Survival and Strength: My Plan for 2020 (Part I)

If truth be told, my only goal for this new year that starts today is: SURVIVAL.

That's it.

Everything else in 2020 is dwarfed by an ordeal that looms before me and my family of a criminal case that has been causing us to live in terror for the past THREE YEARS and is going to reach its (perhaps hideous) resolution this spring followed by its (perhaps even more hideous) aftermath.

But, although I will be very proud of myself if I manage to survive this year, and count this as one of my life's greatest achievements, mere survival makes for a rather dispiriting goal. It's not the kind of project that makes one leap out of bed in the morning, eager to begin a new day.

Survival is also not a particularly helpful goal, as what one really wants are STRATEGIES for doing this. Survive, yes, but . . . HOW?

In the past when I've had to live in the space of radical uncertainty about my future, what has helped me is working on what I called the "five dimensions of health": physical health, mental health, emotional/social health, financial health, and spiritual health. These are all-purpose resources that would enable me to deal more successfully with whatever the universe had in store for me. Plus, they're just good in their own right. There isn't any downside to good health.

Then, last summer, when I was attending a class with my sister at her law school, I saw in the elevator a list of EIGHT dimensions of health and liked this list better than my original list of five. The eight dimensions of health on the law-school-elevator list were: physical, mental, emotional, social, professional, financial, spiritual, and environmental. This list disaggregated emotional/social health, added professional health, and (best in my view), added environmental health, an area of particular recent concern for me.

So: my goal for 2020 is to bolster my health on all eight dimensions. Because I like alliteration, and because "strength" sounds especially empowering as a means to "survival," I'm also calling these the eight dimensions of strength.

I pondered how to structure this project. In the past, I've done best with a goal structure based on the unit of the month. If I pledge to do something every single day, I'm setting myself up for certain failure; ditto even for the pledge to do something every single week. A month is just the right length of time to give needed urgency, but also to allow some equally important wiggle room.

With twelve  months, and eight dimensions of health, I could prioritize one kind of health each month for the first eight months of the year, followed by a fortnight of reinforcement on each one for the final four months of the year. Or I could simply allot six weeks to each dimension.

But I don't think this is actually the best way to go in this case. After all, health isn't the kind of thing you can focus on for a single month and then proceed to ignore the rest of the time; it really needs a more consistent, sustained approach. Also, for two of these eight dimensions (mental health and professional health), I already have heaps of projects to which I'm committed for 2020 (spread throughout the year) which will guarantee a sharpening of my intellect and a furthering of my creative and academic career.

For this reason, I'm brainstorming ways to advance simultaneously on all eight dimensions of health, in a way that will be FUN, as I'm committed to pursuing ONLY goals that make me want to hug myself with happiness. In my next post (or maybe posts), I will share details. Maybe you'll want to join me in these pursuits, or offer suggestions, or at least cheer me on from afar.