Making the Internet My Accountability Partner

Every January there’s this influx of social media posts about making the most of the year and setting year long goals. This year I’m feeling the sting of not participating more intensely than before. I’m sure the reason is that I’ve started consuming a lot more content in the areas of stationery, journaling, and planners which would expose me to this goal oriented and looking ahead type content.

I so badly want to be the type of person who makes these 26 in 2026 type goals. Maybe one day I can be but right now I am not able to really comprehend the scope of a full 12 months. That’s why when I started doing vision boards I would only do them one season at a time. I could picture my life for the next couple of months, but six months out might as well be next century in my mind. Similarly six months ago is as foreign to me as the 1800s.

Knowing myself if I try to do 26 in 2026 type goals I’ll either pick things that are so simple I’ll have them all done by spring or so complicated I’ll be lucky to get one done. Instead of trial by error, I’m going to see if increasing my ability to look back increases my ability to look forward. As I’ve gotten more into the journaling, stationery, and planning spaces online I’ve seen multiple recommendations and examples of people going back through their journals and reflecting on past entries.

I’ve been journaling pretty steadily for years now and I’ve never re-read my entries, it just never occurred to me. After thinking about it for a while I am going to start this year. Each month I’ll re-read all of my entries and write my own reflection of the month not just what happened but how I experienced it, what growth or setbacks I experienced, any themes that come up. Each month I’ll share what a brief overview of that process and any key takeaways.

Setting out on this project isn’t exactly a cure for my FOMO, but it is something I can reasonably ask of myself and hopefully will set me up so that I can do 27 in 2027 if all goes well.