‘Tis the season… for people to start thinking about what they want out of next year.

Unfortunately this is often done in a rather tipsy state on New Year’s Eve, which doesn’t help making the resolutions any more achievable, but more importantly, the intentions – however good – aren’t accompanied by a plan for how to accomplish whatever healthy habit-pickuppery/unhealthy habit-kickery the resolution takes aim at, and so by the end of January things have largely returned to normal.

I’m no different. In fact, the few times I recall having carried out my resolutions to the letter have all been when I was able to have a plan for how to do it, and measure the rate of implementation.

When I was twelve my father and I agreed we would do 10,000 push-ups each in a year. I got a little notebook and wrote down however many I did each day, and by the end of the year I reached the goal. (Dad dropped out long before that, making me suspect that his motifs were somewhat different than mine…).

This year I’ve done something similar, in that I set out to run 1,000 kilometres, and used my Garmin account to track my progress. The counter currently stands at 995, so unless something really untoward happens tomorrow it should be in the bag.

These goals are a tad simplistic, admittedly. It is after all merely a matter of dividing a random (but hopefully impressive) number by 365 and then averaging that much every day, but the principle is sound; if you want to achieve something, have a clear goal in mind, do it incrementally and make sure progress is easily measured.

So can I apply this to my ambitions? Well, first I have to figure out what I want. Luckily, what I noted when I wrote the initial text about me still holds true. I want to improve intellectually and physically, and I want to go on adventures and have new experiences.

So how to make this quantifiable?

Improve intellectually

Overarching goals: Get better at piano playing and French, read more non-fiction.

Specific goals: learn a challenging piece by heart, e.g. the theme from The Piano; incorporate 1,000 new words and 300 new expressions in active vocabulary, read 25 books.

Incremental steps: play piano 30 minutes per day when at home, take lessons; read French texts, look up and memorise terms and phrases, and incorporate in conversations; make a list of non-fiction, read 30 minutes per day, utilising modern technology to bring books when travelling, write reviews on GoodReads.

Improve physically

Overarching goals: Get in better shape.

Specific goals: Run a marathon in under 4 hours; run the 90k ultra marathon UltraVasan; (possibly) do a half Iron Man.

Incremental steps: work out continuously six days per week (depending on if I have the kidlets or not), three days running, one day biking, one day swimming and/or two days weight lifting; eat healthily (no refined sugar, alcohol, and little carbs) with the exception of a Cheat Day every two weeks, and sleep enough (ideally eight hours per night); measure improvements.

Adventures and new experiences

Overarching goals: travel to new countries, try new things, test my limits

Specific goals: do at least one thing every month that falls into this category:

• January:   Go diving at Nemo 33
• February: Go to Malta to dive?
• March:      Run Barcelona marathon
• April:         Take kids to Disneyland
• May:           Go to London with ten-year old
• June:           Go hiking in the Alps
• July:             Try western riding
• August        UltraVasan
• September Learn how to fly a delta wing?
• October       Go to Mozambique to dive?
• November  ?
• December   ?

Most of these are not yet set in stone as I need to check when I can go travelling and when the various destinations are at their best, but it’s a starting point.

Finally, in order to stay on the straight and narrow, I will report on my progress here throughout the year. It will be an experiment, and I’m not sure how it will turn out – if nothing else it will certainly make for a Happy New Year!