A New Year in New York

At the changing of each year, I put my own little spin on tradition and instead of making resolutions, I set goals. To me, a resolution is rarely successful. It's too vague. It's too over-reaching. And at this point, I think a lot of people don't take them seriously because of their high failure rate.

Now that's not saying that there's no value to be had in reflection and trying to improve in a new year, I just prefer goals as a means to that end because they seem, well, more accomplishable.

I just dug out my goals for 2009 and was a little disappointed in myself, though. I had about a 50% success rate, which is okay, but I don't usually strive for 50%. I guess goals can be a bit unmanageable sometimes, too, but I will say that I made at least some progress towards almost all of my goals, so I think that my time spent making them wasn't wasted. I also didn't really appreciate how much time the wedding was going to eat up to the point that it made me have to cut back in how much time I spent working on my acting career, but the wedding fun is all over now, so that excuse is eliminated for next year :)

In 2009, I succeeded at many of my goals like creating more showbiz industry relationships, spending at least one morning/afternoon/or evening out of the apartment on a date with the mister, getting a new pet (we got two!), and making sure to visit with at least two friends a week, to name a few.

I also failed at some like joining one of the acting unions, getting onto a soap set, and putting more money into savings (uh, I blame the wedding for this one, too).

Although I am a very ambitious and goal-oriented person, I also think it's important not to get too wrapped up in where you didn't quite meet your own expectations, because sometimes, things change. I could never have predicted a year ago that I would be a Weddingbee blogger, would have started my own dog boarding company, or would be celebrating the opening of my own Etsy shop. None of these things were on my list of goals for 2009, but I wouldn't take them back for anything.

That said, I will be sharing with you a partial list of my goals for 2010 (you'd be bored by the whole thing, I promise) :

Acting -- Join AFTRA, put together a reel, perform in another musical, use up my Network credits

Family and Friends -- Continue once-a-week date night with Hubby, make 3 new friends to hang out with, teach my sisters something new

Home -- Finish decorating to-do list, start gardening on the balcony, finish wedding recaps, blog at least 3x a week on my personal blog (that's here!), start acting blog and recruit other bloggers for it

Businesses -- Build up to making at least two Etsy sales a week, Board a dog at least three times a month, replace at least 50% of babysitting income

Photo Credit

Maybe sharing my 2010 goals will help keep me even more accountable in the new year.

How successful were you in 2009 by your pre-2009 self's standards? What are your goals or resolutions moving forward?