I love goals, I love the “whooshing” sound they make as they pass me by.
So last year I made a bunch of goals – you can read about them here – and I’m happy to say there has been a dismal failure. The year of 2024, as mentioned on my Dwi’n Rhys roundup, was a bit of a “good smack in the mouth”, as my plans changed post about February, meaning my time was largely booked up on other projects. So of the 6 tasks I had, I achieved a grand total of 1 of them. Let’s look at these.
Get Back into Public Speaking – Failure I didn’t achieve this, with no even remote chance to do it. Although events are beginning to start up again, being so busy meant I didn’t have time to even think about a talk. There was only one event I even remotely thought about applying for, and to be honest as soon as I decided to go to the Cricket World Cup instead, I gave up on this.
Get at least 2 months income of £30 or more not from revenue streams that exist for me (Adsense, Twitch, Plugin Sales or Web Development Work) – Failure (albeit working towards this) I do now have a couple more revenue streams, but they aren’t £30 a month yet. Nevertheless it is a failure, alas.
Look at the Winwar Media Site with Pride – Failure It is still a mess. Hopefully will get this done this year.
Reconnect with the WordPress folk I enjoy spending time with – Success! 🎉 We did it! Thanks to WP Leeds returning and (more importantly) MWUG returning – with me as a Co-organiser, I saw a lot more of the WordPress community in 2024, and probably more than every other year. Come to the next one!
Take a catch at cricket – Failure (but succeeded elsewhere) my season was odd with cricket. With health issues and my role in the team changing, I didn’t really feel like I contributed much. Alas, my best chance to take a catch in cricket (a position at slip) I dropped and I never really got an opportunity post that. Nevertheless, I did manage to debut for the first team, which was a nice feeling.
Score 23 in a game of cricket – Failure yeah I had a bad season through a lack of confidence and some health issues. We go again.
So of the 6 goals I had, I had success in one of them! Oh well. It wasn’t that 2024 wasn’t bad, it was good! Just ended up doing something totally different.
What of 2025? Well, here are my goals for this year.
Professional Goals
I’m going to keep this short, as I don’t know how many times I can rewrite it, but get back into public speaking and finally rebuild Winwar Media to my liking are my goals for 2025.
I know I say this every year, but this year there’s a chance to do more public speaking (from February) and a bit of time towards the middle of the year, I should be able to build a new version. So those two are still on my list. I’ll add one more to the list.
Sing about my Work More
So you may be able to read between the lines and gather that – as things stand – work may be a bit quieter this year (change that!), one thing that kind of held me back was that I didn’t sing about my work much.
I’ve thought about this and I want to add a “Case Studies” section on Dwi’n Rhys, as a lot of my work when starting out was White Labelled and NDA’d so I didn’t have the need to talk about it. Now? People come direct, and a couple of case studies would be great on my professional sites. Not least because it’ll mean I don’t have to rewrite it whenever somebody asks to see my portfolio! So whilst I don’t thik I’ll get a lot of work from it, there’s every chance it’ll save me time.
Personal Goals
First a scary goal, but my 34 and a half minute 5k was done towards the end of the year, and my new goal is to run a sub 30 minute 5k. I haven’t got anywhere near my 34:30 in my 5ks since then, but once the weather gets a bit better I’m going to set up Runna to work towards this goal.
Secondly, I’d like to continue my weight loss goal. I’ve got a goal here so don’t want to make it public but nevertheless I wanted to include it, so I’ll let you know when I hit it!
Finally, I’d like to attend a Game Dev meetup. I’m getting more and more into game development, so I’m keen to in 2025 attend one, just to meet a few people and get a few ideas and inspiration for my games.
And Now Something New…
Somebody I’ve followed for years – Jess Rose – posted something wonderful on Bluesky that I’m going to do going forward.
I included 3 more goals – achieve 3 from my “50 before I’m 50” list – to generate a 9 by 9 card.
Like Jess, I’m also setting myself up with treats as and when I achieve these goals – 3 for when I complete 1 line, 3 bigger ones when I achieve a cross, and 2 mahoosive if I achieve 2 lines and a diagonal. Should I complete the grid I’ll treat myself to a Playstation 5. I’ve generated a bingo card using this Bingo Card Generator, clicked on the link to generate a random bingo card, and included it below.
There are a couple of tough corners, but I think it’s manageable. I think it could be fun to find out! So those are my goals for 2025, let’s see how many I achieve.
I can’t do much worse than 2024.
