It’s January and, as is custom, it’s time to talk about goals.

Let me reassure you right now that I’m not here to teach you how to set goals. I am neither motivated nor qualified to do that (as will soon become apparent when you see my goal setting tendencies). Nope. This one’s for the theme-loving weirdos and voyeurs who just want to see what kinds of goals other people actually set and reach. No SMART goals here, but definitely a few dumb ones. 

The Premise 

In 2021, my then-fiance and I spent the end of the year at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico. It was ostensibly to plan our wedding, but mostly to escape the midwest winter. One night of our trip, at a table overlooking the beach, I had the brilliant-seeming, tequila-infused idea that we should set 26 goals for 2022 – one for every letter of the alphabet. So we did. 

I was surprised that my fiance went along with it then, but I’m even more surprised that we have continued to do it since. 

We actually love it and do quarterly-ish check-ins to see how on-track we are throughout the year. Sometimes we even decide something is no longer important to us halfway through the year and change it or decide not to do it. A few of the goals have remained since 2022 with slight changes. It’s not an exact science but it helps guide us to grow. 

Some Disclaimers

1. We do not set out to perfectly achieve every single one of the 26 goals – we have been happy with about 50% in the past. The exercise is more about deciding what’s important to us in a given year and then wandering in that direction.
2. Some of these are a little silly. It’s hard to think of 26 serious goals – especially ones that could conceivably start with the letters X and Z. 
3. This is not advice on best goal-setting practices. I don’t know if I would actually even recommend doing this although we do have fun with it. 

Our 2024 Alphabetical Goals

• Acquire Bedroom Furniture – we really want actual night stands but keep putting it off so we made it a goal. 
• Bike – we are hoping to at least purchase (and ideally ride) a tandem bike
• Cafe Sundays – I have this idea to host an open, coffee-shop-vibe, social time for anyone who wants to come every week. It’s kind of a substitute for the social aspects of church – the ritual without the doctrine. 
• Donate (50pct DAF) – we have a donor advised fun that we funded last year and hope to donate half of the funds this year. 
• Europe – just go there. We already have flights and some other stuff booked for this trip!
• FITness – we each hae non-scalar goals for this, but it’s mostly just focusing on eating healthy and moving more. 
• Glacier – just hang out with one. This is a bucket list item for me. 
• Happy hour – we want to go to happy hour once a month. Ideally at a different place each time but really it’s just about getting out and trying new cocktails. 
• Install new HVAC – we have a pretty inefficient heat pump right now that is causing our utility bill to be very high. Getting it replaced will reduce our overall expenses in the long run, we just have to actually get it done. 
• Jazz lounge – we love the idea of being the type of people who go to jazz lounges but we’ve never actively tried to go. Until now. 
• Kickboxing – this one is a little less strict. Kickboxing is being used as a proxy for any new type of exercise. 
• Learn german – as part of our trip to Europe we are stopping in Germany. I think it would be nice to at least try to speak a little German while we are there. 
• MTG monthly
• Non-fiction – I always have a reading goal but this year, instead of just setting a goal for the total number of books, I decided to set a smaller goal for reading more non-fiction. 
• OrangeTheory – we made a lot of excuses last year for not going three times a week (which is always our plan). This year we are holding ourselves to it in these goals. 
• Postnup – we didn’t get our act together in time to do a prenup but a postnup is the next best thing! 
• Quit nail biting – this is a habit I’ve had all of my life. I’m honestly not optimistic about accomplishing this but we will see. 
• RSU saved! – part of my husband’s salary is paid in RSUs. Our goal is to live off of our base salaries and save the bonus! 
• Screentime – this is for us to cut our time on social media (mostly TikTok) to 30 minutes a day. That gives me way more time to write for this bolg! 
• Tile shower – our shower tile was actively falling out –  so we helped it. Now we have to put new tile in so we can use that shower again. 
• Upgrade laptop – I need a new personal laptop. Bonus points here if I am able to buy it with only money from my side business. 
• Vacation with friends – All of the vacations we have planned for this year do include other people so we are already crushing this. 
• Write blog article – I am hoping to average one per week this year. It’s funny that this counts as one. 
• Xterminate documents – we have a few very large boxes of probably-useless paper that we definitely need to go through. 
• Yeet guest room closet – again, we just need to get rid of probably-useless stuff to make this closet functional. 
• Zen time (5mins of intentional silence weekdays) – I just feel like I’m constantly listening to something and 5 minutes doesn’t seem like a long time but I’m guessing it won’t be all that simple.