2020 goals round up.

So, I know it’s February and all, but is it too late to talk about my goals from last year? Like most people, I had so many goals for 2020 and things I was going to accomplish. I remember sitting down last January, thinking of all the things I was going to achieve in 2020.

And then the pandemic happened and everything went out the window.

I tried to keep up with my goals but it was difficult and some things were just not feasible after everything shut down. Some of my goals – I crushed them. Some of my goals – did not happen.

Here were my goals for 2020.

And here’s how I did:

Read 1 book I own for every book I borrow from the library.
Last year I read 19 books that were borrowed from the library. I ended up reading 11 books that were sitting on my bookshelf. I didn’t meet this goal exactly but I did try to look at my bookshelves and choose a book to read from them as much as I could. I tried to keep this goal in the back of my mind whenever I was thinking about the next book I wanted to read.

If I’m not into a book by page 75, stop reading (except if it is a book club book).
I think there were 4 books that I categorized as DNF last year. These were books that I just could not get in to so I made myself put them down. This has been a big mental shift for me because usually, I will continue reading a book even if it is not holding my interest. By giving myself the okay to put a book down, took off a lot of pressure and I’m going to continue to give myself the approval to stop reading.

Post a book review for every book I read.
I almost completed this goal. I wrote a review for every book I read up until December. I normally read a lot more books in December because I have more free time as I usually take a vacation. I think I read 7 books in December last year and I just did not have time to write a review for each of them. Plus, a couple of them were novellas and didn’t have a lot of plot because they were so short so I would have had a lot of difficulties writing a review for them.

Post 100 blog posts this year.
I got close to this goal. I wrote 83 blog posts in 2020. That’s not too bad, right?

Pay off the rest of my credit card debt.
I definitely paid off the rest of my credit card debt. Like I said in my post about how my goals have been affected by the pandemic, I was lucky that my job was not impacted last year and I was able to work from home. Because of that I was able to continue with my money goals as usual and am able to pay off my credit cards every month and do not keep a balance on my cards.

Increase my emergency fund.
I absolutely increased my emergency fund!

Max out my 401k contribution.
I didn’t max out my 401k contribution to the max $19,500 but I think I contributed the most to my 401k last year than I ever have. I’m going to try to contribute more this year because I like seeing those dollars go up!

Run 15 5ks.
Technically, I only participated in four 5k runs last year – Hot Chocolate in March (which I ran in person) and three virtual 5ks near the end of the year (a turkey trot and two holiday runs). But, if you look at all my walks I did over the year, I was walking at least a 5k every day during the summer and I frequently walk/run a 5k at least two to three times a week now. So although I didn’t get those medals, I certainly exceeded this goal.

Try to average 70,000 steps per week.
I think I did pretty good with this goal. There were some weeks where I didn’t hit 70,000 steps but there were also weeks where I had over 100,000 steps. The weeks where I did less than 70,000 were often weeks where things were changing, such as when we went into lockdown and my gym closed so I had to figure out where and how to exercise outside. Similarly, when daylight saving time ended and all of sudden it was dark before I logged off of work, I had to figure out how and where I was going to exercise in the dark.

Take a fitness class, like barre or yoga or pilates.
I did not have a chance to take any sort of class last year. I tried to do some online or streaming classes but I realized I need the routine of going somewhere and being in a room with other people, which obviously we could not do last year. I’m hoping things open up in 2021 and I can get to an in person class this year.

Work on my sleep by averaging 7 hours of sleep a night.
This goal was difficult and I’m not sure I achieved this one. I’m waking up later now since I’m working from home and I don’t have a commute to the office, but that just means that I go to sleep later so I’m not sure that my actual sleep time is getting any better. I’m going to try to work on this one again this year. I think I need to do some research on nighttime and morning routines.

Adopt a skin-care routine.
This is another goal that I kind of dropped the ball on. In fairness, I pretty much stopped wearing makeup this year and usually just wear a moisturizer during the day. Still, I think it would be beneficial to work on this goal again in 2021.

Here’s hoping 2021 is a better year for goals!