Happy New Year to All! Congratulations on making another successful circuit around the sun. Here’s a wish for everyone to have a healthy and prosperous 2025.

As you well know, it is traditional for people to make resolutions for the upcoming New Year in an attempt to improve themselves. In previous New Year’s posts, I’ve made note that I am too damned old and set in my ways to try and make a “better” version of myself.

That being said, I do like to set some goals at the start of the New Year that I think will make for a happier and/or healthier me. Rather than doing resolutions, though, I prefer to do S.M.A.R.T. goals.

S.M.A.R.T. goals for 2025

S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. I only have 3 goals this year, because setting too many goals leads to distraction and failure. In other words, focusing on a few, or even one, goal usually leads to a better success rate.

However, I have broken my goals into component parts to better track my progress (Measurable).

1. Make exercise a habit, not a goal

A while back I was trying to motivate myself to return to the gym, but I wasn’t having much luck. So what’s a old fogey to do in such a situation? Why, look on the interwebs for a solution of course!

While browsing, I came across an article that I found profoundly useful, that unfortunately I cannot find again. The author asked his readers if setting fitness goals and reading motivational articles have helped in them the past. If they have, great! Keep doing them.

But if they haven’t, then why is the reader still using techniques that have resulted in repeated disappointment? They obviously are not working for the reader. Instead, the author suggests that instead of trying to rely on motivation to exercise, the reader just needs to accept the fact that working out is just something one does now.

Holy cow! What an epiphany! I finally comprehend the old Nike ‘Just Do It’ ads. After all, I grocery shop, even though I don’t like doing it. I mow the lawn, even though there are times I am really tired. I empty the trash, despite spite of the fact it’s cold and dark out. I do these things, not because I want to, but because they need to be done!

And that is now my attitude toward exercise. In other words, I exercise because I feel it’s something that needs to be done.

Here is the breakdown for this goal:

• Go to gym, walk, or ride the bike a least twice a week. More would be better.
• Do not focus on motivation.  Focus on “it is just something I do now, like grocery shopping or brushing my teeth”.
• Exercise all 52 weeks.

2. Make reading a priority

I continue to find my reading self in conflict with that dopamine generator known as the World Wide Web (remember that?). The internet plays hell with our attention spans. While I certainly enjoy reading, it is a simply a fact that takes more effort to read than it does to mindlessly scroll through the web. Just like a muscle, the brain can get soft and flabby if it is not challenged on a regular basis.

In 2024, I was able to read 34 books, several of them I found fairly challenging. I’m not concerned much with how many books I read. It’s more important to me that I enjoy the act of reading. Otherwise, should the book is a difficult one, I want to ensure that I am gaining knowledge from it. For I am still as curious about the world around me as I was when I was a wide-eyed youth.

Herein is the breakdown:

• Read from a book or magazine every day.
• Continue to read 10 pages of Harvard Classics everyday.
• Read ‘Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton’ by Edward Rice
• Read ‘The Great Sea’ by David Abulafila.
• Read The California & Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman.
• Read ‘Decision in Philadelphia’ by Collier

3. Expand my comfort zone

I have found that with each passing year that my comfort zone is growing ever smaller. I am a homebody by nature, but my happy place is starting to feel more like a penitentiary. Obviously I cannot change who I am, but I can expand my zone a somewhat over the next 12 months.

The breakdown:

Things I would like to see/do in 2025

• Take a weekend autumn drive to Glenwood Springs with MrsVintage.
• Ride ‘Tour de Vineyards’ in September.
• Check out the ‘Western Colorado Botanical Gardens’ while I am in Grand Junction for the tour ride: https://wcbotanic.org/
• Seeing that I am already in Grand Junction, I will visit ‘Museum of the West’: https://www.museumofwesternco.com/museum-of-the-west/
• Bicycle either the Bear Creek bike trail to Morrison, or the Clear Creek trail to Golden.
• Visit ‘Wings over the Rockies Museum’: https://wingsmuseum.org/
• Visit ‘Colorado Railroad Museum’ in Golden: https://coloradorailroadmuseum.org/

Garden Plans for 2025

• Take a gardening class or two with the Denver Botanical Gardens.
• Plant 3 ‘Red October’ big bluestems in grass border in backyard.
• Plant a few more Ajuga ‘Bronze Beauty’ in the front raised bed.
• Plant several ‘Sea Heart’ Brunnera in raised front bed.
• If daylilies in the front raised bed do not perform, replace with 3 Hakonechloa ‘Beni-Kaze’ in the fall.

Finis

So, these are my goals for the upcoming year. As can be seen, there’s nothing life transforming here. God willing, I will still be the same old MrVintageMan at the end of 2025 as I was at the start. But with a little bit of elbow grease, I might be a healthier and wiser MrVintageMan come the next New Year.

How about you? Any resolutions or goals you hope to accomplish in 2025?