Author: HairWeavings Editorial Team

Have you ever started the year with a sizable list of goals to complete by the next time the ball drops in Time Square? Goals are great. They are hard work and take repetition. If you don’t have a goal, you tend to live life haphazardly. Whatever life brings, you react and go with it.

I lived most of my life without a focus and reacting to life challenges. In some unpredictable circumstances it’s how we must be. I’m challenging you as you read this article to explore making goals by intentional design.

The Old Way May Not Work for You

We all have tried New Year’s Resolutions. When you look back on them, how far has that gotten you? I know some friends that have accomplished their resolutions. I’m impressed by those friends.

Most of us think back to when we made resolutions and get an overwhelming feeling of failure. One year my supervisor at work had us write down where we wanted to be at the same time, one year in the future. We sealed the envelopes, and she kept them for us, handing them back when the year was up.

Most of us couldn’t remember what we had written down, nor had we made much progress toward accomplishing the goal. We hadn’t made it a priority, so it became forgotten. Goals for the new year can start out a priority, but then what happens?

Try a New Way

Here’s a new twist to New Year’s Resolutions 2024. What if you took one goal that meant a lot to you and decided that was it for the year?

Start by defining it clearly. When you get to the end of the year, what is it that you want to be different in your life? Get as specific as possible. Saying “I want to eat healthy by next Christmas” is too broad. How about chunking it way down to something like…

“I will research and then put into action limiting my sugar intake daily until next Christmas.”

If you had that as your ONE and only goal, would you feel more motivated? Having one goal prioritizes it and helps you remember to work on it throughout the year.

What Does Research Say

Did I mention that accomplishing goals and making them permanent is hard work? One goal at a time will help you focus and work hard toward it.

Researchers found that people who tried to accomplish multiple goals were less committed and less likely to succeed than those who focused on a single goal. If you accomplish your ONE goal before the end of the year, good for you! Then it’s time to set ONE goal going forward until you feel you have accomplished that one.

Visually Create the Picture

Another way to do this is with your vision board. Every year, my friends and I get together to construct a visual of what we would like life to look like at the end of that year. Visually, it helps us stay on track. We have a glass of wine, search through magazines for phrases or pictures that depict our best year ahead.

These tag boards showcase pictures of vacations, travel spots, exercise clothes, couples enjoying dinner, pictures of money and so much more. Every tag board has a different look by the time we are finished searching, cutting, and pasting our personal visuals.

We share with the group what each picture or phrase means to us. Yes, some pictures carry over to the next vision board party because they have yet to be attained. Surprisingly, we all have hit the mark on most of our vision board goals. This is a powerful way of approaching the year ahead.

A Vision Board with One Goal

This year, I’m encouraging my friends to give thought to expound on ONE goal with pictures and phrases about that one thing. It would laser focus and clarify everything. Let’s take the goal of eating healthy by next Christmas. The pictures would show heathy food choices, sugar with an X over it, cookbooks, meals at restaurants, all centered around the goal.

James Clear, author of the bestseller Atomic Habits, says it so well:

“The best way to change your entire life is by not changing your entire life. Focus on one specific habit, work on it until you master it, and make it an automatic part of your daily life. Then, repeat this process on the next habit.”

Focus Creates a Change 

My son recently shared with me that his marriage changed when he took this phrase to heart, “Where your focus is, your heart will be.” He said he began to focus on his wife. He thought about what she needed, what would help her, and how much he loved her. This changed their relationship, and as an outsider looking in, it shows. His heart followed his focus.

Can we apply this to our one goal? Yes, absolutely. George Lucas put it this way, “Always remember, your focus determines your reality.”

Change at the One Year Mark

Our world is overwhelming if we let it be. Work, kids, home, food, money… it’s a balancing act to keep everything straight and organized in our brains. Be sure to take time to slow down enough to think about ONE thing you want to achieve in the year 2024. One important life changing thing.

Then set your path and take a whole year to get there. This can be as simple as getting up a half hour earlier to enjoy the calm before your day starts. It can be as complex as finding a new job.

If you do a vision board, keep it handy to view. Remind yourself that you have ONE goal, and you are taking steps to get there. You will thank yourself for being so smart when you once again watch the ball drop at Time Square.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Are you a goals and resolutions person? What are your goals for 2024? Have you considered focusing on only ONE goal for an entire year? If you’d like to give it a try, what would your one goal be?

I love it when a friend or family member gifts me a book. With so many choices in bookshops and online stores, it’s a fun way to discover new authors or subject matter that might not otherwise appear on my radar. Here are a few favorites I’ve read recently, recommend, and plan to wrap up for a recipient or two on my holiday list. I hope you spot one you wish to give – or keep for yourself!

Where the Grass Grows Blue by Hope Gibbs

Debut novelist Hope Gibbs garnered a mound of awards for this charming Southern romance novel. With its references to Nashville, Atlanta, and northwest coastal Florida, readers may recognize friends, family, or themselves among the pages.

Penny has had a year… Her husband cheated on her with a much younger woman. After their quick marriage, her ex and his new wife take an extended vacation with Penny’s three young sons in tow. And then her beloved grandmother dies.

When Penny returns to Kentucky to settle the estate, all sorts of memories – and people – come flooding back to her. A breezy read about the beauty of going home.

Grab a copy and settle in with a glass of sweet tea!

The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen

Maggie is 60, a retired spy, and raising chickens on Blackberry Farm in Purity, Maine. Sixteen years ago, a mission went horribly wrong, forcing Maggie to walk away from a career she loved and disappear into the Maine countryside. She adores her new, ordinary life – “quiet and unobtrusive and safe.” Until she discovers a dead woman sprawled on her driveway.

She knows the body is a message from someone connected to her past. Maggie and a handful of former colleagues, who are now neighbors, band together to hunt down the past’s demons and salvage the new life Maggie’s created for herself.

I raced through this fun page-turner and my first book by the author, who boasts quite a loyal following. I was a fan of the Rizzoli and Isles TV series, which is based on books by Gerritsen.

One con of the novel? The story presents the likable and talented CIA operatives in their 60s and 70s as invisible (author’s word, not mine) washed-up senior citizens who crave naps and relief from aching joints. Since I am older than Maggie (!), I grew tired of those reminders scattered throughout the book.

Pickleball Is Life by Erin McHugh

In 1965, three dads in Bainbridge Island, Washington, devised a game to entertain their kids for an afternoon. Thus began the craze now sweeping the world – pickleball.

The game picked up serious steam in the early 2000s, mainly from folks seeking fun and exercise whose knees could no longer handle tennis and downhill skiing. Youngsters don’t pooh-pooh the game anymore and have joined the fray. Today’s median player is 30-something.

For those considering pickleball, McHugh’s introduction to the fast-paced game is a good place to begin. After speaking with her on Episode 24 of my podcast, I cannot imagine anyone more well-versed in the sport. With a dose of humor, Erin presents everything you need to know before you step on a pickleball court – the quirky rules, what sort of paddle to buy, and her trick for keeping score.

All in a quick-paced, accessible format.

The House Is on Fire by Rachel Beanland

Ladies and gentlemen, “The house is on fire.”

Be prepared for short chapters, quick pacing – and a delayed bedtime! In December 1811 – during a packed performance – a three-story Richmond, Virginia theater caught fire and burned to the ground. At the time, it was the most significant loss of life in U.S. history. Today, a church memorializes the tragic event.

Chapters alternated between four characters, Cecily, Gilbert, Jack, and Sally. Although all survived the fire, their lives were forever changed. The novel carefully explores the difficult history of the time and examines human nature’s good – and bad – sides. Well-written and researched, I enjoyed the entertaining, thought-provoking glimpse into an event I knew nothing about.

Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone

How well do we know our partners? Or anyone in our lives, for that matter?

I planned to read this novel until my plane reached cruising altitude. Then I would tuck the book away and move on to other – more productive – reading and writing. But I couldn’t stop reading.

In their honeymoon hotel, Ariel wakes up to no husband. He didn’t slip out for coffee, he wasn’t reading the newspaper in the cafe downstairs, he hadn’t stepped out for a walk. He was gone, and Ariel suspects something is very wrong. When Portuguese detectives and police officers don’t offer as much help as she’d like to solve the case – and uncover secrets about the couple’s past – Ariel takes matters into her own hands.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

Many of our kids have a hard time imagining that we – their parents, of all people – led full and exciting lives before they came along.

In her quiet, absorbing way, international bestselling novelist and bookshop owner Ann Patchett weaves a tale of three grown daughters and the mom they never knew. The mom who existed before the girls were born.

During the pandemic, while picking cherries on their idyllic Michigan farm, Lara tells her daughters about the summer she dated Peter Duke. The girls beg to hear all the juicy details about her acting days, dating a Hollywood superstar, and meeting their dad.

Note: Patchett references Our Town by Thornton Wilder in this novel. Although I am unfamiliar with the play and still enjoyed Tom Lake, my reading experience would have been richer had I known the story by Wilder.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Do you like to receive books as gifts? Do you like to give books? Do you have a favorite book you’ve gifted over and over?

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It was an ordinary Thursday evening just after 7 p.m. And, as on every Thursday evening at that time, my choir was warming up for its two-hour rehearsal to come. All eyes were on the conductor, including mine.

But one of the tenors was very slightly late and was just coming into the room. A couple of people later said that he looked very ashen. He stumbled before reaching the seat he was heading for and crashed onto the floor. There was a clattering from the missed chair.

The conductor stopped. The room became very quiet. That is when I realised something was wrong.

And it was – very, very wrong. It was a heart attack for all to see.

CPR

My choir has singers from all walks of life, and – perhaps surprisingly – it has four doctors who sing regularly. Two are eye specialists and two are general practitioners, so none have real expertise in heart conditions, but at least they are doctors.

Not one of these was there that evening.

But fortunately, one of our newer members turned out to be a young nurse who specialises in coronary intensive care. She immediately took over. She asked whether anyone had experience of helping with CPR or would be willing to help – and two people volunteered, including one woman I later learned had been a nurse in earlier years.

An ambulance was, of course, called.

We were asked to clear the room. Some choir members simply went home. Many of us decamped into a second room nearby, where we sometimes rehearse, and waited to see what would happen.

The ambulance arrived quickly, we were later told. The paramedics, together with the nurse and her helpers, carried out CPR on the tenor for some time – close to an hour. I learned later that there was a substantial period when he wasn’t breathing. I hadn’t known that was possible.

Singing

After a brief period, our choir conductor came into the spare room and said that he didn’t really know what was the right thing to do, but if we wanted to sing, he would conduct us. Several choir members indicated that they would like to sing, so we began to rehearse as normally as we could.

I wondered if the tenor with the evident heart attack could hear anything, would he be helped or hindered by the stunningly beautiful sounds of Verdi’s Requiem, which we were rehearsing.

At some point, the young nurse who had initially taken charge popped into our room to give us an update. “We found a pulse,” she said. Clearly good news. The patient had been taken by the ambulance to a local hospital.

“But,” she added, “if you don’t mind, I would like to go home.”

Yes, I thought. You have just saved someone’s life and must be full of adrenalin, not to mention complex thoughts. Of course, you don’t feel like sitting in choir practice. Of course, go home and have a lovely glass of wine. Or probably something stronger.

The Aftermath

Our choir has regular communications by email and during the next few days, there was a fulsome thank-you from the tenor himself, adding how he might not be able to get to the rehearsals immediately, but he still hoped to sing in the concert.

And another from his wife with enormous gratitude for the work of the key choir members in saving her husband.

And then, exactly one week later, Thursday morning, the day of our next choir practice, came a sadder note that the tenor had experienced another heart attack while still in hospital and had died. His wife was especially grateful for the extra week we had given her and her family.

It was a sombre choir practice that evening.

Reminders of Mortality

It is strange that although many people are dying every day, we rarely find ourselves so literally close to it. It does make you think.

Where will you be when your time comes? Will someone be around who knows what to do? Will you see your family in time? Will you be able to say all the important good-byes?

What if it is your husband or partner – or, indeed, child? Will those things happen for you?

Even though I am over the age of 80, I am more aware of infirmities and illness than of death among friends and family. Yet seeing loved ones die is part of life as we grow older. This occasion was a big reminder.

And I can add a note that, a week or so later, some members of the choir sang at the tenor’s funeral.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Have you witnessed a heart attack? What did it make you feel? Do you know how to do CPR or feel you should learn? Do you ever think about your own death and where it might happen?