Today’s additions to my list of goals are an interesting double challenge to even know what the “goal” should be, for two reasons.

First, there is a question of whether I group like items or separate them. When I did my exercise goals, I could have had one big one called “EXERCISE” and then put walking, workouts, archery, golfing, axe throwing and bowling all under there as examples of exercise things I wanted to do in the next five years. But I separated them into separate goals because while they are all exercises, they individually don’t have anything to do with each other. I won’t be golfing while axe throwing, for example. Nor is golfing helping me improve my axe-throwing swing, or vica versa. They are, relatively speaking, independent activities grouped by a common theme. It makes sense to me to separate them.

Second, I feel like goals should require extra effort, not just what you were already doing anyway, even if the base requires work. So, if I was wanting to write (say, every day) and write more (more hours or words), the basic desire of writing every day wouldn’t be a “new incremental” goal for 60×60, I’m already DOING that.

Yet today I wanted to add some items for two goals that are different types of “outings” that challenge both. Things that get me (and hopefully others) out of the house and going somewhere that I wouldn’t go regularly, it takes some extra effort. Let me digress for a moment (ONLY a moment, I swear!).

I signed up for the Conqueror Challenge a while back. You have likely seen the ads on FB and elsewhere, and they basically are like Boy Scout badges for adults, narrowed to specific exercise challenges. The premise is that if you walked from Point A to Point B in real life, such as from Cairo to the actual pyramids of Giza, it would be X kilometres or Y miles. You may live, as I do, in Canada and don’t have access to that route for a daily walk, but you can sign up for this challenge, walk smaller distances that add up to X kilometres, and it is like you are virtually walking the route in Egypt. When you reach the end, you get a medal (which you pay for, by the way)…because you recorded all the pieces to get you there.

Yet if you go online to the Conqueror Challenge community, you see some people with some VERY different views as to what should count towards your daily distance. The two main camps are those who either count EVERYTHING they do in the day (say, counting every step on their Fitbit, including if they walked from their couch to the refrigerator to get a snack) and those who ONLY count the effort they make to go for a separate walk or run. Call them the “EVERYTHING” or “INCREMENTAL” groups. For the everything group, their rationale is that they are walking the steps, what does it matter HOW or WHY they are doing it? It’s all walking, for example.

For the incremental group, their rationale is that the whole point is to make an effort, not simply count what you were already doing … you could literally change NOTHING in your daily life, and since there is no deadline or minimum distance per day that you have to do (you set all that yourself), you would get the medal for doing nothing “extra” or new. For the incremental group, you might as well just buy the medal and do nothing. There’s no real “effort” required to get it.

For outings, and for exercise, I won’t count things that I would be doing anyway. The daily walks? Already part of life, there is nothing special added towards a goal. I would do it anyway without any extra effort. (Yes, you can tell I’m in the incremental group, although since there is no real standard for any of it, I came to believe I’m more in a different group called “house rules” — whatever you want to do, do it! My house rule is I only count EXTRA / INCREMENTAL effort).

So I’m looking for things that I want to do “more of”, or different from how I’m doing things now.

For Goal #12, I want to try 60 new restaurant options. We eat at the local pub quite often, Lone Star, too many fast food places to count, etc., so it is not simply about eating out. I already do that. Instead, I want to make an effort to expand our culinary options, to try different places. Essentially, if I have eaten there anytime in the last 2 years, it doesn’t count towards the goal. On the other hand, we just went to a local Tex-Mex place called Mexi’s. It has a long ownership history with another local place called Mexicali Rosa’s, but that’s not particularly relevant. I have been there before, yet not within the last two years, so I’m counting it towards my goal. I wasn’t going to count take-out, but the more I thought about it, the more that I realized the goal and required effort are bifurcated. I want to try different restaurants AND I want to go out. Yet some of the choices might ONLY be one of those. If I go to Barrhaven, aka outside our hood, and went to a LoneStar there? I might count it. Or if I order take-out from a restaurant we haven’t used before. I don’t have to have it be BOTH going out and a new restaurant, either would expand our culinary defaults. Either way, I’m committing to one new option a month.

For Goal #13, I want to go for 60 culture and entertainment outings. I could have counted restaurants in there, but it seemed like a separate goal. Yet if restaurant outings are separate, do I want to merge museums (somewhat passive), movies (we haven’t gone to a theatre in ages), or events (like plays or concerts)? Should they be separate commitments? In short, I don’t know. I feel like we’re going to knock off 60 outings long before I turn 60, but maybe not. I also think that I could do a separate commitment of 60 movies even, but then I wouldn’t be able to reach 60 of the other types. In a sense, my merger of the items is more about time management too — all of them require an afternoon or evening out to do them, once a month with something we haven’t been doing the last few years. I’m going with it for now.

I have some other “outings” of sorts in my later goals, but they are mostly tied to other hobbies, so I’ll group them there rather than here.

I should get cracking.