Goals for 2015

boobar

That time again, what are your goals for 2015.

I'll start, going to keep it simple and not too ambitious.

Spend more quality time with my kid...plan to take a month off over the summer...they won't be small for ever as the saying goes.

One night a month out with the Mrs....some may laugh but we could go months without a night out

Decent holiday this year.

Lose weight, exercise more

Start using and learning about that SLR camera

Get more certifications at work

Cook a more varied menu.

Frogeye

My first goal of 2015 is to get 8 x M8 bolts that I discovered were missing when I went to assemble my newly acquired and expensive bed this evening...

My second goal is to assemble said newly acquired bed....

My third goal is to test it out with the missus.

After that i need to look after my back this year so yoga every day and Pilates once during the week...

and I need to do more nice things for people so my soul feels better

Plus I'm going to find things to do that scare the **** out of me/push me...and then try and do them

Roll on 2015!!

The Wild Bunch

Lose weight

Get to the dentist

Save for the first time ever

Be more tolerant

ancapailldorcha

Well...

I've become terribly antisocial in the last few years as a result of constantly being a nomad. I'm going to try to have at least one social night out a month which will most likely going to the pub alone. Was invited to a new year's do last night but couldn't bring myself to go.
I've started reading again so hopefully make significant traction in the fantasy series I'm reading with the odd political/sociological book sandwiched in-between.
I've put on a bit of weight that'll need to be shed but my sweet tooth seems to be responsible there so it's only a fairly simple change.
I'm 1 year through a 3 year contract so I need to find something towards the end of 2015 lest I find my contract running out. I want to do a PhD at some point and there might be a few interesting projects advertised...
I want to travel more. Off to Japan in March for 2 weeks which should sate that urge for quite some time.
Might be nice to meet someone in the midst of all that but experience has taught me not to hope for much there...

Manach

Read less books (200 per year was excessive).
Try and be more annoying to the PC Brigade.
Learn Dutch.

sky88

eat healthy my diet is atrocious time to kick the fizzy drinks and crisps out

get to the dentist

drink less when im drinking have to stop getting in a mess

_Kaiser_

- New job I think with more actual responsibility (as opposed to things I have no control over but still causes me grief) and money/flexibility

- This will lead to more ability to spend time with my little fella who lives 2 hours away (that commuting isn't cheap).

- Hopefully also the ability to actually save a bit at the end of the month too

- Try and get out a bit more which isn't easy as most of my friends are long since settled and living all over the place

- Think I'm gonna get the snip in the next month or two as well

HalloweenJack

First is lose weight. Because of health problems, I've been depressed and lacking in motivation. This has lead to me putting on a fair bit of weight. I'm not sure how much but I know I'm at my biggest ever weight. Unfortunately, I have a hernia at the mo which rules out a lot of exercise until I have that operated on and I've just never been interested in eating healthy. However, lately I've noticed that I'm a lot bigger and my clothes don't fit like they used to so I need to do something about it.

Second is go on to do a Masters. I'm bored with my current job but feel like I'm restricted in what I can do so I want to have a go at something else.

carolinespring

I have 2 main ones, plus a few little add one ones!!

1. To be kind to myself. I can be very hard on myself. I look for and find faults in myself and often feel what I do is never good enough, so going to try hard to work on that. Also to eat really well, lose weight and to exercise because my body needs to be healthy.

2.To remember that there are 2 kinds of words - nice and nasty. That is what my Dad always told me and while I never would set out to hurt or upset anyone, I often don't choose my words as carefully as I should. This also refers to how I speak about myself.

The others are smaller things, that include

To save more.

Read more books

To turn the laptop off early and spend the time more usefully

To get back into cooking for friends at least once a month

To declutter the house and get rid of clothes, bags, shoes I haven't worn in the last 12 months.

While my husband and I do spend a lot of time together and are really close, to ensure that we stay like it would be nice to find a hobby we can do together.

Thats pretty much it folks. Happy 2015

astonaidan

Ah my fav time of the year
Get a bar job, by far the type of employment I enjoy
Get fitter, fit enough now but a little more wouldnt hurt
Stop going back to girl who has serious insecurity problems and find a girl who I actually like
Learn to cook
Be less arrogant, a big problem I have but working on it

Alfred Borden

Get to the gym at least three times a week
Get my full driving license
Finish my course
Get over to an Arsenal game

RDM_83 again

Hmmm this is a difficult question this year my usual new year goals are pretty sensible, though I don't achieve them anyway.
At the end of long relationship this year though but the fact that its over hasn't really kicked in.
So my 2015 goals are

Survive it, deal with the emotional crash when it comes and hopefully learn what sort of person I am again
Apart from this I'm going to try and do the things that when I was younger I promised myself at 30 I would have done (I'm 31 now :-/ )
So fingers crossed a lot of traveling is on the cards, I've applied for Visa's and work abroad.

Sensible less ethereal goals are
Give up smoking- I've got ecigs and stuff now but need to start using them
Become more organised in general
Keep in better contact with my friends especially those abroad
Get into better shape and try and achieve the look I had during the summer but with some more muscle mass
edit:Also waste less time on boards :P

Lucena

Don't want to burst everyone's bubble, but I've read in a few different places, including project management training at work, the following way of looking at goals and goal-setting.

Vague goals are unachievable, because they are not properly defined. The first step to achieving a goal is defining it. So saying 'I am going to lose weight this year' is not really a goal, unless you consider being 100 grammes less than your current weight as your goal, which generally isn't the case. So the goal needs to 'My target weight is 80kg by the end of June'.

Second step is resources. In a projet situation, this means allocating time, people and money to the projet. If we take the weight example, you need to clearly define what you're going to do, be it walking around the block twice a week or cutting out certain foods during the week. If this is not defined, you will probably fail to do anything, and will certainly fail overall.

Another point about defining goals is that there are different types of goal, outcome based goals i.e. I want the result to be X, and process based goals i.e. I will do activity X, Y times a week. It's probably important to use both, but I personally find that process based goals are easier to follow.

To give an example based on my goal for 2015: improve at chess. Nice and vague. However my real goal is to improve my rating from 1700 to 1900 in order to qualify for the Irish Championships (outcome based goal). Maybe this year, my the next, who knows.
What I consider the most important goal though is my process based goal 'I'm going to spend 4 hours a week working on my game'. This goal is achievable, all I have to do is put in the time. Hopefully the other goals will then be achieved.

UCDVet

Lucena wrote: »

Don't want to burst everyone's bubble, but I've read in a few different places, including project management training at work, the following way of looking at goals and goal-setting.

Vague goals are unachievable, because they are not properly defined. The first step to achieving a goal is defining it. So saying 'I am going to lose weight this year' is not really a goal, unless you consider being 100 grammes less than your current weight as your goal, which generally isn't the case. So the goal needs to 'My target weight is 80kg by the end of June'.

Second step is resources. In a projet situation, this means allocating time, people and money to the projet. If we take the weight example, you need to clearly define what you're going to do, be it walking around the block twice a week or cutting out certain foods during the week. If this is not defined, you will probably fail to do anything, and will certainly fail overall.

Another point about defining goals is that there are different types of goal, outcome based goals i.e. I want the result to be X, and process based goals i.e. I will do activity X, Y times a week. It's probably important to use both, but I personally find that process based goals are easier to follow.

To give an example based on my goal for 2015: improve at chess. Nice and vague. However my real goal is to improve my rating from 1700 to 1900 in order to qualify for the Irish Championships (outcome based goal). Maybe this year, my the next, who knows.
What I consider the most important goal though is my process based goal 'I'm going to spend 4 hours a week working on my game'. This goal is achievable, all I have to do is put in the time. Hopefully the other goals will then be achieved.

I don't mean any disrespect but, man, I hate project management.

I get it, a project manager wants to manage the project. It doesn't matter what the project is, they want to abstract away details and make it so that everything fits into a checkbox. I don't know anything about chess, but we write down your goal is to reach 1900 and you tell me your number is 1925 in a year, well, I can put a check into the box.

And hell, we can take that goal and define milestones. Each milestone comprised of more checkboxes. "Well, at six months, we should be at 1800, so let's put a checkbox for that! Now we can track our project". Probably throw that stuff into Excel, make a pretty chart and put it into a 25 slide Powerpoint discussing the various times of goals that all interconnect and support each other. Maybe even a Gantt chart or two!

'The process goal will ensure that we are consistently working towards our achievement and metric goals. As you can see, as of Q1 we are here and our projection show that we are on target for Q2'

But the truth is, if you say, 'My goal is to get better at Chess' and you practice four hours per week, you'll get just as good as if you set a goal to practice four hours per week or if you set a goal to improve your ranking from X to Y or set a goal to enter a tournament.

The other risk you face is making bad goals. If you know a lot about chess, maybe your goals are great. But if someone doesn't know a lot about chess or fitness or whatever they decide to do, they'll take your advice and set very clear, objective goals, that are all but impossible. I haven't been to the gym before, but my goal is to bench 150kg. Well, the truth is, after a year of proper training, a guy my size would be thrilled to put up 115kg and there isn't any chance in hell of getting to 150kg. Or if my process based goal is to train four days per week, but I don't know how long it will take to train each day, and after I start going to the gym I realize I can't possibly afford to spend the time required to train four days per week - now it's one week into the new year and I've failed my goal.

IMHO - the problem with resolutions isn't poorly made goals....it's people giving up on them. No sense making it more complicated than it is.

Keano

I set myself a goal last week to read 12 books. Think I got to 10.

Similar goal again this year 12.

Also reducing my golf handicap, I'm putting the time in to get better. Now need to just have patience as as there will be lots of good and bad days!

evancmurphy00

Get back into reading again and improve my darts by quite a bit.

Lucena

UCDVet wrote: »

I don't mean any disrespect but, man, I hate project management.

I get it, a project manager wants to manage the project. It doesn't matter what the project is, they want to abstract away details and make it so that everything fits into a checkbox. I don't know anything about chess, but we write down your goal is to reach 1900 and you tell me your number is 1925 in a year, well, I can put a check into the box.

And hell, we can take that goal and define milestones. Each milestone comprised of more checkboxes. "Well, at six months, we should be at 1800, so let's put a checkbox for that! Now we can track our project". Probably throw that stuff into Excel, make a pretty chart and put it into a 25 slide Powerpoint discussing the various times of goals that all interconnect and support each other. Maybe even a Gantt chart or two!

'The process goal will ensure that we are consistently working towards our achievement and metric goals. As you can see, as of Q1 we are here and our projection show that we are on target for Q2'

But the truth is, if you say, 'My goal is to get better at Chess' and you practice four hours per week, you'll get just as good as if you set a goal to practice four hours per week or if you set a goal to improve your ranking from X to Y or set a goal to enter a tournament.

The other risk you face is making bad goals. If you know a lot about chess, maybe your goals are great. But if someone doesn't know a lot about chess or fitness or whatever they decide to do, they'll take your advice and set very clear, objective goals, that are all but impossible. I haven't been to the gym before, but my goal is to bench 150kg. Well, the truth is, after a year of proper training, a guy my size would be thrilled to put up 115kg and there isn't any chance in hell of getting to 150kg. Or if my process based goal is to train four days per week, but I don't know how long it will take to train each day, and after I start going to the gym I realize I can't possibly afford to spend the time required to train four days per week - now it's one week into the new year and I've failed my goal.

IMHO - the problem with resolutions isn't poorly made goals....it's people giving up on them. No sense making it more complicated than it is.

Regarding the problem with resolutions, you're partly correct. Obviously people giving up means they don't achieve their goals. However giant goals need to be broken down into steps to guide people on the path. Otherwise it's very easy to get lost.

As regards project management, it's a tool. Ok, sometimes project managers are tools as well, but that besides the point. Sometimes it's just useful to have a structure to your goals.

The Black Oil

For those keen on cooking, do check out the Food and Drink forums. Plenty of advice, ideas and suggestions available around that part of boards.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055321234

cson

Guys one thing I find useful is to break your year into quarters a lá your typical large Corporation and evaluate your performance versus your resolutions/goals at the end of each quarter - you can make adjustments/add new ones and it means you've more chance of keeping them. Each new quarter is a new start/chance if you get me.

mrolaf

weigh less, start juicing, read more, finally get an STI test, learn to golf, get a dog.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

1. Travel.

Honeymoon plans are Vegas and the west coast of America, so I'm really excited about that. But I want to travel more on city breaks. 2014, we went lots of places all over ireland for weekends away. This year hopefully we will go further afield. Edinburgh, Paris and London are my top three.

2. Read more

I used to love reading, and read a lot. Lately, I've been feeling like literally each day that passes I seem to be getting even dumber. I'm not a stupid girl so there's no excuse for it.

3. Start a family.

One child would be plenty, we have each other and two dogs so I think our little family would be complete.

AndonHandon

Budget better and save money.
Learn to drive.
Go abroad more for short breaks.
Get a six pack :pac:
Read more.
Get the handicap low.

Mine are fairly simple (in theory).

1. I need to lose weight (a lot of weight ). I'm looking to shed about 4-5 stone this year (hopefully before June, but I won't hold my breath).

2. I need to get more social. I have literally no proper friends, which makes going anywhere a bit trickier, resulting in me sitting at home all day, stuffing my face with sweets out of boredom.

3. I need to get more work on/money in. I'm doing photography via self employment, but I'm still living week to week and find it tight financially at times (this is more due to my own poor money management though, admittedly). Would drop it for a 9-5 job fairly swiftly.

4. Clear Credit Union loan. Don't owe them an enormous amount, but it's a pain in the ass, all the same, having it there.




Planning to try and sign up to a few different clubs or such around the place. I'm gonna join the local running club. Hoping that will help tick off box number 1, and with a bit of luck, might help with box number 2 aswell.

Struggling to think up other things I can do though. Fingers crossed for a somewhat decent year though. Like groundhog day the last couple of years.

dinorebel

Give up smoking(again)
Get my 5k time down to 27/28 mins
Lose 20lb by the end of Feb

Wompa1

Give less to charity. It seems selfish but I feel like I need to start saving my money for myself and my potential future family
Spend less time at work
Go to the Rory Gallagher Festival
Stop traveling so much

Mokuba

1. Get into shape - lose the bit of flab that I have and start putting on some muscle. Diet would come under this as well. My weight really bothers me and makes me anxious and depressed. I'm a decent looking guy too so getting into shape would give me a nice confidence and self-esteem boost.

2. Learn French - Want to be able to comfortably hold a conversation with a native by the end of the year. Will help employment opportunities, will encourage me to move to a beautiful country if the opportunity arises down the line, and gives me an accomplishment which I will be very proud of.

3. Start coaching football - Have my Kickstarter 1 done, want to start coaching as I feel I have a lot to offer and would be good at it.

4. Take up a sport - Even if it's mountaineering every 3rd week, or if it's Junior C hurling.

5. Say yes when people ask me to do things - Anytime someone asks me to do something social, 80 percent of the time I'll blow it off.

6. Go to the dentist - Because I'd like to have my teeth in 5 years. Haven't been in around 3 so the damage has probably reached crisis levels.

7. Learn Guitar - Nothing too fancy, but I'd like to be able to play a song or two whenever the guitar comes out at gatherings.

Might seem like a long enough list but there have been too many years where I've just been a spectator. You only have one life and too many people waste the best years of it (me being one of the worst). It's time to take some pride in myself, enjoy my life and be the best possible version of myself.

I've never made a list before like this, I'm going to put it on the wardrobe and try and make mini-goals for each week. Hopefully when this is dug up next year I won't be looking at the thread ashamed of myself!

Mokuba

Mokuba wrote: »

1. Get into shape

2. Learn French

3. Start coaching football

4. Take up a sport

5. Say yes when people ask me to do things

6. Go to the dentist

7. Learn Guitar

Actually, I change my mind, I'm gonna do your list instead of mine

Aside from the football thing (and Spanish instead of French), I think we're twins! Number 5 in particular strikes a chord with me.

Hopefully when this is dug up next year I won't be looking at the thread ashamed of myself!

Ah, you will, though. We all will. :P

Pawwed Rig

I just signed up for the 1,000 mile challenge on the running forum. I've done 5 already so nearly there only 995 miles to go.

Pawwed Rig

Pawwed Rig wrote: »

I just signed up for the 1,000 mile challenge on the running forum. I've done 5 already so nearly there only 995 miles to go.

Where are you seeing this? Got a link..?


EDIT: Never mind, just found it: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057352587

Loire

Deleted User wrote: »

Actually, I change my mind, I'm gonna do your list instead of mine

Aside from the football thing (and Spanish instead of French), I think we're twins! Number 5 in particular strikes a chord with me.
P

Shouldn't that be number 7? :pac:

Rhys Essien

Remember lads..........

_Redzer_

Aggressively look at my financial planning/structuring and actually live within my means.

Cut down on the drink, big time!

Stay happily single, enjoy it and not rush into another relationship.

Eat something and get back to healthy eating.

Cut down on nonstop partying and gain back all the weight I lost because of it.

Start jogging and lifting again. Want my muscle mass back in time for summer!