2019 Goals Check-In, Quarter 1
I’m writing this at the end of several eras: the end of Buenos Aires summer (goodbye, eating canned bean salads to avoid turning on the oven and elevating my apartment from a sweatbox to the actual jungle), the end of my time living in Argentina’s capital (at least for now—we leave in just under a month), and the end of the first quarter of my 2019 goals. It feels like just the right time to be reviewing how I’ve done these last three months on accomplishing what I set out to do this year.
So gather round and let us begin.
A New Framework For Success
As I wrote about in my goal overview for this year, I’m not trying to do some huge improvement push this year. I realized last year that I was regularly, thoroughly, reliably happy with my new version of life—traveling and meeting new people and cooking and reading and writing, and doing all of it almost every day—and 2019, for me, is about finding ways to maintain that which makes me happy in slightly more systematic ways. I spent the first quarter of this year staying in one place, for instance, aside from a brief foray to Brazil, so my hostel-happy-hour friend technique wouldn’t have worked, but I did want to keep meeting new people and deepening my social circle here.
And I’m really happy with what these last few months have been. I think as I’ve lived them—as I’ve started to put down roots here in Buenos Aires while at the same time tugging at them regularly to make sure they’ve not grown too deep, and learned to exist in that middle ground—I’ve come to some important truths about the life I’m currently living.
I believe now more than ever that I am the one thing in life I can control and that I need to wield that control thoughtfully. I can be having a terrible day and I can pull myself out of it; I can feel bad about spending the day inside and I can be the one that decides to rearrange my work schedule and head to a park for the afternoon. This life is not about giving in to my every desire—brownies for breakfast every day!—but it is about responsibly pursuing things that make me happy and figuring out ways to say “no” to what doesn’t.
That last thing has been particularly important this quarter. I’ve found myself caught up in a few corners of friend drama or ego trips. And instead of figuring out the nicest way around them or trying to jump in and fix them for everyone, I’ve been working on just stepping to the side. On letting those things that don’t make me happy—the people who don’t spark joy, let’s say—go. Of not pursuing friendships that don’t come from a place of mutual respect and support. Of saying no to demands on my time that aren’t aligned with my goals.
It’s given me more energy to invest in the people and the things I do love and that do line up with my vision and goals for myself and my life. One of the weirdest, tritest but best example is a few relationships I have with people from my past that I’ve been able to reconnect with over the last few months. Realizing that I really vibe with someone and what they’re doing with their life and then reaching out and telling them, apropos of nothing, has been an incredibly rewarding activity that’s turned into several reconnections.
Onto our goals and their mark-to-markets.
Keep travel a part of my life.
1. Live in Buenos Aires (and maybe another city later in the year—CDMX?) with a traveler’s perspective. How? Explore new restaurants, theaters, museums, neighborhoods; don’t get complacent, do make new friends with locals and other travelers there.
We are on track for this baby so far; solid win here. Still trying new places to eat, places to ogle at art, neighborhoods to get lost in. I was in danger of getting complacent on some of the exploratory things—being on a tight budget pre-big-trip will do that to you, as will growing alarmingly unwilling to go out past 10 p.m.—but having visitors in town for three weeks this quarter helped force me to get out there and love Buenos Aires.
2. Get back out on the road. How? Spend at least four months of the year backpacking / seeing new places.
Haven’t officially done this yet, but everything’s in place to begin doing this in about 3 weeks, so it counts as a win. Flights bought! Very, very rough itinerary made! Optimism high! After a few weeks visiting family and friends in and around the Midwest, Diego and I will head west (and explore a bunch of states neither of us have seen), then into Mexico (where neither of us have been).
Stay well-rounded.
3. Be confident about my fluency in Spanish and continue to improve it. How? Continue to communicate in Spanish with potential clients, read one long article or short story in Spanish/week, get back to regularly writing in Spanish a little every week.
No more than a half credit. I have done some Spanish work proposals and I do listen to one or more Radio Ambulante podcasts a week—I still can’t really bring myself to read in Spanish; I’m so much slower than I am in English and the inefficiency drives me crazy; with podcasts I just listen to them at 1x speed instead of 1.5x and my brain explodes way less over the lost time—but I haven’t written regularly in Spanish at all. I just haven’t prioritized it. I do know I’m speaking better, though, all the time, and have a widening circle of people I feel comfortable speaking with and more confidence in how I sound. So that’s good.
4. Keep my reading up. How? Read at least three books/month, and try to have one of them be something other than a novel, to improve diversity of my library.
A win. On track on both fronts. Though the three non-novel books I’ve read were a memoir, a graphic memoir, and a personal essay collection…so still as non-interested in non-fiction as I’ve ever been. Any really engaging nonfiction recommendations? I’ve been trying to read Sapiens for the last 14 months and can’t get into it, so keep that in mind. I need a good story to hook me and keep me following along; cool facts don’t do it for me.
5. Maintain a healthy level of normal activity. How? Hit 10,000 steps/day or above for all of 2019. Any extra working out is great.
Half credit. Technically my 2019 average is 9,680/day. I blame it on not taking my phone with me literally everywhere + lots of lazy days in March. We’re fine, though, and I’ll fix this by the end of the year, I promise you. (Knocking on wood to ward against breaking my leg tomorrow now that I’ve said this.)
6. Get and stay outside. How? Be outside for minimum of 15 minutes every day and never fall into vitamin D deficiency again!
Win. I do need to start remembering to always put on sunscreen, though. Trading vitamin D deficiency for skin cancer would not be the move.
Write.
7. Keep writing my blog. How? Write a minimum of 2,000 words/month in blog posts.
On track—this is a win. I’ve written on average 4,000 words/month on my blog, actually, which I’m glad to have been able to maintain while also expanding my writing reach.
8. Keep writing for others. How? Get at least one six pieces of writing published under my name in some kind of publication in 2019, and get paid for at least three other pieces of writingfive of them.
Okay, I set the bar way too low for this. I mean, this goal was a win one quarter into the year with my first Everygirl piece—I can do better than that. I think six is a stretch goal, but one I’m excited to aim for. And I’m done writing for no compensation; considering my blog goals aren’t to monetize (and thus things like the backlinks that come from unpaid guest posts don’t mean much to me at this point), I’d rather focus my writing energy on getting bylines for outlets that align with my interests and use those to get more work as time goes on. I’ve come to believe more in and be more excited by my writing career in the last few weeks, and I think my professional growth will take a different form than I anticipated at the end of 2018.
Money, money, money (must be funny / in a rich man’s world).
9. Support my life in Buenos Aires and later on the road by writing and editing, and make enough to supplement the $5,000 I have saved for travel later in 2019. How? Pull in $800/month with freelancing work and continue to live by my BsAs budget. Make minimum $1,000/month freelancing, save anything additional (and pay taxes with it appropriately), and live in line with a travel budget of about $30/day once on the road.
Hmm. This is a win, but again, the goal needs to be updated. I’ve made at least my stretch goal income every month of this year so far, but with big, unexpected expenditures like going to Rio for Carnival, I don’t have quite as much extra cushion as I was hoping. I didn’t touch that extra travel budget from last year, though. Going forward, I want to focus on ways to make more money doing more things I like and stressing out less about sourcing and billing clients, which will mean streamlining my proposals, reaching out for referrals, pitching a ton, and holding myself accountable to tracking money closely on the road (and, related and important, living and having fun on a true shoestring budget).
10. Make sure I have enough money to move back to the States when/if the time comes. How? Do not further touch that fund.
Win. I did an especially helpful thing this quarter by shutting down my Bank of America accounts except for a simple checking account and moving all my savings to Charles Schwab, so it’s especially difficult to access that money. No more accidental living beyond my freelancing means. (I may still do that, but it won’t be accidental.)
11. Make giving money to people and causes I care about a real part of my life. How? Donate 10% of my income. Even if it feels harder now that I have less. If I get in the habit of doing it now, one day when I have more, it’ll be easier to continue.
Fail. Big fail. I did start carrying more cash to buy things from the ambulatory salesmen and women on the subway, but aside from that, I have not donated anything at all. And I have no excuse. It’s not that I didn’t know where to donate or that I didn’t have the time. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’ve thought a lot about it, and I think it’s an example of one of my biggest flaws. I have a hard time being generous. I think I always worry I won’t have enough one day, and to guard against that, I want to preserve as much as I can. Well, as much as I can without living in a state of deprivation—it’s not like I’m not buying cream cheese even though it’s expensive here. I know not doing this is counterintuitive; giving money to charities or friends makes you happier, and a happier person probably stresses out about the future less. But alas. I failed at this.
I think for the next quarter, I will try to focus on spending this money on people I directly know. Not charity so much as simple generosity. I have an easier time with that in general, so maybe if I get used to doing it in a habitual way, I’ll be able to widen the aperture later on and keep it up.
And Off We Go: Hi, Q2
I’m publishing this in what is technically the second week of April (I started it in the first, I promise!). The second quarter of this year has started with a flurry of activity, and a big change is coming in t-3 weeks: Diego and I are leaving Buenos Aires, headed to the States to backpack with little to no plan, and hoping to make it into Mexico in a few months for further Latin America adventures. I don’t know where, exactly, I’ll be when it comes time to write my Q2 check-in. But I hope I’m somewhere new that I get to explore open-mindedly with wide eyes and a curious palate; I hope I’m having weird experiences aplenty; I hope I’m staying active and I’m writing without fear and I’m making, saving, and spending money with balance and with acceptance of what I do have, don’t have, could have, won’t have. I hope I’m still enjoying 2019 and how deliciously open-ended I’ve left it. I hope I’m still learning and in love and loved in return. Let’s see, shall we?
xx
KP
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