Letter #38 - Plan For Your Goals

So I've spent the week, having a fresh start and organising the things in my life that needed organising and after seeing just how many other posts there were relating to New Year's resolutions, I thought I'd wait a while and approach it a little differently. 

First of all, I hope everyone had a good holiday and new year. So I know it can be a touchy topic when I say it's a new year and time for a fresh start. The cynics among you will ask, "why now? If you wanted to start fresh, why was September not good enough, or October 23rd? Why does the new year require change?" In short, it doesn't. You can start with a new idea or lifestyle or any other alteration you need to make, whenever you want to, but there is something sweet and rounded about the first day of the year. It gives a solid starting point. It's like when you're procrastinating and you think to yourself that you'll get to your homework at 5pm and then before you notice is 5.24pm, so now you have to wait until 5.30pm or 6pm before you start. Because it just feels right. That's all it comes down to. A feeling.  

If that feeling is that you're going to have a fantastic year, then by all means, go ahead.

So I debated whether or not to talk about resolutions in general or my personal resolutions. I decided on the latter. I have a lot of goals for each year and I very rarely meet them all but I give it my best shot. This year, however, I really do feel that this is it. I'm going to smash this year and feel amazing about it. The reason I know this is because while every other year I set vague resolutions that I had no set plan to accomplishing, other the last year, I've learnt about goal setting and the preparation that goes into any task with a goal.

I mean, you wouldn't just jump in and attempt a 10,000 word essay, without a plan, right? (Okay, that's a bad example... I actually have done that and it turned out great haha). Either way, the majority of tasks require preparation of some sort before we can undertake the commitment.

Say that you wanted to go to the gym more. One, that's a vague goal to begin with. How do you quantify "more"? And two, you can make excuses far too easily. You don't have the right gym top, you need a new sports bra, the gym simply isn't cost effective right now... the list can go on and on and before you know it, it's June and you haven't even taken one step in the right direction.

So as I said, I'll name a few of my goals, simply as a way of holding myself accountable. I've already had my goals written my bullet journal since the 1st of the the month and now I'm using this post as a means of accountability while also drilling it further into my own mind. I always set learning goals, and they are important to me but this is the first year in a while where I'm not in education so I can choose to prioritise the things I want to learn. By the end of 2017, I am hoping to be fluent in Spanish, have a basic grasp of Italian, take a certificated sign language course and to understand the basics of coding. These are not things that I decided on a whim and I took my time, researching each of them because as I said before, preparation is key.

I've always loved languages and I did study Spanish to A-level but let it all get forgotten after that. So when it comes to learning Spanish and Italian, I am going to use Duolingo. 

This is an app that's been around for a couple of year and I've had it downloaded on my phone pretty much as soon as it was a developed application. The great thing about it is that it's free. If you want to try a language and you're not too sure whether it's for you, there's no harm in trailing an app that costs you nothing. It caters for a broad range of languages, and it starts of very simply. It uses repetition and audio and even tests your pronunciation as you get further into the lessons. The app is advertised as needing just 5 minutes a day, and that is absolutely all you need. It also gives it the option to set a notification so that it can remind you once a day and I really do love that feature. 

So this isn't a new app to me and I do know that I love it and the way that it helps you step by step but I also know that sometimes I get lazy once I'm in a routine. So this time, I'm keeping a notebook for all my new vocabulary and the gendered nouns so that I can feel as though I've taken a more active role in my learning. Five minutes a day for a year is just over 30 hours of study. That is minuscule in the grand scheme of things but it's still something that most people could find time for.

The coding is again, something I've loved from afar. I'm always so in awe of all you can accomplish with knowledge and as we travel further into a technologically aware society, I feel like I need to understand the basics for myself. Honestly, I just hate feeling like I've missed out and for me FOMO is never more real than when I feel I don't have a piece of knowledge that I should have. 

For this, I've found so many online learning systems and it is going to take some trial and error before I can feel confident that I've doing it right. I've subscribed to a programme called Skillscrush as just one way of introducing this topic to myself. There's also codecademy and Khan academy that claim to have great teaching resources for my needs. I think this is something that will take much more time and focus and for now, I'm setting that out as one day a week, for as many hours as I can stomach.

Lastly, a learning goal that I have wanted to achieve for so long is to learn British sign language. With a brother who has had to use signing systems as he grew up and a mother who worked in a special school, I've been around the practice of communication through signing for most of my life. But I've always wanted to actually learn the basics and more if I can. I think it could be an invaluable skill and even if it isn't, and I never have to use it, I think it casts an awareness of how other people have to live their lives and that's too important of a lesson to pass up. 

For this goal, I didn't want to be left on my own and to end up doing it wrong. So I've found classes that I can take in my area and I hope to be able to gain some kind of certification for the learning that I will do other that time. Again, this is just something I want to do for myself, to prove that I can and because I think it should be common practice, in the same way that first aid skills now are.

Anyway, those are just a small handful of my goals for this year. What are some your goals and how do you plan to achieve them? (I'm only really asking because I love getting new ideas that I ucan use myself!) 

Until next time, be inspired...

Love, Z