29 Goals before 30!

Welcome lovelies! How are you? Today, I want to share something that is fun for me to do around my birthday. I’ve had a personal tradition for a long while now. Instead of doing a resolution list on New Year, I take the time on my birthday and make a list of goals or things I want to experience by the next one. They are in the same number of years I turned that day *ie when I turned 20 I had 20 goals before 21*. I find this ritual to be more personal than making New Year’s resolutions that will be forgotten by the first sunrise of February.

This year’s list has taken me a bit longer to put together. This is due mainly to the knowledge that my plans for turning the big 3-0  surrounded by those I love and who care for me will not come to fruition. Just as with my 25th, I will be on the other side of the world on my birthday.  Okay, let’s shake off this mood and get back on track! 

How I choose my goals and experiences?

I try to make sure my goals are making me a better person physically, mentally and spiritually. They are supposed to be fun, push me outside of my comfort zone and into new experiences.  Some of these have stayed with me long after the birthday year has passed; I still write letters when my schedule permits to people who need words of encouragement or are going through a tough time in life. I discovered the most amazing website, The World Needs More Love Letters, and for a few minutes of your day and the cost of a stamp or two, you are making someone’s day or even year! That’s what kindness is all about people!!!

1. Volunteer at a soup kitchen
2. Buy a homeless person a meal
3. Weight 145 lbs of muscles
4. Give up refined carbs for 100 days
5.  Give up dairy product
6. Give up sugar
7. Go skydiving
8. Go an entire day without using any technology
9. Write a letter to me to open in 10 years
10. Go chemical free on all household products
11. Ride in a hot air balloon
12. Visit 3 new countries
13. 90 days alcohol-free
14. 100 days no fried food
15. Go kayaking
16. Stand on the Equator
17. Graduate ODU!
18. Read 12 books on political, social issue, and self-acceptance
    1. Fascism  by Madeleine Albright
    2. 1984 by George Orwell
    3. Handmaid’s Tale by Magaret Atwood
    4. When Affirmative Action was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katzenelson
    5. Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation by Nicholas Guyatt
    6. It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
    7. The Little Black Book of Success: Laws of Leadership for Black Women by Elaine Meryl Brown, Marsha Haygood, Rhonda Joy McLean
    8. The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
    9. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
    10. The Defining DecadeThe Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter- And How to Make the Most of Them Now by Meg Jay
    11. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo
    12. The Sisters Are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America by Tamara Winfrey Harris
19. Start a Crochet/Knit drive for homeless veterans
20. Gain more knowledge Ancestral Religions (The article ‘Jesus Hasn’t Saved Us’: The Young Black Women Returning to Ancestral Religions‘ resonates with my soul)
21. Become a homeowner
22. Attend a gallery opening
23. Eat at a Michelin 3-star restaurant
24. Host a Pop-Up event
25. Experience Amish Country
26. Get ordained
27. Put in my Officer Package
28. Take a Self Defense class
29. Make Yoga part of my morning/evening routine

I have to be honest, as the year went by and the list grew, I have found it difficult to accomplish it all in one year. I usually move them over to the next and add new goals. The idea behind this is not perfection but rather growth. Every year, I become a better person and that what it’s all about.

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She has the mindset of a Queen and the heart if a warrior

She is everything all at once and too much

for anyone who doesn’t deserve her

she is you

                                                                                                       r.h. Sin