Past the halfway mark: On keeping in line with 2020 goals

Six months of 2020 have been and gone, and what a set of months they were. So far this year there’s been coronavirus, lockdowns, and political and social unrest (some because of issues stemming from ongoing racial injustice, and some because people have been anxious for life to get back to normal).

It’s been a hell of a year and there’s been a lot to deal with and adjust to. Given that, I think it’s fair enough if people’s dedication to 2020 goals has fallen a little by the wayside. I know mine has.

I’ve certainly had my successes. For example, my guitar practice has been going well since I increased my practice time and switched to playing a different guitar. It’s been going so well, in fact, that I’ve recently moved up to the next level in my beginner’s guitar course. It’s encouraging progress, especially given the rut I was in before I made those changes.

Additionally – and this is something I’m quite pleased about – I started learning British Sign Language (BSL) not long after I published my post On wanting more time. So far, I’ve managed to stick to a small, weekly time commitment, and I’m hoping that continues.

However, in other areas, I’m not quite as happy with what I’ve achieved so for this year.

Whether it’s the current state of affairs demotivating me, or if I’ve just lost some of my drive over time, I seem to have reached a point where I’m not putting in as much effort as I probably should.

This lack of initiative has been most evident to me in my blogging. I’ve fallen behind with it and haven’t published as many posts as I was hoping to have up by this point in the year. Though this has – at least in part – been due to my recent bout of writer’s block, I recognise that I have been letting myself get distracted by my phone, or sometimes TV, a little too often.

To be fair to me, it can be difficult to focus on writing when it’s frustrating and when you have no idea what to write, but a little more focus might have helped me work through that frustration more quickly. In any case, after this post, I have another that should be ready to go up soon. It took me weeks to write – given my fickle muse and my inability to ignore my phone notifications – but publishing it will be another step towards getting back on track with my blogging.

In addition to my blog related troubles, I’ve started to struggle with my fitness goals and my progress has been slowly plateauing over the past few weeks; I haven’t been dedicating as much time as I should to working towards my financial goals – though I continue to budget and track my spending; and, though it’s not technically a 2020 goal of mine, I feel really bad about the fact that it’s been months since I read a book.

It can be annoying to not feel like you’re progressing towards your goals, whether the obstacles in your way are within your control or not. (Though, I reckon it feels slightly worse when it feels like you’re mostly getting in your own way.) But rather than getting hung up on my disappointments and the reasons for them, I’m just going to focus on trying to avoid any further disappointments this year.

I’ve started to devise some plans and changes that should help me start gaining ground towards the goals I feel I’m falling behind with. For example, to help me do better with my financial goals, I’ve decided to schedule in some time to work through the steps I learned from The Meaningful Money Handbook instead of just promising myself to get to it. This, and other solid plans, will hopefully help me get back in line and heading towards where I want to be by the end of the year.

So, in summary, 2020 has been quite the year, but life goes on. Life tends to throw things at you, but if you really want to get where you’re going and achieve your goals, you just have to keep working at them. I intend to keep trying at mine and, hopefully, that’ll be enough.