Happy New Year, friends.
2022 got off to something like a slow start as the world slowly lurched back towards some semblance of normalcy, but it’s closed out pretty nicely. I feel a stronger, more general sense of optimism than I’ve felt in any year in the last several. I’m excited for 2023, and not just because its arrival marks the end of the craziest year on record. For the first time in a long time, I am simply excited for the future.
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| Committed! |
Optimism feels fairly widespread. For example, I put the Grapsody Podcast on yesterday when the Sugar Bowl got out of hand, and I was struck by how optimistic all three hosts were for the future. Grapsody is three black men who talk pro-wrestling. Their following has exploded this past year, and as I listened to them talk about their passion for AEW and for New Japan, I found their excitement and optimism infectious.
That’s good!
At the gym, too, it felt like people were happy and excited yesterday. Even my kids, who’ve struggled with mountains of anxiety over the past eighteen months, seem to be standing firmly on their own two feet.
We’ll see how long this lasts. For now, though, I’ll take it.
I hate New Year’s Resolutions. Resolutions are made to be broken.
I try to set goals.
I usually try to set no more than four or five, so this list is already starting off on the wrong foot, but what can you do? Some of this is really important. All of it is a realistic reflection of where I am in my life and in my marriage as we head into 2023.
Goals for 2023
1. Pay more attention to my stated goals in the coming year.
If you read yesterday's post, this one should already make some sense. 2022 was a great year in a lot of ways, but I blew off my stated goals more or less in their entirety.
Goal-setting is important. Granted, being able to roll with what’s working and take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves is also important. But still… We need to remember and revisit the things we said we wanted to do when we sat down to consider what we wanted.
Are quarterly check-ins enough? I guess we’ll see.
2. Find a way to help Sally grow her business without driving both of us crazy.
I love my wife. Even after twenty years, she’s still my favorite person. I’d rather spend time with Sally than with anyone else on the planet. But. We don’t necessarily work through problems in the same ways or have the same kinds of professional styles at work. And that is okay.
For this reason, though, I’ve been reluctant to get involved with her business stuff.
I’ve got to move past that. Sally has a lot of goals for her business that she can’t necessarily bring to fruition without help, and reality says that I’m the help.
Success here will require both of us to compromise, but so what?
That’s life. That’s marriage.
We’ve made the rest of this work, so why not Headspace Fitness?
3. Continue drinking less.
I’ve talked about this previously. I set some rules to keep myself on track.
-- No drinking Monday to Thursday.
-- One drink max from Friday to Sunday.
-- Don’t get so obsessive about this that you drive friends and family insane.
This goal is kind of low-hanging fruit in the sense that I was always planning to do it. However, it’s a goal, and it’s very real, so I’m writing it down.
4. Continue swimming 3-4 times/week & lifting 2-3 times/week.
Alas, one has to swim a lot to be even mediocre at it. Swimming isn’t like running in the sense that we all grow up knowing intrinsically how to do it. However, I enjoy working with weights more, and when it’s not Swim Across the Sound season, that’s where I prefer to focus.
So. This goal is all about balance. I need to find a way to do what I want alongside what’s going to keep me healthy and swimming well, and I need to balance work with rest over time as I get older.
This is my lifestyle, so I’m not super-worried about maintaining my commitment or whatever. I enjoy working out more than I enjoy anything else I do on a daily basis. However, it’s quite challenging to get the balance right over time, hence setting this goal.
5. Produce more/better offseason content for As For Football.
I feel better this year, and I’m backed by a better team, so we’re gonna try to do better heading into 2023.
James from Brigade Review is already working on a Patreon-exclusive series about Army’s new OC Drew Thatcher. He’s also got the As For Baseball beat this season. I myself will be covering As For Lax again in 2023. Rob has a bunch of interviews that he wants to set up for the podcast(s) this offseason, and he’s also remastering a bunch of our old interviews for an offseason “best-of” series.
The good news is that we’re not on hard deadlines over the offseason, which is really good for James because his flight schedule made that tough over the past two or three months. I’ve talked with him a lot over the past couple of weeks, and I feel good about his side of this. Now I need to do the same with Rob, so that we can start getting some of these interviews scheduled.
This is happening, friends. I’m excited.
6. Expand my interests & lifestyle locally.
If there’s one place where I’m going to fall short, it’s here. I love my West Point classmates, and they are my best friends, but man, they are not local. So yeah, skiing with my buddies in February is great, and tailgating with them throughout the fall is even better, but unfortunately, that can’t be my whole life. For example, I’ve wanted to start a local, in-person D&D group at the Stratford Library literally for years.
Is that ever gonna happen?
It’s all about finding time. I have no idea if time exists. It may not. And also, making friends as an adult is kind of challenging, though I feel like that’s a challenge that can be surmounted with effort and an investment… of time.
But living locally is important. I love my community, but that implies that I need to find ways to actually be a part of it.
Beat Navy, everybody. Let’s do this!
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