Playing Catch-up

The end of the year is drawing near. There are only two more days left in it. I always find that I contradict myself in making New Year's Resolutions because I think it is dumb to say "I want to get in shape" or "I want to be more outgoing" because what is stopping you from trying to start that at any ole time. Instead, I started to set goals for myself at the beginning of each year. They are close to resolutions, but not quite.

The year 2012 was no different. I set myself quite a few goals at the beginning of this year and subsequently  at the beginning of each month. I reached some of them, exceeded a few of them, and failed most of them. It did not bother me that I did not meet most of my goals because I knew that I reached other ones and that overall, yes, I did have quite a successful year despite not doing everything that I had hoped to.

But with that in mind, I think I still felt the push to try a bit harder in reaching them. At the beginning of this month, I knew that I would not be accomplishing my goal of running a marathon. I wouldn't even get to the halfway point with running a half marathon, so I decided I should aim for running 10 miles without stopping. It seemed reasonable enough to me and it would have been possible if I set up my running schedule to span over longer than 4 weeks. I tried to cram so much into a short period of time that I ended up straining my Achilles tendon and not running at all for a week and half. So even when it comes to reaching my own goals, I procrastinate and I find myself playing catch-up as the deadline approaches. It worked when I had a research paper due the next morning, not so much when I wanted to achieve some goal that will better myself.

And while this may be a terrible habit that I have, I feel that I developed it because it is a feeling that I have concerning my life overall. I always feel that I am falling behind someone else or something else or that ideal person that I should be. Sure, I should always strive for something great and push towards a better me or to reach a particular goal, but I don't think I should always try to be catching up to something. I should be establishing my steps towards it and see it as I am going forward not just being another step behind and I would have to scramble to get to that point.

So, as anti-New Year's resolutions I am, I will not be playing catch-up in 2013.