Graham Sedam Writes

I feel like I had a pretty good 2018. I set goals. I experimented with them. I accomplished much. Now that it’s the beginning of 2019, I feel as though I have a clean slate. I have the opportunity to build, maintain, and reframe what’s important to me and where I see the gaps in my ambitions are. Of course, every day is an uphill battle. I am not wealthy nor without the need to work a “day job.” I have a wife and kids, and they have their own needs and desires, which often conflict with my own. Every day requires effort. That’s not to say that some days don’t happen to work out and go smoothly. For the most part, there is no natural smoothness. It takes energy, effort, and a clear understanding of objectives and priorities. Even though I feel I have a clean slate, I still want to carry over goals or aspects of goals to 2019. I’ll surely re-evaluate as I go, but I need a direction to start in. I learned plenty from last year, some of which I go into in the wrap-up post for my 2018

I’ve been thinking about this post off and on throughout the year, and considering how late in the year it is, I figured that I should get to writing one if it was going to happen at all. Of course, I'm talking about an official revisit to my 2018 goals, the ones I discussed at the beginning of the year in the post, “ Got Resolve? 2018 Goals Dissected .” I’m glad that I waited to write up a draft. Looking at the notes I made throughout the year is great, and some may sneak their way into this post, but many of them feel incomplete. Now that I've gone almost a full year working to achieve these goals, I feel like I have a much better handle on what I've gained, what they taught me, and how I can build upon that next year. Did I achieve my goals? Yes—absolutely. Although, there needs to be an asterisk added to that “yes” for the aid of a footnote. I was doing really well tackling my goals as of June, and I had gotten into a great routine to foster that momentum. However,

This year, this month actually, I'm turning forty. I'll try to spare you the clichés and trappings of a post about turning forty, but chances are I'll fail at that. Why? Because there's something universal to stereotypes and clichés. There's a truth to them that we may not want to admit. There's a reason they exist. Turning forty and our feelings about it are no exception. I could also go on at great lengths talking about a lot of different things related to my life up until turning forty and where I’m at in life now and where I see myself going. Instead, I felt it best to highlight a few different things that I’ve thought about most in regards to this decade milestone. How has age influenced my decisions and my outlook the most? I don't believe that I went through or am going through a midlife crisis. To some extent, I feel like I've already gone through plenty of internal life crises. In the least, we all have micro life crises along the way, so

Because, I'm not. I'll admit that, from a distance, it looks like I am. But, I am not. With the launch of my 2018 goals this year, there have been intended-though-not-intentional repercussions. Confusing? Let me explain. I wanted to make changes, and I knew those changes were going to cause other changes. However, I never knew what those changes would be. One minute, I give myself a goal to "exercise 5 minutes a day," the next minute, I'm running a 5k on the treadmill. Well, not literally the next minute. One thing leads to another, as they say. I initially started walking briskly on the treadmill immediately after using my Total Gym in the morning. I enjoy watching videos I've put in my “watch later” list on YouTube while I'm on the treadmill. They're generally educational or motivational, but it's a mis-mosh of whatever I've saved for later. This helps the time go by more quickly and efficiently, and it can be easy to forget how long I

I stated in the post " Got Resolve? A New Year's Beginning " that I would be explaining the goals I outlined in more detail. If you want a little more background on my musing about goals, New Year's Resolutions, and the like, you can start with the post linked above. Or, you can start with a post I wrote in early 2017 entitled, " Not So New Resolutions For The New Year ." I'm going to try and keep this post more focused and answer nonexistent questions, to explain my rationale for setting the goals up the way I did. This post, no doubt, will still be plenty long. I've established some rules because having goals isn't enough, right? *Sarcasm* In this case, I felt rules were necessary to ultimately gain what I hope to get out of this project. It's more than saying, "I want to do this, and look, it's done." I'm not only trying to accomplish the particular item on the list, but also trying to change my brain and daily habit

Last year around this time, I wrote a post entitled, " Not So New Resolutions For The New Year ." The post wasn't so much about my own resolutions for the year as much as talking about resolutions in general. I don't plan on repeating any of that in this post, so you're better off reading or rereading it. It could serve to make this post all the richer. Or, not. This year, I wondered if I should write about habits I want to break or make. It would be goals of a certain stripe, not everything I hope to accomplish. There are some goals too personal for this blog, and some of those are my financial goals and adjustments that I make each year. When it comes to projects and hobbies, I kind of already tackle those goals and their progress throughout the year with my blog feature, The R&D Workshop . And since a year is 365 days strong, things change and goals may need to be rethought somewhere down the calendar, or maybe new ones need to be put into place. Decembe