Looking back at last year's goals and setting goals for 2021

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Also please note: this blog post includes mature language. If you don’t like that then obviously you’ve never hung out with me.

Also please note: this blog post is crazy long. Like a novella. #sorrynotsorry I’m verbose

HELLO 2021!! Good lord, it’s so good to see you, we’ve been anxiously waiting for you to arrive all year! Or at least since St. Patrick’s Day which is when my lockdown started. HI! Come in, come in, let’s be friends. Can I get you anything — tea, coffee, bourbon? Oh, am I being too over-eager and over-enthusiastic again? Sorry, I haven’t socialized in basically a year, I’m very much out of practice.

But yes, 2021, we’re very excited that you’re here. And I’m very excited that it’s time to review old goals and set some new ones! So let’s look back at 2020 (even if it was a dumpster fire) and look forward to 2021!

2020 Goals Review

I’m pretty sure this year needs no introduction. 2020. You all know what that looked like, and it was nothing like what we expected. But even so, it’s worth revisiting the year to remember the good, to recognize our struggles and progress, and to feel empowered going forward. I don’t know about you, but my goals included a lot of…well…flexibility this year. Adaptation. Adjustments. Resilience. Yup, if there’s anything this year did for us, it gave us a big deposit of resilience in the emotional bank. And I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to cash that resilience in and re-invest it into something exciting. Like a new year. Please and thank you.

But first, a quick glance back at the year.

2020 Goals

Writing

Make it a habit. Make it measurable so you can feel encouragement at finding success.

I was fairly intimidated by trying to set writing goals. Writing is one of the most important things to me, and yet I struggle to finish anything that I think is worth sharing. So I’m having to coach myself to just — write. Just write.

Create a habit of writing. Well, based on the number of pages written this year compared to previous years, yeah, I think I followed through on this. Maybe I’ve got COVID and all the extra time at home to thank for that? (Silver lining??) But these are just the number of pages from my personal journal (which sometimes become the rough draft for stories or scenes for bigger works), so I’m pretty happy with my output.

Write 10 stories. Bleargh. I wrote…4? 5? Yeah, let’s give myself credit for five. Plus…one very badly written unfinished “novel” that’s 34,117 words (89 pages paperback) and another piece that’s pretty amorphous right now but is 5,352 words (14 pages paperback). To be quite honest, I keep forcing myself to do these short stories because I keep thinking, “I need to write short stories before I write novels.” It’s the same sort of mentality around running — the traditional path would be to run a 5K, then 10K, half marathon, marathon, then ultramarathon. But that’s not how I operate. I jumped straight into the half marathon — single-digit distances be damned. And I went straight from the half marathon to the ultramarathon. So if my strongest performance is the ultramarathon (aka a longform novel) then perhaps I should stop struggling with all the 5Ks (short stories) and just focus on the ultra (novel). So lesson learned: I will quit forcing myself to write short stories if the thing I really want to do is write novels.

Write something you’re proud of. I wrote some crap stuff. And I wrote some stuff that I think is great and others think is crap. And I wrote some things I think is decent but I haven’t shared with others. And I wrote a little kids’ story for my best friend’s daughter that’s all nerdy and cute and I’m pretty proud of. So maybe I don’t have a fancy “mature” thing to point to and say, “Look! I wrote that!” but that’s okay. I’m still happy with my progress.

Submit something. Ha! I submitted one thing. It got rejected. But the goal was to start embracing rejections, so….success?

Join a writers’ group. Well, the intent was to join an existing writers’ group, such as going back to Durham Writers’ Group. But COVID happened. So I joined a poetry group temporarily but poetry isn’t my thing, so then I started up a small writers’ group with a couple friends, and we’ve been keeping that going throughout the second half of this year.

Do a workshop. I did this! I took a workshop online through The Writer’s Center. It was decently helpful; it helped me focus on plot and writing novels, which was helpful.

Well, I didn’t really think this category would be all that successful since I was focusing so much on how few short stories I’d written that I didn’t appreciate how much writing I was doing outside of that. So yeah, I’m going to give myself credit for a good writing year.

Photography

Say no.

Pull back. Shoot what you want to shoot. Say no. Charge what you’re worth. Well, I guess that’s another silver lining of COVID-19: it gave me a good excuse to say no. And I said a whole lot of “no” this year, and I’m okay with that.

Running

Be brave.

Run 1500 miles in a year. I had all these plans for the year — several ultramarathons, a couple big city marathons, etc. And then the pandemic happened. This spring on my very last long run leading up to Umstead 100 I got the text saying the race was cancelled. I was so burned out by all those long solo miles and stress that I bailed at mile 9 of 32 for that long run. I’m not ashamed of that. It wasn’t quitting, it was adapting to the situation and listening to what my body and mind needed. Instead of maintaining that ultra distance, I cut back to doing 5Ks over the summer and slowly built back my mileage and enthusiasm. And then I got COVID-19 this fall, which put a major dent in my running. So considering all that, I still managed to knock out 1,141 miles this year. It’s not 1500, but all things considered 1,141 miles isn’t so bad.

Run another 50K. I did this! Well, I did this a few times, since there were a few 50K distance runs leading up to Umstead 100, but more specifically I raced the Salem Lake Frosty 50K in January!

Run a 40 miler. I did this too! The Uwharrie 40 miler was one of the last races that happened in 2020. There’s no race report posted, but I did this on February 1 and completed it in 10 hours and 35 minutes!

Run a 12 hour race. I did not do this. There were some virtual 12-hour challenges, but I was burnt out and not excited about those, so I didn’t do this.

Run a 100 miler! This did not happen either. Umstead 100 was cancelled this year, but I was all trained up and ready for it. I had a couple friends who did solo or virtual 100 milers this year, but to be quite honest, I was so burnt out and exhausted from training for Umstead 100 that doing it virtually or solo wasn’t appealing. But now that some time has passed and I have a bit of amnesia around all those training runs I did…attempting 100 miles in the future doesn’t sound all that bad…

Run a sub-2:10 half marathon. Once again, no love for the half-marathon. No races, and I didn’t chase after this solo.

Run a sub-4:20 marathon. No marathon races, no marathon PRs. Granted, I could have attempted this solo, but I just wasn’t feeling it and that’s okay.

Run a sub-28:00 5K. Oh! I did this! We did a 5K time trial unofficially with my Fleet Feet training group and I managed to finish in 26:53! That’s 8:39 per mile! So all the focus on speedwork and the 5K after my 100 miler was cancelled definitely paid off!

Knock out 3 states for 50 States 50 Marathons. No races, no race milestones. It’s okay, there’s a vaccine and things are looking up for next year. And I’ve got plenty of deferred races waiting for me in 2021 😉

Climbing

Look ma, no hands!

Climb 5.10s consistently. Oooh this is tough. Because on the one hand…I climbed a 5.10 outdoors at Red River Gorge! But on the other hand…the climbing gym was closed for so long that I can’t really say I can climb anything "consistently.” Also, I’m starting to learn that “consistent” is more aligned with my personal climbing performance and strengths and weaknesses, rather than just the route grade number. For example, a slabby and super scary 5.10 North Carolina climb is nothing like a pumpy but juggy climb at Red River Gorge. And that’s okay. I’m starting to better understand my strengths (utilizing my core strength, having fun on lie-backs and cracks) and weaknesses (super exposed slabby stuff). And that self-awareness is more important than what some route number is.

Climb a 5.11! Hahahaha no. This did not happen.

Climb outdoors 5 times. Oh gosh! I far surpassed this! With everything closed for the pandemic, I actually spent a lot of time climbing outdoors. I mean, isn’t climbing the ultimate social distance thing? You and your belay partner (or your small group bubble) hike miles into the backcountry to some remote crag and then you spend all day there miles from anybody else, trying to go up and down the rock wall. So yeah, we did a lot of climbing. In fact….I went climbing outside 16 times!

Get lead certified. Sooooo….I didn’t get lead certified at my gym, but I did lead climb! Twice! I led a 5.6 route (“Some Assembly Required”) at Chaos crag in the Miller Fork area of Red River Gorge as my first outdoor lead climb! And the next day I led “Eureka,” a classic seventy-foot 5.6 route at Global Village in Red River Gorge! Yay!! So I’ll take my first two outdoor lead climbs over a climbing gym lead certification, thanks. The climbing gym is now open and I still need to get lead certified, but I feel pretty confident about it now, I just need to figure out when I can go take the test.

Boulder consistently at V2. Ehhhhh with the climbing gym closed I really haven’t been doing much bouldering. For a while there I was okay and mostly sending V2s, but I’m hesitant to take credit for this.

Complete a V3. I definitely started working on this, but I never actually sent a V3. Once again, with the climbing gyms closed….🤷‍♀️

Do a pull-up. Ha! Nope. Didn’t happen.

Learn to set my own anchors. I did this! Well, I have a good understanding of some different anchors and am comfortable setting my own anchors on a quad or two quick-draws, but I still need practice with all the various types of anchors you can set.

Learn to clean. I did this! I learned how to clean at Red River Gorge, and to be honest, I love cleaning! (No, sorry husband, I love cleaning gear on rock climbing routes, not cleaning anything in the house.)

Take a climbing class/clinic. Ehhhhh how about climb over a dozen times outside with people who are better than me and can impart all their great knowledge? Yeah, that works even better!

Hiking/Backpacking

See something amazing!

Go backpacking 5 times. Eek, second year in a row that I only went backpacking once. I did a section hike on the Appalachian Trail from Sam’s Gap to Spivey Gap, and it was a great trip! But a lot of my hesitation was around COVID; because of the pandemic several popular hiking trails were closed or overwhelmed by tons of people getting outside (which is great! Please keep venturing outside! It just meant I chose to go adventuring and climbing elsewhere). But the good news is I already have a backpacking trip penciled in for spring!

Complete the 52 hike challenge. Hmm I have never successfully completed the 52 Hike Challenge in a year, and it looks like this year my number of hikes/trail runs was lower than before (I completed 37 hikes/trail runs in 2020), but I think what I lacked in quantity I made up for in quality.

Bag some peaks! I knocked out a few! I got 15 unique peaks this year and 22 summits (yes, I sometimes repeat peaks, for example if I’m doing an out-and-back, etc). The highest elevation I got to this year was Big Bald on the Appalachian Trail at 5,516 feet.

Climb 60,000+ feet in a year. So based on the trail hikes/runs that I tracked with my GPS watch (which was admittedly not all of them) I gained 44,547 feet this year! That’s a good bit short of the 60k feet of vert I had as my goal, but this was the first year that I tracked vert so I’m happy to set a baseline with some decent elevation.

Go to 10 state parks. Because of COVID, I stopped going into any park offices and didn’t track park visits with my NC State Parks passport. I could piece it together, but I was more interested in this goal because of the passport booklet and stamps than anything else, so I’m just going to let this go.

Touch another glacier! Not gonna lie, I’m pretty disappointed we didn’t do this. But with COVID there was just no way for us to responsibly travel someplace to see another glacier.

Visit Shenandoah National Park. Also because of COVID I avoided national parks. There’s always next year!

Other Fitness

Do yoga once a week. I did yoga 14 out of 52 weeks. Not very impressive.

Strength train once a week. Ohhhhh this was basically non-existent (my excuse is that the gyms were closed so I couldn’t make it work with COVID). I did my strength training…6 out of 52 weeks. But like…climbing counts as strength training, right?? That’s what I’m going to tell myself at least.

Reading

Read 20 books. Oh I did this! I read 27 books this year! I tracked most of them on Goodreads, so if you’re interested you can follow me there.

Read 2 books in German. Sadly, none of the books I finished this year were in German.

Read enough magazines to declutter the house. Eek, this also did not happen. 😬

Travel

Go somewhere interesting. Well you know…I did go to a couple places for rock climbing. We went to New River Gorge in West Virginia and Red River Gorge in Kentucky. We went to remote places, camped out, and drove there and back, so it was all very socially distanced and responsible. And maybe those places aren’t quite exciting to the masses like France and the UK and what-not, but they are still pretty awesome spots.

Blogging

Just have fun. Haha well if I meant “have fun” = “don’t post all year” does that make this is a win?

Personal

Budget. I have a system that is fairly effective now and I (mostly) kept it up this year.

Complete some house projects. Oh! We actually did some house stuff this year! (Apparently if you spend 24/7 at home you’re bound to do something about that pesky kitchen setup or cobbled-together office space, lol) We painted our kitchen and got a corner nook that actually fits in the space, and hung some cute stuff in the kitchen. And I set up the loft as a full-time office! There’s plenty more to do, but it’s a start.

Study Spanish. At some point I had a nifty little report from Duolingo about my progress and that I’d learned a few thousand words and had done so many hours working on Spanish. That report has since vanished (#disappointed) but still I was overall happy with my progress, though most of my progress was consolidated into a couple months this summer of very steady and dedicated progress and the rest of the year has just been a smattering of practice.

Put some letters at the end of your name. Heh. Well, I signed up for a PMP course. And then COVID happened. Story of our lives this year, eh?

2020 Summary

Well, it’s been quite a year, right? But we rolled with the punches and adapted, and all things considered I’m not too disappointed. I got a lot of writing done, and while I significantly cut back on running mileage, I far exceeded my expectations with climbing outdoors, including trips to New River Gorge, WV and Red River Gorge, KY. I also went camping at Grayson Highlands with my best friend and her three little kids where we got to see the wild ponies and somehow didn’t realize when an earthquake happened right under us. (Yeah, you forgot about that earthquake too, didn’t you??) There were protests and solidarity runs and Zoom calls and coffee dates in parking lots six feet apart and with masks. Oh, and there was a new addition: I got a mountain bike this year! (Great, another expensive outdoor sport! lol). When I started this goals review post I expected that this year would be a bust, but I’m pleasantly surprised by how I adapted and made this year work. And if we can do great things under stressful circumstances, imagine what we can do in ideal scenarios!

2021 Goals

So. 2021. Last year my big theme was to pull back, not over-stretch myself, say “no,” and focus on things I wanted to do rather than things I felt obligated to do. Well, I certainly delivered on that, though it feels a bit like a cop-out since a lot of that was driven by the pandemic. But even so, there were times when I could have said yes and made something work, but I prioritized my boundaries and said no. That’s something I’d like to strengthen this next year, while at the same time I’d like to deepen my connection to my community and make sure that the things I’m doing align with my core values of Creativity, Adventure, Curiosity, and Community.

So with that in mind, I’m switching things up slightly in terms of how I organize my goals. This year I’m organizing my goals around core values and categories within those core values. I’m also setting some personal goals around a core value of Growth, but I won’t share those online.

Creativity

Writing

Own your narrative. Wrote your own damn book.

Write 10 stories. I know, didn’t I just say I should quit forcing short stories onto myself? Yeah, but I already wrote this down in pen in my bullet journal, and so this is a soft goal — more to just track how many short stories I end up writing, rather than feeling guilty if I don’t actually write short stories.

Write a book (100 paperback pages/45,000 words). Write 500 pages in personal journals. Oh look! I’m finally setting a specific and measurable goal around my writing — go me! I’m also going to keep track of my journal writing and while I’d love to exceed the number of pages I wrote this year, I think aiming for 500 pages written in a year sounds reasonable, don’t you think?

Write something you’re proud of. So this is totally subjective, but don’t we always want to be proud of something?

Submit something. Ughhhh yes, I need to just keep putting myself out there. Remember all that resilience we banked up this year during the pandemic? Time to cash that in with some lovely rejection letters!

Take a class/workshop. I always think it’s good to improve and would like to keep a habit of doing a class/workshop annually.

Blog monthly. Hey look! A blog-related goal! Whenever I’m on winter break and/or have some free time at home I always think, “I should blog regularly!” and get all these big ideas about posting something three times a week and all the cool posts I could do…and then I go back to work in the new year and reality hits me. So I’m tentatively saying “let’s blog monthly” though in my head I’m scheming and hoping for something more consistent than that. We’ll see how these next few months go.

Photography

Do it because you want to.

Enjoy taking photos again. Remember when I used to just take photos for the fun of it? Yeah, I miss those days too. I did very little photography this past year, and it would be nice to do some fun artsy personal projects again.

Art

Express yourself.

Extra Extra! New goals category! I’ve been really up and down with my artistic endeavors over the years, but with being home all the time because of the pandemic, art has taken a more important role in my life, so I figured I’d dedicate a separate (new) goals category for it.

Create monthly bullet journal printables. Oh right. I should really do an intro post to this or something. But okay, CliffsNotes version: A bullet journal (aka BuJo) is a method of organization and planning. It was developed by Ryder Carroll and can be as minimalist as a running to-do list or as maximalist as an art journal/scrapbook. I’ve been bullet journaling for the last year and a half, and it’s been a nice synthesis of all my personal goals, paper planners, post-it note to-do lists, creative brainstorming, and random doodling and sketching rolled into one journal. Which basically means…I’m obsessed with it. And since I absolutely love all things productivity and goals and arts it’s kinda perfect and I want to share more of my thoughts on it. So my goal is to create monthly plan with me videos and/or blog posts that talk about my personal goals, the process around goal-setting, productivity tips, and artsy things, plus provide printables that are basically productive adult coloring book pages. If that sounds like something you’re interested in, great! Please let me know :) If you’re thinking, “ew, Liz, nobody cares about that”…also please (kindly) let me know because I’m still trying to figure out the best approach to sharing this info. If the idea of goals and journaling and art is really appealing to you, please check out my dedicated Instagram for it @lizgdraws! (Yeah, I know, lame name. I’ll probably change it, but I didn’t put a lot of thought into it before I set it up, #badliz)

Take a class. A few years ago I took classes at the Carrboro ArtsCenter and I loved it! I’d come home with charcoal all over my face and would tote around big drawing pads, and I’ve even got a big easel at home! These were some of my favorite classes, and I’d love to expand my knowledge and skillset — maybe I’ll try painting something? I dunno, TBD.

Illustrate Stella’s story. I wrote a children’s story for my best friend’s daughter and it was both super nerdy (all about stars and different celestial objects) but also sweet. Honestly, this is the thing I’m proud of writing in 2020, and I’d love to illustrate it and maybe get some copies printed to give to friends with little ones.

Adventure

Running

Always have something you can run towards.

Run 1200 miles in a year. We’re not entirely sure what 2021 is going to look like, so I figured for goals I’d keep mileage somewhat consistent with the last two years.

Run another 50K. Whether trail races happen or I do it solo, I would like to at least run a 50K this year.

Run a 50 miler! Okay, this is the big stretch goal. While the big city marathon races are still cancelled, there are some ultramarathon races planned next year. Weighing the risks around remote long-distance races in the backcountry and the fact that the vaccine is quickly rolling out, I’m optimistic that I can do a 50 mile mountain race this upcoming summer.

Run a sub-2:10 half marathon. Seriously, I should just do a time trial and call it a day, this shouldn’t be a hard goal to accomplish (assuming my breathing post-COVID eventually settles down).

Do a 12 hour race! Well, the 50 miler might do double duty here, or I can just do a 12 hour challenge (virtual or a small local one). We’ll see how next year goes :)

Climbing

Send it.

Climb outdoors 10 times. Whoa whoa whoa whoa, 10 times?! Well, I climbed outside 16 times in 2020, so maybe 10 times isn’t such a bad idea? Heck, let’s just put it down as a goal and see what happens.

Get lead certified. Really since I’ve already done some lead climbing outdoors it’s simple, I just need to figure out when I can take the test at my local climbing gym.

Lead climb outdoors x2. Yeah, let’s do this!! So stoked!! Much sends!! (jk)

Do a pull-up. Still with the obsession over doing pull-ups?! Yeah, well, it would be nice if I could actually figure this out.

Boulder consistently at V2. The climbing gym is back open, and I’ve been kinda on the fence about going, but I’m hoping things settle down and I can work on bouldering problems again soon.

Hiking/Exploring/Travel

Let’s go outside!

Go backpacking 3 times. Three seems totally reasonable. Let’s see how we do.

Complete the 52 Hike Challenge! Hahaha at this point really I’m just tracking how many hikes/trail runs I do each year as data to compare to previous years. Seems like a good benchmark.

Summit 15 peaks! Since I got 15 unique peaks in 2020 and it set the baseline, I figured it’s worth chasing after that number again in 2021.

Go see/touch a glacier! I’d love to be able to resume our “tradition” of seeing/touching a glacier on or around our wedding anniversary. (“Tradition” in quotes because if you do it twice, does it make it a tradition? How many times do you have to do something on a recurring basis for it to be a tradition?)

Get 50,000 feet of vert in a year. I fell short of the 60k goal in 2020 and only did 45k, so let’s split the difference and aim for 50K in 2021.

Go whitewater rafting! No joke, I really want to do this! We went to the whitewater center a couple years ago and I had a blast, and I’d love to go whitewater rafting on an actual river next!

Hike Patagonia!! I keep trying to convince my friend Magdalena to cram me in her suitcase the next time she goes home to Chile, I think I’ve almost convinced her to do it ;)

Go glamping. Well, my car camping setup basically counts as glamping when I go all-out nowadays, so I kinda get credit for this already. But it would be fun to do a full glamping experience with the canvas tent and BoHo vibe.

Thru-hike/run the Foothills Trail. I want to start knocking out longer-distance trails, so before I tackle the super long trails, I might as well dabble in some of the local long-ish trails. The Foothills Trail runs from upstate South Carolina through western North Carolina and is 77 miles long. If I’m fast and hardy and have a support crew I could potentially do that in a weekend!

Do the Virginia Creeper Trail. The Virginia Creeper Trail is a 34.3 mile rail-trail. I’m leaving this open-ended because I could run this or bike it, we’ll see what I end up doing ;)

Do the Art Loeb Trail! I had planned a mini run-venture in May 2020, but because of COVID they shut down the Davidson River campground, so the goal is to do this next year. And this time I’m thinking August or September so I can snack on blueberries along the trail ;)

Summit Mt. Mitchell. Teeeechnically I’ve hiked to the top of Mount Mitchell before, but it’s been a few years and there’s a good little challenge I’ve heard rumors of that involves a Mt. Mitchell summit that might be fun to tackle. Hint hint, Derek.

Yoga

Just breathe.

Practice yoga once a week. I like myself and my body and everyone else a whole lot more whenever I do a mindful yoga session at least weekly. It’s good for me. I should do it more often.

Find a yoga studio I love. Part of the obstacle to the above goal re: doing yoga weekly is that I don’t have a studio or community that I have access to consistently. Soooo if that’s an obstacle, then a strategy to deal with that obstacle is to look around and find a home studio! Right? Right. Let’s do this.

Mountain Biking

Oooh shiny new thing! Because just what I needed was another sport to take up my time.

Get some air! Not going to lie…my favorite part of mountain biking right now are the flow trails where I can catch some air on some jumps. I’d like to get even more confident with these and maybe get both tires off the ground on some jumps!

Get confident on rock gardens. Aaaaaand on the other end of the spectrum…I’m absolutely terrible at rock gardens. So it would be nice if I can get to the point where I don’t have to hike-a-bike through the rock gardens.

Strength Training

Ugh. Just do it.

Strength train once a week. It’s good for you and makes you…well…stronger. Even if it’s some simple bodyweight movements at home, that counts.

Curiosity

Languages

To promote the sharing of ideas and perspectives.

Work on Spanish. Get to a point where I can have a basic conversation. I made some progress in 2020 and I’d like to keep building on that.

Reading

To expand the mind.

Read 20 books. I surpassed that in 2020, but that was partly because I had a lot of extra time at home and I read some shorter books. I figure 20 is a good goal to maintain for next year.

Read 2 books in German. I’m pretty disappointed that I neglected working on my German skills this year, that’s very short-sighted of me.

Craft

To create something tangible.

Grow a small garden. I’ve done some gardening on and off over the years, but I’m not very disciplined. I’d like to be a little more organized with my garden this year.

Build something. It can be something small, like a birdhouse. I just want to create something tangible and functional.

Community

Give back.

Volunteer at least quarterly. I want to make sure I’m showing up for my immediate community.

Increase knowledge/awareness of social justice issues. Read 3 books on the topic. Engage in conversations. The three books is to provide a specific metric so I make sure I keep focused on this throughout the year.

Build the Triangle Area Womxn’s Trail/Ultra community. In case you hadn’t heard, there’s a Facebook group dedicated to Triangle Womxn who run trails/ultras! Please join if you’re local and have that interest, I’d love to help womxn with similar interests connect!

Build the NC Oiselle Volée community. I was very recently added as a NC Oiselle Volée leader and I’m super excited to contribute to that community of womxn! Oiselle is a women-led running apparel company that is focused on building community and action in the sport of running. And, since the website describes it best: “The Volée is a global community made up of women with diverse running backgrounds and different goals. Women join the Volée for many reasons: to join a run community, to connect with a diverse group of powerful women, to meet a local run buddy, to support girls in sport, to help elite athletes thrive in their athletic pursuits, to expand their network, be part of a feminist mission, and many other reasons. We are committed to building our community: one that is strong, supportive, and passionate.” The NC Volée is vibrant and active and I’m so excited to be one of its leaders! If you’d like more info on the group please check out https://www.oiselle.com/pages/volee or you can reach out to me with questions!

Complete a course and get certified for trail and ultra running coaching. By now you know I love trails and ultras. And I love community. And I love intentional and ambitious goals. And I love figuring out the body and how it works and ticks and succeeds. And I’ve loved being a mentor for Fleet Feet’s training programs, particularly the trails program. So in 2021 I’m taking a coaching class and hope to get certified! It’s still TBD how I might build on that skill, but at the very least I figure it’s good knowledge that I can apply for myself and my own training. But…I also have some big ideas and personal goals brewing around community adventures and programs for when we can do in-person group events again. So I’ll start with the coaching cert and we’ll see where things go from there!

Summary

Anddddd…keeping on-brand I’m up a few goals this year, from 44 in 2020 to 47 in 2021. But as I noted last year, several of these goals are more like benchmarks and metrics to see how often I do certain activities, and as always everything is just very ambitious. Mostly I like to set a lot of goals because these are the activities that make me happy and give my life meaning, so I want to make sure I’m doing those activities that are important to me. And I’m also excited about how this year I’m tying these goals to personal values, so not only am I focusing on activities that I love but I’m keeping a clear vision on why these are important to me.

It’s a lot, but I’m ready for the challenge!

What about you? Are you setting goals/resolutions for 2021? How did you adapt your 2020 goals with all the craziness that happened? Are there new habits that you picked up in 2020 that you want to keep? And what sort of habits do you want to build in 2021 that will help you succeed in your annual goals?