40x40: The Finale

In fall of 2022 I started working on a 40x40 project. I made a list of 40 things I wanted to do before I turn 40. In recent years, I’ve had about a 50% success rate in any goal setting I do. So I didn’t meet all 40 goals. Figures. But whatever.

I never listed my 40 goals here on the blog, but I referenced some now and then. Now I’ll let you see what all of my goals were. I was hoping I’d be a better person going into my forties. I’m pretty sure I’m not, but it was fun anyway. 

Here is how I did:

1. Read 365 books with Eva - Incomplete. Reading with Eva is miserable; I’m not gonna lie. 

2. Play 500 songs on the piano - Incomplete. I started off well and even felt myself improving, and then I just stopped one day and never touched the piano again.

3. No soda for one year - FAIL. I made it until June (as you read on, you’ll find that all my efforts unraveled in June. The end of June is when my summer depression took over, and I couldn’t keep up anymore).

4. Go back to the temple - Complete

5. Read Atomic Habits - Complete

6. Do 50 push-ups (in one session) - FAIL

7. Learn to play Terraforming Mars - FAIL, much to my husband’s dismay

8. Add ten healthy recipes to my recipe binder - Complete

9. Read one spiritual book per month - Close enough

10. Renew my Church magazines - Complete

11. Get family photos taken - Complete

12. Get Daisy and Zoe's eyes checked - Complete

13. Make deviled eggs - Complete

14. Make potato salad - Complete

15. Do a dairy fast to see if I’m lactose intolerant - Complete, and I’m not!!!

16. Have an annual physical - Complete

17. Pay off the truck - Complete. Then we bought a new van that’s 3x the payment amount. Ugh. 

18. Have five adventures - Incomplete. My intent was to do five things I normally wouldn’t do. I went sledding. That’s all.

19. Do a ten-day social media fast - Incomplete, but I had lots of three-day social media fasts. Turns out social media is pretty important in keeping up with my kids’ school and extracurriculars. 

20. Reestablish dish days for the kids - Complete

21. Size down - Incomplete

22. Only weigh myself at the doctor - Complete

23. Figure out digital photo storage - Incomplete

24. Learn Canva or similar program - Complete

25. Do a thorough house clean-out - Incomplete. I wrote out a plan and completed a few projects but didn’t get the entire house like I hoped. 

26. Get all accounts and subscriptions cleaned up - Incomplete

27. Find a healthy "reward" - Complete, but I haven’t stuck with it. My reward was to play Wingspan on the treadmill for my last 20 minutes at the gym.

28. Keep track of eating out - Incomplete. I kept up til June. Life unraveled in June. Summer kicked my butt.

—————

Now we move into the immeasurable goals - the ones I couldn’t really “check off” but hoped to accomplish somehow:

29.  Have more church music in the home - Successful. I have a Sunday playlist that I turn on… when I remember… and I have found a few songs that my kids respond well to, so I try to sneak them on from time to time. 

30. Keep up on hair health - Undetermined. I tried to keep my ends trimmed, but I did it myself. I feel like my hair has all broken off and gone away anyway.

31. Be nicer to people - Undetermined. It’s hard to know. 

32. Drink more water - Undetermined. I did really well until June, of course.

33. Prepare better for Christmas - Successful. I think I did okay at this. There are still some things I’d like to tweak in the coming years to do better.

34. Keep up on skin care - Unsuccessful. I’m touch and go with skincare. 

35. Dabble in writing a book - Unsuccessful. I thought maybe I could, at minimum, do some creative writing prompts for practice or write some character sketches. Nah. I didn’t even try. 

36. Do better at praying with the kids - Unsuccessful. In fact, I think I got worse.

37. Improve some strained relationships - Undetermined. There were some relationships I started trying to work at one point, and then I remembered why those particular relationships are strained to begin with, and I decided it’s best to just keep a distance for now. 

38. Do Sunday journaling - Unsuccessful. I did a bit but didn’t make a habit of it like I hoped.

39. Improve my fasting practices - Unsuccessful

40. Do better at Come Follow Me study - Undetermined. Again, I did well until June.

—————

As the New Year approaches, I’m programmed to make resolutions, but I’m forcing myself not to. My approach for 2024 is to not make resolutions and then count every accomplishment as extra credit.