2021 Resolutions: End of Year Recap

I realized that I never made a 2021 New Year's Resolution post! Or rather, more accurately, that I wrote a post, but I accidentally deleted my website when trying to explore other hosting/domain options and the post never made it to the blog and stayed on Patreon only. So here's a "refresher" so to speak of what my 2021 resolutions were. This year my goal was to Expand, Explore, Excite, and Express. I wanted to expose myself to new things in the hopes of finding inspiration, or even just broadening my mindset and worldview. Essentially, to intentionally consume media rather than doing so casually. My first few resolutions revolved heavily around that, and the rest were more general goals.

2021 Resolutions

• read 24 books
• watch 52 movies
• listen to 52 albums
• exercise regularly (goal: 30 min/day, 5-6x/wk)
• make more time for self care (goal: at least 1x/wk)
• create art series
• produce album
• improve Korean
• podcast regularly updated (2x/month) and on iTunes/Spotify
• have $10k in savings by end of year

Bonus:

• make animated short
• portal house

You can see how I did below (with some fancy color-coding) Not bad, if I say so for myself!

• read 24 books -> 23/24 (in progress)
• watch 52 movies -> 48/52 (in progress)
• listen to 52 albums -> 58/52 ACHIEVED
• exercise regularly (goal: 30 min/day, 5-6x/wk) ACHIEVED
• make more time for self care (goal: at least 1x/wk) ACHIEVED
• create art series ACHIEVED
• produce album
• improve Korean ACHIEVED
• podcast regularly updated (2x/month) and on iTunes/Spotify ACHIEVED
• have $10k in savings by end of year

Bonus:

• make animated short (in progress)
• portal house

I'm sure there are some you would have no problem watching 52 films in a year, but for me it was harder than I thought it would be! I had given myself the condition that these all had to be movies I hadn't already seen before (same for the books and albums). I decided to include television series as well, so long as they were narrative. There were a few weeks where I would've rather watched one of my competition shows or a film I had already seen, so I wasn't exactly watching a film a week. But still, 48 in a year is a lot. I still have 4 to go, but I'm sure I'll have no problem finishing them out before the end of the year.

My books goal is one I've had before in previous years that I wanted to revisit. I decided to include short stories, comic books (so long as they were completed) and graphic novels as well. I've only got one more left, so I've been debating what to end the year with.

Listening to albums was a lot harder than I thought, firstly because I wouldn't know what to listen to, and secondly because I'd default to listening to albums I already liked. But I ended up queuing like 20 albums for a roadtrip and more than accomplished my goal.

I'd love to write about my top picks of the books, films, and albums I listened to in the future, so keep an eye out soon for some hot takes and opinions!

With regards to the rest of my goals, I'm pretty proud of what I was able to get done. I can't really say I exercised every single week for the amount that I had initially wanted, but I did exercise fairly regularly up until my marathon when I could, at least weekly on average. I was also much more intentional with my self care. I was tracking both for a while in my planner using stickers, but that fell off after August. Still, I know based on previous years I had definitely improved in both areas.

When I made the goal to create an art series, I had a different idea in mind for how I would accomplish it. I was expecting to create an entire portfolio for my grad school application. That didn't end up happening, but I did finish a pre-existing series I had started, my 2018 Inktober comic, for grad school, which felt really good. And fits the brief!

A bit of the same for Korean. I had a list of ways I could quantify "improvement" but around April I bit the bullet and signed up for private lessons, and I can definitely say there has been growth compared to last year.

Lastly, while there were still hiccups in making sure our podcast episodes were regularly updated, we still hit a stride for a few months AND we are on iTunes and Spotify. That mostly goes to my co-host, but it was accomplished nonetheless. And for the bonus, I did start developing an animated short with some friends!

As for the goals I wasn't able to accomplish, producing an album definitely fell by the wayside. I did play around in Ableton a bit, but nowhere near actual music production. I also SUPER failed my financial goals. Ironically I was at a point where I could have hit it much earlier in the year, but alas. And, unfortunately, I didn't make very much headway into Portal House, although I did recently hit a narrative epiphany.

Overall, I think this past year I did really well with accomplishing my goals, especially compared with previous years. I'm not sure if it's a more realistic set of resolutions, or more task-oriented goals, or a better understanding of how to motivate myself, using a different planner, all of the above, or other factors. But it does make me feel good, and energized for the next year.

How were your resolutions for the year? Do you have ideas for your 2022 resolutions? Let me know below!