (from 76.5 to 72) was there besides my regular entry for last many years in the form of attending half marathon. The pending two entries was also very much cliché. Those were Yoga and weight training (Though antagonistic to each other; I did not even start either one of them).

Regarding weight reduction target. I made some honest efforts towards achieving this goal. Heck I even tried GM diet plan; which off course did not go well. More about that is covered in another Blog post. In the end the only take away was that I formed a habit of drinking Green tea. Now it tastes less bitter than before. As for tangible results. The weighing scale now reads around 75.4 as per below snapshot. Which is way short of target (70-72) though some improvement from my weight at starting of year.

Regarding my second target of half marathon. It was a big failure just like last year and the year before. Strangely I’m reluctant to drop it from my bucket list even though I’m not able to show any appreciable progress against it (some jogging in room and brisk walk in the park once in the blue moon is not counted as progress)

Yoga and weight training is again big failure. Just like the previous target of half marathon. I could only achieve some stretching and Tadasan (both just before bath) which I’m ashamed to even term as first step. To be able to call it as first step towards achieving the goals. I need to do so much more than just stretching and one simple primary school grad Asan. Somewhere in the middle of the year. I was at the stage of doing Surya-Namaskar and more rigorous stretching including push up. But then I dropped it just like that. Whether you call it Procrastination or any thing else. I was not able to keep up the tempo and take it to next level.

The second category of my goals for last year was Mental Health. And in the category, I have four goals of Blogs, Books, Writing and hobby.

The first target was blogging. This is something which I have started somewhere in 2012. Since then I’m trying to take it to next level. Since 2012 I’ve been averaging 8-9 blog posts per year except for 2014 when I could do only 4. For last year my target as 12-15 posts. And the achievement against target was well… 8 blog posts. The only solace there is that these 8 posts are proper blog posts this time unlike previous some years when I could pass on some random quote as blog posts. Whereas this year I strive to keep at least 1000 words as minimum word-count for the Blog post. It would have been nice to have at-least 9 posts this year so than I could match the maximum limit but alas it was not to be. I did not even have a blog post on my birthday which was a common occurrence since last many years.

The next target was books. The one target that I not only achieve but over exceed. And this the pattern since last many years. In fact, I should not even put this in goals anymore if this is so easy to achieve. The reason I put it there is because it is very important for me to be a well-read person. I tried to shift my focus from quantity to quality this year but that is something very difficult to measure. In nutshell, the books target was revised frequently upwards only and still I was able to complete it.

Similarly, my last two targets of mental health were utter failure. Those were writing my own book and developing one recreational hobby respectively. I don’t even have any excuse or anything to give consolation for these targets. Simply put, there was no progress or start for this aim. Period.

In the hindsight, the year gone by was very eventful no doubt. I was very busy throughout the year even if the priorities and productivity was not right. I also made perhaps one of the biggest decision of my life of buying a house. The experiences involved in house hunting, finalization and buying are so myriad and vivid that it will warrant more than one blog posts. Perhaps I will cover more about that in other post.

But comparing to progress made against the goals. It was very disappointing to say the least.

Right now, my new year goals seem to fulfil the purpose of making up a few entries in target for no of blog posts.

Other than that, its relevance is really in doubt now.

PS: One of the quote that I read very recently was something on the lines of

“Living same year 75 times in not called life”. It stayed with me. It has become sort of pattern now to set goals every year. Next time onward; I need to see what can be done differently to ensure better results.