I’m not sure if I’m thinking about this “correctly”, but I’m approaching resolutions and goal-setting differently this year: I’ll do both. I split them up into two categories:

• Resolution = prompt for regular reflection
• Goal = task to complete (think checkbox)

I’m working on building my toolkit for each goal before I’m knee-deep in 2021 with old and new forms of stress vying for my attention.

Resolutions

Year of the Family

This year, I’ll finish up flight school, and we’ll move back to Colorado. For our entire marriage, the focus has been on me: “When Jonny graduates college, we’ll…,” we moved to Colorado for my job, now we’re in Alabama for my military career. Shalene and I have had some difficult talks, and we decided that what works best for our family is letting Shalene “go first” for once.

Financially, it makes more sense for me to get my master’s first. There will be an increase in pay and opportunities, and my company will pay for it. For Shalene, she will mostly continue with her current teaching career with the possibility of picking up teaching community college. We’ll have to pay for her degree ourselves. But the big takeaway was the emotional vs. rational side of investing. She hasn’t had personal fulfillment for quite some time. She received validation through teaching, but as a stay-at-home mom, that affirmation largely went away. By getting her degree, she’ll be able to grow personally, investing in herself and her career. I’m anxious to get going, but I’m also happy to step aside for once.

That means that this year, I’ll be working my engineering job, working toward qualifying to fly with my unit, and taking care of the family so that Shalene can focus. It’s totally out of my comfort zone because I live to work (stay-at-home dad is my nightmare), but I’m excited to take on a new challenge.

I have also come to realize that there is perhaps no investment in the long-run greater than cultivating an amazing relationship with my family now. I’m learning, because it doesn’t come easily, but I’m excited to get there. Of course, I’ll have to ride the brakes a bit and get out of the “I’m going to win at this” mentality 😅

Emphasis on Mental Health

I have always had grit, passion, drive, and ambition, but 2020 finally had me addressing some concerns. I have a natural conviction for self-improvement, so mental health is a personal emphasis for me in 2021. The pandemic, racial tensions, and election season of 2020 brought about a lot of stress for everyone, and I think we can all agree that self-care became critical.

Some small things I’ve identified to help with this resolution include:

• Journaling—I currently use journaling as a way to trap my family history in the amber so to speak, but I’d like to use it more intro-/retrospectively and sit down to tease out ideas and thought patterns. I haven’t found a system that works for me yet, but I’d love ideas if you have them.
• Therapy—I started seeing a therapist, which has been phenomenal. I’ve toyed with the idea for a long while, but finances have always been a concern. TRICARE takes care of it while I’m down here, so I’m glad I’m taking advantage of the opportunity. A military leader on Twitter “gave me permission” in a sense when he tweeted about speaking openly to his unit about using therapy. I’m fighting to not try to “win” at counseling either.
• Solitude—This parallels with journaling, but a Twitter friend (@CoShelbysmith) published an article on solitude that really resonated with me. It confirmed something that I had never put words to in that I am an extrovert, but I require solitude to have the energy to be outgoing. Find time for me, so that I can be there more fully for others.
• No Social Media on Phone—I’ve left a few platforms in the past year or two, but Twitter still has a hook on me. I’m going to delete social media from my phone, focus on what I can share with others (I’ll use Buffer), and leave social platforms for in-browser use on my laptop only. This will help me read more (my Pocket queue is insane) and think more philosophically about what ideas I’d like to put out there—become a producer instead of just a consumer.

Stretch Daily with Intention

I have long wanted to be more flexible. I’m finally getting started with real intent. The plan is to get in the habit of daily stretching with the end-of-year objective of being able to touch the floor from a standing position and to touch my toes from the seated position (legs stretched forward). I’m excited about how increasing flexibility will augment my performance in other areas like running, weight lifting, etc.

Honor the Sabbath

I’ve been following David Perell (@david_perell) for a while now, and although he doesn’t claim to be religious himself, he has become fascinated with the idea of a Sabbath. Our family has shifted our approach to the Sabbath over the years, and there are things I’d like to do to make it less casual but still a day of rest.

One lovely consequence of keeping the Sabbath day holy is that I’ve had to reprioritize my week to make sure I’m free on that day. By doing so, both my family and I can count on being together on Sundays, so I have more latitude during the week to disappear and study, knowing I take Sundays off.

Some things I have implemented:

• Documentary Sunday—We watch less TV and instead, we look for documentaries/docu-series to watch together. That ensures we don’t run into violence, sexual content, swearing, etc. as much when we’re trying to break away from the world for a day.
• No Video Games—I decided that video games are not for Sundays, and it has worked pretty well for the past few weeks that I have implemented it.
• No Studying—This one is really difficult. Throughout college, I studied, worked on projects for school, and crammed homework on Sundays. There was no surviving without using every hour of every day. Now, though, I find that it all comes down to a lack of planning. Implementing some rules like this just forces me to be more deliberate with my time.
• No Caffeine—I drink a lot of caffeine (the Walmart version of caffeinated Crystal Light), but there’s really no reason to on Sundays. In essence, I’m trying to wean off my dependency, but also give myself permission to nap more.

Goals

Read the Book of Mormon

I realized that out of the 52 books I read last year, the Book of Mormon was not one of them. It isn’t that long, and I should be reading it every year.

Read The Saints, Volume 1

This one isn’t too difficult, but it is a break-away from my traditional genres. Our emphasis in Sunday School this year is the early history of our church, so by reading this book on the founding of our restored religion and the pioneers that worked to make it happen, I hope to gain a greater appreciation for my heritage.

Read One Academic Paper per Week

In college, I would print papers and articles out that interested me. Granted, I was involved as a research assistant and as an intern for the Department of Energy, but my desire to learn hasn’t stopped. I still have several articles printed out in a desktop vertical paper holder, and I haven’t touched them in over a year.

This is both a tidying and a learning goal. It should pay huge dividends as I work toward higher education. My current plan is to get my Master’s in Aerospace Engineering and a PhD in Space Resources. I’m interested in studying in-space manufacturing, so I hope that by reading one paper per week, I’ll be able to converge on a “hole” in what is currently researched and find my niche.

Be Google-free

I’m already Facebook-free (deleted Facebook, Instagram, and quit WhatsApp), but now I’m working to be Google-free. I’ve thought about it off and on for a while now, but Google charging for their photo service was the last straw. While every company is incentivized by profits, I trust Apple a heck of a lot more than I trust Facebook, Google, or Amazon.

I’m working to transition away from Google. By the end of the year, I hope to only have a Gmail account for junk mail and a Google Drive account for Google Sheets (man, there’s no service as convenient; Excel is just different, ya know?) and for whenever I need to collaborate with others (like proofreading an article).

I’d love to hear your thoughts on solutions. I’m already using Signal and Evernote to replace some of the Google monopoly, and I’m looking into ProtonMail, calendar solutions, and others. Hit me up!

Marriage Meeting Template

Shalene and I have implemented a weekly marriage meeting, and it needs some refreshing. We’ve been using a mix of structure pulled from author Marcia Naomi Berger on The Art of Manliness podcast (episode) and conversations between Tim Ferriss and Ramit Sethi on The Tim Ferriss Show (episode), but it hasn’t quite fit our needs. It feels like we’re going along with it just for the sake of the structure we’ve committed to. I’m working this year to further engrain the habit of meeting weekly, as well as determining what structure works best for us.

Reflections

Another idea I’m toying with is revising how I group my resolutions/goals in domains. I’ve previously used my 5 Fs: Family, Faith, Finance, Fitness, and Flight (i.e. my Army Aviation career). Some things I focused on from last year like caffeine usage, I can classify as a sub-goal of fitness. Other goals like my regular emphasis on sustainability, is more of a conscious effort that I plan on continuing. So maybe my next article will be about how to classify my goals. I might reorganize this post in that newly developed context at some point, but we’ll see.

Thanks to Shalene Henderson, Stuart Summers, and Katie Sedlmeyer for proofreading for me.

If you’d like to be one of the people I ask to help review, let me know 🙌