End of Year Update on Goals

With the year rapidly coming to an end, it's time for the end-of-year wrap-up. And so my first post on the topic is the update on my goals for the year:

• Weight: No joy. This has been an utter failure. There's not really any more to be said there - it just hasn't worked out at all.
• Books: This was a very narrow success - I finished book 60 on the 29th of the month. I made it through all but one of the sub-lists - I had to abandon the Pathfinder Tales when Paizo stopped publishing them, though that can't really be considered a failing in the goal. So, success!
• Super Secret Goal #4: This was completed, finally, in August.
• Part Five: The House: This was mostly done - we didn't get around to redecorating the two rooms, but we did get the various bits of new furniture and did do most of the other things on our list. So that's not bad.
• Part Five: Church: Done. LC and I have decided to worship at the St Andrew's church in Livingston (which is associated with the Old Parish), at least for the foreseeable future.
• Part Five: Band: Done. I left Camelon & District Pipe Band at the AGM, and have moved across to Uphall Station Pipe Band, a non-competing band in my local area. So that's good.
• Part Five: Gaming: Done. I've decided to stick with the Falkirk RPG group, at least nominally. However, I expect my gaming to be sharply curtailed over the next few years - indeed I'm considering stopping gaming altogether for various reasons.
• Super Secret Goal #5: I fairly quickly decided that this goal would be discarded. And yet, with the end of the year upon us, I find I may have to revisit it...

So...

Of the eight goals, that's five done and one abandoned. There was one incomplete task, and one abject failure. That's pretty good, really. But the failure of the weight goal is fairly damning.

2018 will very much be a year of transition, much like 2012. And, like 2012, 2018 will be marked with an absence of formal goals. In fact, I'm only going to set one, and it will be both fairly minor and awfully specific:

• Books: As I've mentioned before, The List is made up as a composite of two top-100 lists, one British and one American. My goal for the year is therefore to read the remaining titles in the British list. This gives me ten specific titles to read over the next year (technically eleven, but somehow "The Complete Works of Shakespeare" and "Hamlet" are both on the list. I'm not sure how that came about.)

And that really is it - just one goal for the year, and it's extremely doable. (I do hope, again, to do something about the weight issue, but I'm not setting a formal goal even on that front. I wonder if that means it will be any more effective.)

#57: "The High Druid's Blade", by Terry Brooks
#58: "Swallows and Amazons", by Arthur Ransome (a book from The List)
#59: "Moby Dick", by Herman Melville (a book from The List)
#60: "The Hydrogen Sonata", by Iain M. Banks