Tag: goals

#37 Art History

I wasn’t sure how to go about learning Art History, so I started by just going to art museums. Which I will say art is nice to look at (obviously) and I saw lots of interesting pieces (such as a Picasso exhibit when I was in Budapest and when I was in NY I visited the Met), but without actually having someone there they kind of fell flat on the history aspect of it. I saw a lot, but I felt like I didn’t learn any proper Art History. Though, as a side note I do make sure to visit art museums every time I travel to different countries as I find it helps me learn the culture.

To expand upon my knowledge I looked up Art History classes on Coursera. There I found a Modern Art and Ideas course by the Museum of Modern Art and enrolled in it. Sadly it was only a 5 week course and it only took less than a day to cover all the material in it.

Though, from there I discovered that the Museum of Modern Art website has a learning section. I went and scrolled through the material and did research there for a little while.

But I still didn’t learn enough.

So with my still slim knowledge of Art History I moved onto Khan Academy. I used Khan Academy back in high school and at that time it was just a place with math and science courses. Now it has expanded to all sorts of subjects; including an entire art history section spanning from prehistoric art to neoclassical art to modern art. Needless to say Khan Academy was exactly what I needed.

Except that once I finally got into the Art History sections and lessons I realized how utterly dull I found it. I made it through 3 sections of Khan lessons and through each of those lessons I kept asking myself why do I keep forcing myself to keep going when I clearly find it boring and am not enjoying myself.

To change-up my perspectives a bit I looked up art history documentaries on Netflix and see if a different style would help me find focus. It didn’t. I couldn’t get into anything I watched and nothing seemed to click with me.

With that I came to a revelation that I didn’t want to come to. I’m not going to be an awesome Art History buff. That isn’t where my skills or talents lie and I will say I started this challenge bull-headed and convinced that I would be able to learn and master art history, but at the end of the day I don’t actually have that much interest in it.

I will say that this challenge is complete on the account that I have learned way more about Art History than previously. I just did not get to the level at which I first imagined when I came up with this goal. I would like to believe I will continue learning art history, but not seriously.

✓

 

 

Master List

The Plan: Have 100 goals completed before I turn 30.

The Goals:

  1. Know over 25 go to healthy recipes
  2. Clear skin
  3. Find a fitness activity to be passionate about
  4. Get to and maintain a 59 kilograms weight
  5. Keep consistent pace on a run
  6. Dance every day for a month
  7. Do another OCR
  8. 20 Mile Hike
  9. 20 Consecutive Push Ups
  10. Learn some yoga
  11. Master a classical piano piece
  12. Make a table top game
  13. Build a game table
  14. Finish a full art journal
  15. Paint a picture
  16. Scrapbook
  17. Learn calligraphy
  18. Bake and Decorate an Eccentric Cake
  19. Learn ballroom dancing
  20. Write a Book
  21. Zorbing
  22. Sky dive
  23. Parasailing/Paragliding
  24. Canyoneering
  25. Learn to Sail
  26. Zip line
  27. Surfing
  28. Scuba Diving
  29. Bungee jump
  30. Backpacking trip
  31. Read 1000 books
  32. Fluent Spanish
  33. Decent Korean
  34. Obscure history
  35. Connoisseur of Tea
  36. Study Business
  37. Art History
  38. Astronomy
  39. Study a Theory
  40. Learn something I have no prior interest in
  41. Puerto Rico
  42. Spain
  43. Italy
  44. Peru
  45. South Korea
  46. Southeast Asia
  47. Greece
  48. Iceland
  49. New Zealand
  50. Road Trip the U.S.
  51. Budget
  52. Savings
  53. Start Investing
  54. 800+ Credit Score
  55. Passive Income
  56. Financial Freedom
  57. Pay off all Debts
  58. Proper Accounting
  59. Start my own business
  60. Own a Home
  61. Gardening
  62. Fly Tying
  63. Cardistry
  64. Survival
  65. Knife Throwing
  66. Leather Craft
  67. Bartending
  68. Fighting
  69. Videography
  70. Beauty
  71. Go Dancing at least twice a month for a year
  72. Monthly Board Game Night
  73. Go out every night for 1 week
  74. Throwback outings
  75. Live music
  76. Make New Friends
  77. Say Yes
  78. Go to Vegas with a Group
  79. Dating
  80. Join a Club
  81. 9 Ball Break and Run
  82. Complete a Dozen Escape Rooms
  83. See a Play on Broadway
  84. Stay in a Haunted Hotel
  85. Fly First Class
  86. Have the best Theme Party
  87. Go to a World Festival
  88. Cook Everything in a Cookbook
  89. Drive an Expensive Sports Car
  90. Teach dog utterly useless trick
  91. Have a Car Chase
  92. Befriend strangers at hotel
  93. Go to a Psychic
  94. Start a dramatic scene from a movie to someone in coffee shop
  95. Return something lost to someone
  96. Have someone tell me their life story
  97. See someone in a bookstore looking at a book and buy it for them
  98. See a shop that is doing some type of class and go sign up for one
  99. Make up a different persona for a day
  100. Attend a fancy affair

Circumstance

Expect the unexpected. This list relies on circumstances that will hopefully lead me to interesting adventures.

  1. Get in a taxi and yell “follow that car”
    • Taxi must follow that car, can’t just yell it and then nothing happen.
  2. Befriend strangers at hotel
    • Make some travel friends!
  3. Go to a Psychic
    • Something has to happen right?
  4. Start a dramatic scene from a movie to someone in coffee shop
    • Probably will scare the heck out of some people, but the hope is to get the target to join in.
  5. Return something lost to someone
    • Preferably including some dramatic running.
  6. Have someone tell me their life story in 2 hours
    • Perhaps someone in a park or someone who isn’t in a rush.
  7. See someone in a bookstore looking at a book and buy it for them
    • Hopefully leads to friendship or at least a long discussion of books.
  8. See a shop that is doing some type of class and go sign up for one
    • Spontaneous moment.
  9. Make up a different persona for a day
    • Commit fully on style, attitude, and everything.
  10. Attend a fancy affair
    • A reason to get dolled up and be classy and live the high society life just for a night.

 

Social

I am pretty introverted as a person, so I wanted to have a set list of challenges that kind of forced me out and expand myself socially. But also allow myself to have fun doing them and not make socializing feel like a chore. I want to get out there, but I don’t want to do too much and lock myself up.  This list is set up to put me out there, but allows me to stay true to my personality.

Social Goals:

  1. Go Dancing at least twice a month for a year
    • I actually love going swing dancing or line dancing or literally any dancing people invite me too and I go a lot and then I just stop. Not sure why, I clearly enjoy it, but I just start avoiding it. It’s something that I wanna enjoy and it’s an activity that is fun and gets me socialized.
  2. Monthly Board Game Night
    • I would like to keep this up for the rest of my life so I’mma need a consistent group! But for challenge purposes I will say this will be accomplished after a year of consistency.
  3. Go out every night for one week
    • This has to be when I’m home, when I’m traveling or on vacation this is easy, but when I’m home going out every night is a struggle. I don’t think I’ve ever successfully gone out every day of the week before, so gotta get on that.
  4. Throwback outings
    • I didn’t really know how to phrase this, but once a month I should get someone to go out and do something that we would have done when we were kids. Like as a kid I went bowling and did laser tag a lot, but in recent years haven’t gone since I turned eighteen, so that would be a throwback outing.
  5. Live music
    • I’ve gone to quite a few concerts, so I don’t really know what I mean by this, but it’s social and it’s something that I should do more of for more life experiences. So maybe see ten live shows in a given amount of time to make it more of a challenge. I have figured out what I’m doing for this challenge! For this to be accomplished I have to go see bands at 10 different concert venues. I realized I have been to quite a few concerts but only at 1 or 2 venues and so I have moved the focus of this goal to going to more concert venues.
  6. Make New friends
    • I know this is super generalized and I love all my current friends and I do have friends so thankfully I’m not a total loner, but I do realize that I have my own little circle. That’s fine, but I’d like to meet more people and the more friends the more social experiences I will get.
  7. Say Yes
    • Take the Yes Man mentality for a day or a week
  8. Go to Vegas with a Group
    • This used to be a conversation social challenge, but then I spent a weekend in Vegas with friends and with the level of socialization I did it felt like that had to be swapped out for Vegas. Plus I really want to cross off some more goals so this one is going to be a give me.
  9. Dating
    • I don’t go out on dates often and it’s definitely because of some insecurities and me being picky, but I do know it is something I should start doing a bit more often. Dating doesn’t have to be just to find a special someone (though that’s kind of the purpose), they provide some great social times and even if it is initially a date, but becomes a friend thing that’s even better cause I am always down for some friends! Plus it will leave me some (potentially great) stories.
  10. Join a Club
    • Maybe I’ll find a new hobby or expand on my current ones!

Travel

Half way through making this list! It’s slow going, but I’m really trying to put some decent thought into these goals. This was a hard list to narrow down because I really do want to travel as much as possible, so picking the top 10 was quite difficult.

Travel Goals: 

  1. Puerto Rico
    • Not only am I a Puerto Rican that doesn’t speak Spanish, I haven’t even been to the island. Yeah…My mother is very ashamed of me.
  2. Spain
    • Technically I am more Spaniard than Puerto Rican, but that’s where they came from before they immigrated to Puerto Rico. It all kind of blends together. But I have always wanted to go to Spain, not just cause of my own history. The country itself is full of rich history and gorgeous towns.
  3. Italy
    • Everyone says to go to Italy and everyone is obsessed with Italy. Therefore, I must go to Italy.
  4. Peru
    • Machu Picchu here I come.
  5. South Korea
    • Listen if I am learning Korean as my hobby language I better go and use it. I don’t wanna know a language and never use it! Plus, way better to learn and practice it by going there.
  6. Southeast Asia
    • I’m curious about the culture, the food, the beaches, the water, just everything.
  7. Greece
    • The more that I think about it, Greece seems to be calling to me.
  8. Iceland
    • Everything about Iceland looks absolutely stunning and all I wanna do is hike and enjoy everything about the land.
  9. New Zealand
    • Lord of the Rings. Nuff said.
  10. Road Trip the U.S.
    • I’m from Colorado and I’ve been around to other states a little bit, but I really need to go out more. I’ve only been to like 5 states.

Knowledge

Honestly, I want to learn all the things and just gain as much knowledge as I can through this life. Putting this list together was heavy struggle for me and it may change throughout the years, but as a basis this is where it is starting.

Knowledge Goals:

  1. Read 1000 books
    • Right out the gate with a big number and after seeing how difficult I’ve been struggling with a list of 100 things, I somehow believe that I can read 1000 books. I track all the books I read and have read on goodreads and currently I am up to 307 books read. Also, for this goal I’m not talking every book is a novel. Essentially, everything that I track on my goodreads will count and that includes novels, short stories, web serials, manga, manhwa, comics, etc. Just anything that I read and I think values to be added on my goodreads.
  2. Fluent Spanish
    • I’m a Puerto Rican that has terrible Spanish and that needs to be fixed.
  3. Proficient Korean
    • This just sounds fun and not gonna lie I am mostly learning this because I’m currently on a kdrama kick. Plus, the language is super interesting and now being able to recognize Hangul randomly whenever I’m out in town is cool.
  4. Obscure history
    • I am not sure how I will know if I have fulfilled this goal. Perhaps, know over 10 obscure history things that become my go to conversation topic. Classify them as known obscure history after I have had good conversations with people about the history. And by good conversations I mean actually having real conversation about the topic and not just me talking at a person about this cool fact.
  5. Connoisseur of Tea
    • I love tea. Therefore, I must be a tea master.
  6. Study Business
    • Ironically, I actually already do lots of business-y type things, but I don’t have proper education and I am getting to a point in my life where it is becoming a bit more essential to have the research. Can’t really wing things any more when lots of people and money are involved.
  7. Art History
    • I’ve always wanted to be the person that sees a painting and be like “oh yes, this is a Rembrandt.” To do that I’m going to have to study up on art styles and actually have a better understanding of how to tell the difference of art styles and the era it was done. Sadly, a lot of the time the meaning of art just goes over my head and I just nod like I get it, when really I am heavily lost.
  8. Astronomy
    • I’m not gonna lie this is absolutely an excuse to get into stargazing and to rationalize my want of a telescope. (Was originally Oceanography, but for the life of me I could not get into anything ocean related)
  9. Study a Theory
    • Not sure which one, but I would like an in-depth scientific one with lots of material out there, so I can get as much of an understanding as I can about it.
  10. Learn something I have no prior interest in
    • This will help me get out of my comfort zone of knowledge and maybe gain an appreciation for a topic that I normally wouldn’t care for.

Adventure

Here’s a list of all the cliché adventure, thrill seeking activities that I’ve decided I need to experience.

Adventure Goals:

  1. Zorbing
    • I saw a video on this back when I was 14 and have been curious ever since. Plus, what’s not to like about pretending to be a hamster for a little while.
  2. Sky dive
    • Preferably in Moab, cause someone made a very accurate point that it would be like sky diving on Mars. Everything about that sounds awesome.
  3. Parasailing or Paragliding
    • My parents said to do it.
  4. Canyoneering
    • I wanna repel down sides of mountains and see all the things!
  5. Sailing
    • My brother always goes on about sailing, not that he’s ever done it. But I’d like to try it since he always makes it sound exciting. Though I’d go with a professional because I really don’t wanna get stuck in the ocean and die a most horrible death. This one may terrify me the most, but commit?
  6. Zip Line
    • I don’t know why, but I’ve never been zip lining. There is this place in Kentucky where you can zip line underground in caves and that sounds wild to me. When I go zip lining I’d like to do it there, or some where equivalent.
  7. Surfing
    • Honestly this was Hang Gliding, but then someone was like a friend of mine died this way and I was like never mind that. Then I realized I haven’t been surfing before and that sounds fun. Plus I like the water.
  8. Get scuba certified and go diving
    • Never been into it before, but I think it’s time that I go discover what’s great about it.
  9. Bungee Jump
    • Someone may need to push me off.
  10. Backpacking trip
    • My dad has been talking about this for a little while and I really want to go on a backpacking trip with him. He just recently had a heart attack, so now the want to go is escalating. Right now we are getting back into shape for it and taking it easy with little hikes now. Eventually, he and I both will be in proper shape and then we can do our trip. I’d like it for my brother to be able to join as well so we’d have a family (minus Momma cause we know better) adventure.

Creative

I’m going to have to get creative with this list…. Yeah lame pun. Was worth it.

Creative List:

  1. Master a classical piano piece
    • I’ve been playing the piano since I was a kid and it’s embarrassing to say how much I actually suck at it. This has been something that I have already been working on and it’s something that I have always loved, but have just never been good/patient enough. Also, I’m talking full mastery of this piece, not the easier version just to say I did it. I want the difficult, fast paced piece that will literally make me scream in anguish, but will be totally worth it. This was originally 5, but I don’t want to get stuck on a number. Right now I just want to focus on a piece that I love and if I continue to learn more I’ll be thrilled. But for this goal I’d like just to have one under my belt.
  2. Make a table top game
    • I love board games, card games, dice games, just games. Therefore, I want to make my own table top in its entirety. I want to have a box on my shelf of my game and be like “yeah, I made that.”
  3. Build a game table (Looking at you Brother)
    • As much as I love my board games I have nowhere awesome to play them. My dear brother of mine came up with the idea to build this table a year or two ago and it has yet to happen. I’m going to choose to believe it will happen before I’m 30.
  4. Finish a full art journal
    • With all journals I get about 20 pages in, then forget about it and then start a new one. So for this I want to have a journal and fill it completely up, but writing all the time is difficult (read: she says as she’s writing a blog post). To counter that I am starting an art journal (read: I am so not artistic) that will be full of randomness and maybe some art (read: it won’t be pretty).
  5. Paint a picture
    • I’m not a strong painter, but I’d like to go to a Canvas and Cocktails so I see myself doing this one day. Plus, it’s not like the picture needs to look good…right?
  6. Scrapbook
    • My parents have all of the family and childhood photos just stacked up in a closet still inside the Walmart developed photo envelopes. Never been touched, just there. I’d like to go through all of it, maybe with my family and get them all in photo albums. I secretly wanna be Leslie Knope, so I’m going to make this goal focused on making a cool scrapbook.
  7. Learn calligraphy
    • The videos of calligraphy are always so cool and calming and pretty. I wanna learn the ways.
  8. Bake and Decorate an Eccentric Cake
    • This is a smidge drastic and extravagant. I was thinking like Cake Wars, but maybe not exactly like Cake Wars. They go all out and they know what they are doing (ish) and I am not nearly skilled enough. I just wanna decorate a cake that looks awesome at least once in my life though. Think a less extreme Cake Wars cake for the beginner level cake lover.
  9. Learn ballroom dancing
    • Who doesn’t wanna dance like a classy boss?
  10. Learn to Play Recuerdos de la Alhambra
    • For those of you who don’t know this song it is a classical guitar piece that I’ve recently developed a fascination for. Fun fact I don’t know how to play guitar besides Wonderwall by Oasis and this seems like something completely random that I want under my belt.

Health and Fitness

Look it’s the first section of my goals list.

Let’s be real, everyone should have health and fitness goals. It’s a factor in life that’s super important and directly correlates to how you live your life.

Health and Fitness Goals:

  1. Know over 25 go to healthy recipes
    • Get some knowledge and build an arsenal of healthy meals. Criteria to meet the goal is food that I have cooked over 5 times. I try plenty of recipes only to never make them again.
  2. Clear skin
    • I have struggled with severe acne for the past 10 years and I’m at a point in my life where it affects me more than I’d like to admit. I am actively working on this and have dermatologist appointments set up this month. So, hopefully this will actually be completed way before I turn 30.
  3. Find a fitness activity to be passionate about
    • Over the years I have tried a lot of things, but nothing that I have committed to fully and stuck with for longer than 6 months. I want to find something that I will love and will want to do for the rest of my life.
  4. Get to and maintain a 59 kilograms weight
    • I’ve decided this will be my goal weight because let’s be honest who doesn’t have a goal weight. Also, side note I don’t actually use kilograms on the daily it’s just I have yet to figure out how to change my scale and I’ve grown to like seeing my weight in kilograms now.
  5. Keep consistent pace on a full run
    • This is just gonna take practice, practice, and more practice. Eventually I’ll get there!
  6. Dance every day for a Month
    • This was originally run 100 days in a row, but I’ve since learned that I don’t want to risk injury just to get to 100. So now I have changed that goal to just a month and seeing as I’m not a strong runner, I’d rather not go over board and just focus on my pace. Hahaha! I’d run about 15-20 days every other month and then I would just stop. Then you know what? It dawned on me: I HATE RUNNING. And I just can’t convince myself to do it everyday, just not my thing, so I’ll just focus on running for #5 on this list. So now I’m swapping running with a different cardio: dance. Which includes flailing around for 30 minutes like an idiot. I sense this goal will make my mindset much happier than running ever did.
  7. Do another OCR
    • I did a Tough Mudder 2 years ago and absolutely loved it and would like to get another one or a different obstacle course race under my belt.
  8. Complete P90X
    • I have a feeling this is going to take multiple tries…
  9. 20 Consecutive Push Ups
    • Push ups will be the death of me.
  10. Yoga
    • I don’t know why I’ve never been the biggest fan of yoga, but I feel like everyone does yoga. I suspect there is something there that I am missing and I would like to find out what that is.

First Section Complete! On to the next!

Breakdown

I initially planned to post my full list of goals right off that bat. In my head I thought compiling a list of goals would be easy.

Obviously, I was wrong.

I have never actually been big on setting long-term goals, but I’m usually good at making lists so I thought I’d sit down and knock out a goals list in no time. That didn’t happen and I found myself struggling to come up with ideas. I really wanted to just go wild and write everything that I could think of, but a lot of those thoughts didn’t feel genuine. They felt like things that I know others have on their bucket lists and I couldn’t bring myself to write them down for the sake of completing my list. I want my goals to be things I’m genuinely looking forward too and would like the challenge. I don’t want my list to be the first things I find on Google and be like “yeah that sounds good.”

Now I am not saying that I want to make my list something original or never been done before because honestly there will be some of the obvious stuff on there. I just want each goal to actually mean something to me. Honestly, I would just like to put more thought into this then just randomly throwing a list together and being done and then never accomplishing those random items because I have no desire to actually do them. That doesn’t sound fun, that sounds exhausting.

So, what I have decided to do is break up my goals into sections. I’ll have a set list of 100 goals and 10 goals per section. That way making one list at a time isn’t nearly as intimidating as doing it all at once. I intend to post each section separately and once they are all completed I will compose a master list.

Breaking things down into chunks will help me structure my goals and give me some time to reflect on what I want to see myself doing in the future.

Hopefully I’ll have some sections completed and posted by the end of this week.

Now I don’t know how to sign off on this post since the last one was clever and this one I got nothing. So, here’s a random pic of noodles. Inspiration noodles. Noodles that inspire me to write my goals down.

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