Better Late That Never: My 2013 Goals Wrap Up

 

This is the fourth of four check-ins for the 10 goals that I made for 2013. Be sure to check out my original post for my 2013 goals and my first, second and third goal update posts for more context.

Howdy. It’s been a while. Well. The last time I posted, I did my third yearly goals update. Much time has passed since then, but honestly, not a lot of progress on my goals has been made. I’d hate to leave loose ends, so I’m going to put these goals to rest today!

Let’s see how my yearly goals went:

1. Run in four races.

 FAIL

While I didn’t run in 4 races, I did participate in the Philadelphia Color Run in July. It was way fun! As I said in October, almost four races worth of fun!

 2. Cross off five flux list items

 FAIL

None accomplished! I totally screwed the pooch on this one. (Who am I? I hate that phrase!) Even the easiest one to achieve, reading 1 book a month for 12 months, managed to slip through the cracks.

 3. Read thirteen books

SUCCESS!

I knew I would reach this one a while ago. I reached book number 13 at the beginning of June, which means I’ve officially met this goal for the year.

Here’s a list of all of the books that I’ve read:

1. Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
2. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bordain
3. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
4. The Meaning of Wife: A Provocative Look at Women and Marriage in the Twenty-first Century by Anne Kingston
5. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs
6. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
7.  A River So Long by Vallie Lynn Watson
8. Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson aka The Blogess
9. The Mobile Book (Smashing Special eBooks)
10. Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home by Lisa & Laura Ling
11. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte
13. HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith
14. CCS3 for Web Designers by Dan Cederholm
15. How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran
16. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
17. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
18. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
19. Coming Clean: A Memoir by Kimberly Rae Miller
20. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

4. Understand my camera

SUCCESS! (ON THE BASICS)

I’d be remiss to not admit that the skill of photography and the skill of even manually use a DSLR are not gained overnight. I’m going to mark this one as a success, because I did get a lot of basic camera work in throughout the year. However, there’s much to learn.

 5. Redesign Living in Flux

SUCCESS!

I managed to get two mini redesigns for Living In Flux in throughout the year. While this site is definitely a constant work in progress, I gotta admit that I’m pretty happy with what I’ve been able to achieve thus far.

 6. Start a side business

 FAIL

Coming off of the high of three successes in a row, I’m sad to say that I have another failed goal on the books. But, as I’ve said before, it’s okay to not achieve every goal that you set for yourself. I was being slightly prophetic in October, but I mentioned that I had a feeling that I was eventually going to run out of DIY projects around the house and be able to focus more attention on getting a side hustle going. Well, let’s be honest, DIY projects around the house are never going to be non-existent, but I am getting closer to having more free time to focus on this for 2014.

7. Become a better writer

SUCCESS!

I’m going to mark this one as a success. Unfortunately, I failed to make this a S.M.A.R.T goal, so I really have no sure way of telling that I succeeded in this goal or not.  With every word written, I hope I’m getting better.

8. Pay 20% of my student loans

 FAIL

ARRRGGHHHH! * Falls to knees on the ground * This goal KILLS me to have failed. But I did. When I ran the numbers at the end of the year, I had not reduced my student loan balance by 20%. Instead, I reduced it by around 15%. Honestly, I can’t complain at 15%, but I was hoping to be more aggressive this year.

 9. Build a $10k emergency fund

 FAIL

HAHAHAHAHA!!! I basically made backwards progress on this goal throughout the year. A lot of things came up, some emergency, some not, and that took a hit on my emergency fund. Overall, I’m okay with where things ended up, but they are nowhere near $10K.

10. Visit four new states

 FAIL

Last, but not least, another fail. Sadly, I did not visit any new states this year. Maybe this year, I’ll make it to one or two, but it’s not looking likely. On a happier note, I did visit a new COUNTRY, so I’m excited about that at the very least.

Overall Thoughts About 2013’s Goals

Well, I came and I saw, but I certainly did not conquer 2013 in the goals department. However, I ended up doing better than I was expected. I reached 4 of my 10 goals. Unfortunately, some of these weren’t realistic and they didn’t all necessarily align with how I really wanted my year to go. Luckily, my year was not defined by my goals, so I don’t feel to worried about not having that much success with them.

Now, I must go forth! It’s on to 2014! Check back later on and I’ll be back with additional thoughts about 2013 and thoughts for 2014. It’ll be fun!

Even though 2013 is long gone, how did you end up making out with your 2013 goals?