Thinking of Kelly on her birthday

Dear Kelly,

Another year has come and gone, another year of missing you.

Eleven years ago I ran my ninth marathon on your sweet sixteenth birthday.

Today I "ran" a one mile race.  I thought of you while I ran like I have so many times over the years.

Tonight I donated platelets in honor of your twenty seventh birthday.

Some things have changed over the years.

Missing you and wishing things were different have not.

Cutting the cake-2002 

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Welcome to 2016

I  have been thinking about the goals that I want to set for 2016.   I am not a fan of resolutions.  I don't know if I have ever made and kept a resolution that I have made for the year, but I have completed goals that I set, because I could commit to them. 

A resolution is weak, a commitment is strong.

You only make commitments for things you can control.

You can make a New Year's resolution to lose weight, eat healthier, but you can't commit to it.

However, you can make a commitment to running, cycling, and lifting weight three times a week and eating a calorie deficit of 500 calories a day.

I set three goals last year:

1. Move my body two thousand and fifteen miles. 
2. Donate Platelets 15 times in 2015. 
3. Read a book every month and publish a review on my blog or Amazon. 

I completed the first goal, moving my body 2,166 miles. 

I donated platelets eleven times.  While I was very committed to completing this goal, it was taken out of my hands in May after donating too frequently and I was put on an unable to donate list for three months. 

The third goal I totally abandoned after not completing a monthly challenge.  I could have revised the goal, but after missing it I totally stopped so obviously I was not as committed to it as the first two goals. 

So after a quick look back, here are my goals for 2016: 

1. Move my body two thousand and sixteen miles. 
2. Write a "journal of days" for the year, one to three sentence summary every day before going to bed. 
3. Revise my draft of the book I wrote last year during National Novel Writing Month. It still needs an ending.
4. Run a 5K.  
5. Write 750 words every day at 750words.com(I began the year with a streak of 406 days). 
6. Read one book a month.
7. Complete the Joyful January challenge.  Post a picture of something that has brought me joy each day during January on Facebook or Twitter or Instragram with the hashtag #joyfuljan

These all seem like achievable goals.  #3 will be the hardest goal to complete as I am not sure how I will be able to measure whether it has been completed.

All of the other goals follow the S.M.A.R.T guidelines that are commonly used in the workplace, but as this article outlines, SMART goals can be DUMB. 

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time based

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