2016 goals, or things to do before my 30th birthday

Another year, another goal list. I did a decent job at accomplishing 2015’s goals, so here’s to hoping that this year’s goals are just as accomplishable.

This list simultaneously serves as a 2016 goals list and a Stuff I Want To Do Before Turning 30 list. Here goes!

Read 250 books. I know, that’s a lot of books. But included in those 250 books are all the Baby-Sitters Club and Baby-Sitters Little Sister books that I haven’t already read, about 160 as of this writing. If you’re curious, you can view the spreadsheet here. Suddenly 250 books sounds much more doable.

Write 500k words. This deserves its own post. I plan on counting fiction, paper journals, and of course these posts. Related: Reach 2,000,000 lifetime words for NaNoWriMo. Right now I’m 250k words short, so that’s my current goal for November 2016. Assuming I reach that goal, the rest of the year requires less than 1,000 words per day to reach 500,000 over the course of the year. The other big goal under this umbrella is to finish redrafting a novel outside of November. Yes, Camp NaNoWriMo counts for these purposes.

Continue running/staying in shape I fell off the wagon during NaNo, but I do want to continue running and generally getting off my butt. The quantifiable goal is to run five races over the course of the year. Why five? That’s roughly one race every two months, which is a happy medium for my motivation to keep running, as well as for my wallet, since running those races isn’t free.

Stay employed. You’d think I wouldn’t have to list this as a goal, but sometimes it’s a struggle. And since some of these goals involve money, it goes on the list.

Decrease my debt. I’m steadily paying off my student loans, my main source of debt. I’d like to put a decent dent in my debt in 2016.

Go back to Night of Writing Dangerously. I’m still super sad that I had to miss this year, but next year for sure! What better way to celebrate my 15th NaNo and hopeful 15th win?

Travel somewhere new. Where to, I don’t know yet. But even if it’s just for a weekend, I do want to go somewhere new.

Take a class of some kind. What kind of class? I have no idea. But I do want to keep learning, and some things aren’t easily self-teachable.

Be awesome.

To be honest, this list feels like a continuation of the last few years’ lists, which leads me to that minicrisis of whether I’m doing enough to get what I want, and what do I want anyway?

But that’s a story for another time. For now, this is enough. I hope.