Spring review: how am I doing with my 2018 plan?

Three months have passed since I planned for 2018.

It’s time to review the beginning of the year and see where I am on track and where I’m falling behind. I had a very ambitious plan, with 11 different categories where I wanted to progress… How does that match with real life? Is it possible to go from written objectives to reality? Is it that easy?

The answer is yes… and no.

Spring review in action

Looking back at my yearly objectives, I decided to evaluate them according to three criteria:

The “on track” group: those are elements where I was able to completely keep up with my goals. There are four out of seven categories that fell in this group with some exciting achievements.

• RDE Marketing is doing good and we’re on track with our 2018 objectives. There are new projects on the horizon and Charlotte and I are busy as bees.
• Although I stayed pretty local this quarter, I have some amazing trips coming up in the next few months, including the exploration of southern Ireland, a new country to add to my “have been there”-list.
• I am up to 200 words & expressions in Spanish, with even a 40-something days streak on Mosalingua. Turns out, none of the destinations I’m planning to go to this year are hispanic, but, it doesn’t take away from my motivation. I also have mastered the entire ASL alphabet, numbers from 0-9, and “I, me, mine” vocabulary. Yay me!
• Finally, the payment of my car is going smoothly. This goal was part of my easy ones. But it is still good to notice when things are going smoothly.

The “though one” group: those are the elements that take a little more effort than I would have expected. Some are still realistically doable, others might be falling on the way side if I don’t pay attention.

• My social life has take a tow with the cold winter. Apparently, I hibernated. But spring is here now, so let’s hope that’ll bring back good times with my friends.
• TheVagabondMonkey project has not taken off as fast as John and I would have hoped. Neither of us has, probably, dedicated to it the time and energy we thought we would. But we have a new list of trips on our agenda to play with!
• As hard as I’m trying to get back into running, I’m barely reaching the 3k/week mark… which is far from what I’d need to do if I wanted to run a 10k in the Fall.
• I’m doing pretty good keeping up with this blog. But I haven’t given much time to building my audience. Thankfully, you guys are here…
• I had started The Artist’s Way: 25th Anniversary Edition adventure with my friend Kimberlee and should have been done by the end of March. If I’m done reading the book (review to come very soon), I’m taking my good old time with the diverse exercises. Could it be saying that I don’t want this challenge to end?

The “forget about it… for now” group: those are the elements that I decided to put on the back-burner, because, clearly, I don’t have enough time/energy/desire to give it a real shot. And that would be freelancing as a writer. However, I have been very good at writing: morning pages for The Artist’s Way, bi-monthly blog posts and guest posts for RDE Marketing, articles for this blog and for UneVagabonde (in French and in English) and two submissions the the monthly blogger challenge #EnFranceAussi.

So, all in all, this is not too bad of a start for the year. Let’s see what will have kicked into gears at the halfway mark.