On November 12th there will be 50 days until we can finally flush 2020 down the toilet. Well, maybe not all of it. November 7th was a pretty good day at least in my opinion.
But I was thinking, since there will only be 50 days left from November 12th, maybe I could end the year on a positive personal note by setting a few 50 day goals and trying to achieve them. Since I generally set New Year’s resolutions that I almost never keep, maybe banging out a 50 day challenge will be a good mini-accomplishment I can help boost my resolve to do more in 2021.
So, here are my four goals for the next 50 days.
Stretch daily.
Since my early thirties I’ve had a stiff lower back. In my early forties my back started going out. Sessions with a massage therapist helped a lot, but I still would spend about a week suffering some serious pain whenever it happened.
I started to doing a very short (7 minute) stretch routine every day and I noticed my back stopped going out and was far less sore. I kept this daily routine up for several years, but eventually got lazy and stopped.
Recently, my lower back has gotten bad again. I’m hoping going back to my daily stretching routine will help.
2. Write 500 words a day.
This one should be easy for me. I generally write about 1000 words an hour. Finding 30 minutes a day shouldn’t be that hard. But the potential pay off is huge. In September I indie-published the first book in my Sci Fi/Cyberpunk novelette series, Mystical Meat Machines. Book two comes out on November 18th. The third one is planned to be released in January 2021. These novelettes are 11,000 words roughly. If I can stick to my 500 words a day plan then by December 31st I’d have book three and four in the series done. Or, at least I’d have the rough drafts done. Also, I’ll have 5,000 words of either book five or maybe a few other things. 25,000 words on the page would be a great way to go into the new year strong for me.
3. Do something daily to promote your books/writing.
This one should be easy enough to do. Honestly, though, there are often times where I go over a week without promoting my writing at all. This is extremely stupid and lazy of me to do this. Sharing a link, posting a poem on Instagram, writing a 200 word blog post, or even just a quick post of social media to let people know I’m still writing is enough.
I’m all over social media, so I could easily post to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Medium, Ello, LinkIn, and my blog once a week without my followers feeling like I’m spamming them. Part of the reason I’ve been lax in doing this is that it rarely feels like it is worth it. But if I’m honest with myself, I know that when I do promote my books/writing I almost always get someone at least promising to check out my work. Selling books is a “daisies through concrete” grind most of the time, but doing nothing guarantees that nothing will ever happen. I htink it’s time to put some seeds on the sidewalk and start watering that shit daily.
4. Mediate at least 10 minutes a day
When I was in my woo woo phase a few years back I meditated regularly for seven years. Like 2–3 times a day for 20 minutes a pop “regularly”. Even though I’m a solid atheist now, I still think there are benefits to meditation. And since I’ve been doing it long enough I know what a meditative state feels like, so there is really no reason why I can’t set aside ten minutes a day and do this too. It has been a while since I’ve meditated on a daily basis, but I do have to say when I used to do it in the morning my day tended to go better. I’m looking forward to seeing if that is the case again.
With a some determination and a little luck I think I’ll be able to do this one. And if not, there’s always those New Year’s resolutions just around the corner.