2021 End-of-Year Goals Check-In
Hullo, friend.
Here are some things that have not changed in the last four years:
- my love for public accountability and periodic self-reflection,
- my belief in building the life you want,
- my appreciation for all the lives I get to live,
- my trust in my own self to know what’s right for me and to make mistakes and to keep trying anyways,
- and my choice in Hozier to be the ideal soundtrack for engaging in all of the above.
And here are things that have changed: a whole lot else. Chief among them the fact that we’re living through a pandemic that might never end.
I’m writing this end-of-year goal recap from a couch in Brooklyn.
It’s not the IKEA bed, bought with my roommate’s parents’ credit card because I left my wallet on the floor of my first east coast apartment when we left to go shopping (I paid them back right after! but RIP to $1,200 worth of credit card points I would’ve otherwise accrued particleboard-furniture-buying!), that I laid across in early 2017, candles lit to combat the darkness of my room’s only window facing the air shaft, as I wrote that year’s goals.
(The goals that set me off on this whole adventure.)
It’s only eight miles and a borough away, but it feels like everything is different.
I’ve seen a big part of the world. Stayed curious about seeing the rest. I’ve fallen in love, and then out of love, and then back in love with myself. (Corny but true.) I left finance, then started freelance writing and editing, then built a fully-functioning content marketing + consulting business and ran it from five different countries. I’ve gotten bedbugs and lice and hives and altitude sickness and salmonella (twice!). And I’ve been lucky enough to stay overall healthy and able-bodied during it, which is not something I take lightly.
Have you heard that your whole body replaces itself every seven years? I saw it on Twitter the other day—when I was scrolling instead of writing this blog post, natch—and I wanted to use it in this intro. Turn it into a joke about how I was actually only halfway done fully reinventing myself.
But as it turns out, that stat isn’t quite right.
While yes, our bones do completely regenerate themselves every 10 years, and our blood and skin cells replace themselves a few times a month, not all of our body parts are replaceable.
Our brain cells, for instance, don’t regenerate with age. We were born with the exact same neurons we have now. At every step of our maddening, fragile, gorgeous lives, we’re living and thinking and learning and making choices with the same electric lump of flesh.
The brain I had when I left New York is the same brain I have now that I’ve come back, but the decisions it’s made have shaped me into someone new beneath it.
Let’s reflect on some of those decisions.
I’ll do something new this year: a brief summary of what happened this year, since 2021 has been a devil’s year and even I kind of forgot what I set out to do in it (aside from what I wrote about in my Q2 check-in) so how can I expect you, o esteemed reader, to have it straight?
In 2021, I:
- Left Ann Arbor, again, and probably for good: I spent the end of 2020 and the first week of 2021 in a two-bedroom apartment four blocks away from the yellow house I graduated in; now that Marta has graduated (again) from Michigan, I doubt I’ll spend that much time there ever again; #endofanera
- Lived in Austin for three months: ate a lot of tacos, got lost hiking, and learned how to bake complicated British desserts
- Visited New Orleans for the first time: ate a lot of po boys and confirmed that my sensitive skin is a real thing and that health scares suck (contact dermatitis gang unite)
- Did a three-week artists’ residency in Mel Gibson’s old mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut: ate solely meals I didn’t have to cook, got really into Ally Love’s Peloton classes, wrote 20,000 words I’m incredibly proud of, and realized I don’t want to introduce myself as an artist ever again
- Got my first taste of socialized medicine in my own home country: thank you vaccine dose one, two, and booster; let us build on this
- Went back to New York for four months: confirmed that the city is the only place in America I really want to live in, mostly because it’s so walkable, so close to water, so full of food and culture to explore, and home to some of my favorite people; appreciated it in summer and struggled through it in winter; and apartment-hopped around Brooklyn and force-ranked my neighborhoods (1. Crown Heights, 2. Bed Stuy, HUGE GAP, 3. Bushwick).
- In being back in New York, met several new friends (!!!) and got to reconnect with old ones (!!!)
- Saw my best friend in three states and my sister in three, too
- Spent three months in Europe: visited Portugal for the first time and spent a lot of time tanning on topless beaches, eating seafood, and reflecting (she’s ready to love again, didjaknow!); revisited Spain and decided I want to live there next year; saw loved ones in England and Ireland (where I fully daydreamed about moving to, but it’s too small—for now)
- Along the way, had a not-small amount of painful experiences when setting and maintaining boundaries, navigating heartbreak remission, dating and being both the one who liked more and the one who liked less, and taking on too much work—and learned from every one of them, as is my wont
How did those activities, experiences, accomplishments, and people map onto what I hoped my 2021 would contain? Let’s go goal-by-goal, baby.
Care for my health, mind, body, & soul.
1. Keep reading and learning. How? Read at least four books/month, at least one of which is a non-novel. Stay in my lovely book club and discuss with them! And keep my book journal to mark what I’m reading and what it’s teaching me in terms of life, craft, history, empathy, etc.
This is a win. Not only did I crush this goal, reading 76 books in my 27th year (which doesn’t perfectly map onto the calendar year but shh, it just means I was extra ahead last year, too), but I celebrated a one-year anniversary with one book club and co-founded another that’s been going strong since this March, so I’ve learned from books while also learning from friends, which is just so entirely ideal. And I’ve written down each one book I’ve read and given many a personalized recommendation from the list. Hurray!
2. Practice mindfulness semi-regularly, versus as a last resort to stressful situations. How? Mediate at least 3x/week.
Huge fail. I didn’t meditate regularly throughout the year, though I did engage in a few random sessions. I continued journaling pretty regularly, which I think of as mindfulness lite™, but still, no meditation habit was formed.
3. Stay moving. How? Walk an average of 10,000 steps/day and work out 3x/week.
You have no idea how excited I am about this win. I’m writing this part with three days left in 2021 and my average step count is 10,960; I can’t fuck that up even if I’m comatose the next three days. (I am actually going to try to not be comatose and to get it up to a round 11,000 because your girl loves a pretty metric.)
Walking is a passion of mine, I learned this year. There’s no other activity that makes me feel so deeply present. Whether I’m talking to a friend or deciphering a song lyric or eavesdropping on strangers or identifying smells or walking around looking at every plant and piece of trash that comes across my path, it places me so fully in my environment. It takes me out of whatever thoughts I can’t keep churning around, unless I want to use the walk not to put them aside but to focus them, in which case it works for that, too.
I worked out this year, too, which was sometimes Peloton and sometimes running and sometimes exercise videos and sometimes lying on the ground watching TikToks and doing crunches. It all counts.
4. Feel more confident in my body. How? Eat better and take good care of myself; avoid the self-pitying slump that reared up during the pandemic.
A win.
I feel fundamentally different in and about my body than I did at the start of this year.
Some of it is physical differences. Losing the ~10 pounds I put on in 2019/2020, when I first experienced real Mexican food and a breakup and a pandemic. Figuring out an acne solution that actually works (hi Differin we love you). Running 5ks again and feeling stronger for it.
But a lot of it is progress I’ve made in my mind and soul.
I’ve learned how to take seriously the signals that my body sends me. Learned to clock when my stomach floods with anxiety because I’m engaging with a person who makes me feel unsafe or with a client whose values aren’t aligned with mine. Learned to recognize what I’m feeling and how I want to respond. And along the way, learned to deeply appreciate the way my body cares for me and makes my life possible.
There are still things I wish I could change about my body; maybe there always will be. But they don’t stop me from loving it.
Keep valuing community and be a world citizen.
1. Find a city I want to live in and find a way to be there. How? For Q1, I’ll be sheltering-in-place in Austin and seeing if that could be a medium-term home. I’m really interested in being abroad, though, so ideally I’ll get to date London, Madrid, Berlin, Amsterdam, etc. at some point this year for a month or so each, then get the right visas to be able to stay in the one I’m most in love with, then find good housing and start settling in.
Win here. I loved Austin. I don’t want to live there, though. And even though I realize that I could really live anywhere and carve out a happy life, assuming I could afford a decent apartment and had access to people and walking routes, I did decide where I want to carve that life out next: Valencia, Spain. I’m just now gathering the materials to apply for my visa, which I’ll hopefully have by March of 2022.
2. Make new friends and keep the old. How? Regular phone calls with people I love, celebration of their wins and love through their losses, even from afar, at the cadence of at least two per week. Keep shot-shooting with friend crushes around once a month, and, when it’s safe, participate in lots of community events.
Another win. The “how” of this goal was a bit different—I certainly didn’t keep a friend log and ensure that I talked to two people a week—but I feel close with all of my important people.
Thanks to audio messages, being able to live in / travel to places my friends lived, shooting my shot with new friends both online and in-person, and big events (Paige’s wedding!!), I made new friends and kept most of the old. Next year, I’d like to level up the “old” circuit by planning a big event of my own, and also making new local friends when I settle into one place.
3. Enjoy family. How? Visit at least annually, including with extended family, and encourage them to come visit me when I’m settled somewhere. Set and maintain healthy boundaries.
I think net this has to be a maybe. Boundaries ebbed and flowed. I’m estranged from some family and closer with others. That’s the way it is and has to be.
4. Re-enter the world of dating. How? Don’t feel like I need an action plan for this one, but it is something I want to do when it’s safe. Love is great & I want to experience more of it.
Big win here. Not in the sense that I fell in love, but in the sense that I saw that love will be out there again for me. Dating is hard again now, with this latest wave and my lack of a full-time home base, but I’m ready to keep it up.
5. Keep up with my Spanish. How? Have at least one extended conversation in Spanish per week—with Brinley, Laura, Gabs, Jimena, etc.—and keep listening to music and podcasts in Spanish at least 3x/week. I’d like to say that I’ll also finally finish Outlander in Spanish but I have failed at my Spanish-language-reading goals for three years in a row and I’ve finally accepted it.
This is actually a win now! I don’t know that my language skills are evolving, but they’re definitely not atrophying.
I listen to Spanish music every day (though honestly my choices are just shoring up my Puerto Rican slang dictionary versus building up actual vocab), and I meet with my Spanish-language book club (!) once every other week to talk about books we’re reading in Spanish (!!). We’re on our third book so far, meaning I’ve read hundred of pages in Spanish this year after promising and failing to do it for three years running.
It just goes to show how special your friends are. That book club only exists because my darling Laura read my goals blog last year and reached out to share her own goal around getting better at Spanish. Now I get to talk to her regularly and get better at something we both care about together. How much more solid of a win could we get?
Commit to my craft and be productive with it.
1. Write personal and cultural essays that I’m proud of. How? Write at least two essays per quarter and see them published, both here and in at least three new-to-me outlets, and write for at least 90 minutes per week on non-commissioned ideas or non-client work.
Okay. So. A fail. I did the output, in wild bursts: two weeks straight in April produced 20,000 words across three essays and some shorter projects, none yet published, and I published a book review, a TV review, a book list, and essays on dark times, learning about different cultures, being lonely versus being alone, and voyeurism as a long-term traveler on this blog.
But I didn’t write or publish consistently. I did a couple of pieces with outlets I’d already worked with, including a feature I’m extremely proud of for Teen Vogue, and I wrote a feature for Bustle that was shelved but should come out next year.
I think next year my goals won’t be around publishing in certain outlets, but rather in just continuing to create.
2. Learn from better writers. How? Participate in at least three critique sessions with peers, read writing on craft at least once a month, and take a writing workshop of some sort.
Interesting. This is a win, because of critique sessions at the residency and my new, beautiful, lovely writers’ club that meets every few weeks. (Though we do more support + therapy than pure crit, I still learn from them constantly.) I took a pitching workshop I was unimpressed with, so that counts, too. But I didn’t love this goal this year and will have to think about whether it comes with me into 2022.
Medium-term goal: Work towards writing something that I can later produce. Maybe it’s a memoir, an essay collection, a reported feature. I’m curious about the process of bringing an idea/story to the screen, and I think I’d be good at the combination of creative + managerial elements involved, so I think being a part of adapting my own work would be a great way to explore that. I don’t plan on writing a book proposal this year, but I do want to be shooting for doing work that’s unique and meaningful and in that league over time.
Let’s call it some progress. I started and summarily abandoned a screenplay I hope to one day return to, which is an interesting way of getting us there; I also wrote some longer-form creative nonfiction that I could see being an essay collection one day.
Grow professionally and be financially successful.
1. Launch and run a successful business. How? Q1 will be about setting up the scaffolding that supports my company: first payroll and accounting systems, then some branding work (won’t plan on it being an avenue to new clients but want a consistent look across the board), and then Q3 and beyond will include exploring more about taxes and incentives, including a SEP IRA. Commercially, I will bring on 2-3 new clients on retainer this year and maintain my core 4-5 otherwise. I don’t plan to limit myself to only one niche, but expect content marketing and brand/marketing strategy to be my two biggest buckets of income.
Win. I didn’t follow my exact path for 2021—you’ll note there’s still no windwardproductions(dot)com, complete with corporate branding I’m flashing everywhere—but I did transition from being a freelancer to a business owner. I incorporated, brought on accounting services, opened business bank accounts, started paying myself retirement benefits via a SEP IRA, and closed some serious client deals. I’ve doubled down on content marketing and maintained enough time to do branding / L&D projects that seem interesting, and I’ve figured out that I need to cut copywriting from my services list next year.
2. Continue to plan for my future and have the resources needed to support it. How? Earn at least $100,000 in gross revenue (not including taxes, benefits, etc.) and save at least $20,000. That first figure is fairly arbitrary—100k isn’t a magic number; 90k would be fine, etc.—but it’s nice and round, so we’ll aim for that.
I’m really proud of this win. I grossed 50% over my goal—again, pre-tax, but still—and saved almost triple what I was hoping to. All of that I’ll be investing, because inflation, and because I already have enough cash on hand for emergencies, so this will be for future big purchases. This path is beginning to feel like a viable way to support my life, present and future, in a way that’s balanced, full of learning opportunities, and entirely my own to shape. I’m excited to keep going next year.
3. Keep learning about other careers and industries. How? Continue to work on NeighborShare and get to know that talented team + develop a deeper understanding of the nonprofit world and also of the process of creating a tech product from scratch.
Maybe. I definitely still do NeighborShare work and am really proud of it, and I love meeting new people through it. I haven’t been close enough to the tech build to feel like I’m making the most of that, though I’m also realizing that I’m happy in the lane I’ve built for myself and am not interested in a ton more career exploration right now.
En fin
I’m proud of this year.
It would’ve been easy to throw 2021 away. To chalk it and the year that came before it up to a bunch of shitty things happening, personally and pandemic-ly. And I fully support anyone who wants to do that, truly.
But the only way I know how to be is earnest, and I really did want to grow this year. To grow as a friend, as a business owner, as a Spanish speaker, as a traveler, as a person who looks out for her own self.
Even when everything is hard.
That growth has produced a lot of questions, many of which I’m uncomfortable not knowing the answers to.
But that’s a welcome part of the journey.
I don’t take my life for granted.
And I thank you for being a part of it.
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