Welcome to my 2024 goals document. In this article I will outline all the things I am aiming to accomplish in 2024. The goals in this document are an extension of my grand overall vision of my life, which you can read here.

All historical annual goal documents can be found on this archival page. Perhaps even more interesting are my annual reflections of those goals.

Now lets kick off my 2024 goals document by reiterating over my personal vision.

Vision

My vision of explorer core has not changed much. The core concepts of; making, studying, and reflecting are very much still at the core of my vision. This year I intent to pay extra attention to making. I believe this to be the core of my personal learning process, as reflection and study both follow tactile experiences. Besides making, documentation will be one of my main objectives as well. This is because I learned last year that I have so much more joy and pride in looking back at past projects/experiences when they are documented well (e.g. high-quality photo’s and thoughtful writing).

I will now discuss these overarching goals for 2024, after which I will delve into their specific targets.

Making

This goal embodies the credo ‘the end justifies the means’. I just want to make a lot of stuff, ranging from web development, to product design, to sewing. The core of this goal is to get my hands dirty and create finished projects.

You see: I have a thousand ideas of things I want to build, but I sometimes lack the focus and consistency to turn them into reality. That’s why my targets for 2024 will be specifically about making them into reality. There are two specific projects I’d like to finish that relate to my other global goal of documentation (see below). Because it’s hard to prioritise the other projects I’d like to finish, and because I don’t know how my interests will develop over the next 12 months, I will keep the final goal open (yet specific).

  1. Publish one project per month.
    • Must minimally include:
      • One sewing project
      • One web-development project
      • One generative art project
      • One audio play
      • One zine
    • Publish written reflection + professional photos on this blog.

Collaborating

Next, I aim focus my gaze more outwardly this year. Instead of purely navel gazing on this blog, I am planning to reach out and collaborate more with other people. My experience of organising the M.C. Escher exposition last year sparked this desire. It reinstated my believe that I thrive on deadlines, collaboration and accountability. But it also means: being part of a community, interacting with people, and be part of something bigger than myself. I’ve missed this social aspect of doing projects, and I’ve come to realise the process of bouncing off ideas is not just vital to the success of projects, but also to self exploration. This is why I aim to get my projects out there in the wild, for everyone to interact with.

  1. Organise a public project
    • Organise one project that is physically accessible for general public
    • The organisation must involve multiple other parties
    • There must be photographic evidence of the attendance of the public
  2. External publication
    • Publish at least one piece of writing at an external website
  3. Media coverage
    • Have at least one piece of media being publish about one of my projects
  4. Learn Bulgarian
    • Master Bulgarian at A1 level (in order to communicate with my local community)

Documenting

In light of my explorer core vision, the concept of documentation is very important. It’s what scientists would call sampling, or data gathering. I believe that to properly reflect on my life, and to learn for understanding, I have to document my life accurately. Only when the documentation is well done, I can reflect properly. Therefore, I will focus on documenting my life more thoroughly this year. This goal will be twofold: 1) raw data capturing (logging more data, like I did with my alcohol consumption last year), and 2) writing/filming/photographing more (intently).

All those days of which no note has been kept are, as it were, days that did not happen.

Eugene Delacroix
  • Log personal data on a daily basis (resulting in 365 entries)
    • Alcohol consumption (g)
    • Caffeine consumption (g)
    • Weight (kg)
    • Mood (3x a day)
    • Physical activities (h)
    • Side project work (yes/no)
    • Reading progress (books/pages)
  • Taking high-quality project photos
    • For each project I finish this year (see making-goals)
    • For each multi-day outdoor adventure
    • At least 3 published photo’s per instance
  • Newsletter
    • Publish minimally one newsletter per month

Physical

In 2024 I intend to not push too hard, and listen to my body well. Valuing consistency over setting records. Significant to this vision is also working on my general fitness and resilience. Last year I got injured because I was only running. This year I aim to stay strong by doing not just running, but also; climbing, strength training, and adventure trekking (by foot and by bike).

  1. Calisthenics goals, be able to do:
    • One pistol squat
    • One sissy squat
    • One skater squat
    • One dragon squat
  2. Ultra marathons
    • Start the Sofia ultra
    • Finish the Gozo ultra
  3. Expeditions
    • Alpine course, learning mountaineering skills (planned in July)
    • Finish minimally one multi-day hiking trip
      • Publish written reflection + high quality documentation on this blog
    • Finish minimally one multi-day cycling trips (solo)
      • Publish written reflection + high quality documentation on this blog

Spiritual / mental

The biggest revelation last year was that I have no clue what my mental state is. Or at least, not in a numerical sense. I am generally a very stable person and I’ve never had much interest in my mental state, because it was so uneventful. But since I started tracking my alcohol consumption I realized that it’s imperative to also track my happiness. Because how can you derive meaning from any personal data if you don’t know how it impacts your happiness?

  1. Tracking mood (see documentation-goals for details)
  2. Fasting
    • Annual participation for Lent (40 days consuming no; alcohol, meat, mayonnaise, cigarettes, drugs, lunch)
    • Finish one 24h water fast
    • Finish one 48h water fast
    • Finish one 72h water fast
  3. Yoga
    • Do a total of 1h per week, 52h in total
  4. Alcohol challenge

Reading

I’m setting the bar a little lower than last year. Last year I had to resolve to a sudden reading sprint in December, which is something I’d like to avoid this year. Therefore my total reading goal will be 40 books. I’d like to keep my ‘female author’ reading challenge, as I enjoyed that one a lot. The ‘continents of the world’ reading challenge has gotten a bit old after three years, so I will replace it with ‘natural habitats’ reading challenge. I believe this will help me learn more about nature, which aligns well with my ‘explorer core’ vision. Finally I’d like to take the time to study the works of T.S. Elliot.

  1. Read 15 female authors
  2. Read 5 mountain-themed books
  3. Read 5 sea-themed books
  4. Study T.S. Elliot
    • Study the Four Quartets
    • Study the Wasteland
    • Read minimally one secondary source
    • Publish one essay to conclude the studies
  5. Create book review template
    • Fill it in after reading every book, in order to have more structured/thorough reviews.
    • 40 written reviews at the end of the year

Charity

I’ve always struggled deeply caring about some sort of good cause. But recently I figured out that I can do good as a side effect. I describe my complete vision on this in my article on unintentional morality.

  1. Incorporate ‘unintentional morality‘ into minimally one of my projects
    • Publish a how-to guide and make all files open-source