Setting Personal Goals for 2024

As 2023 comes to a close, I figure now is a great time to introduce myself and do an article on goals, specifically my personal Run N Gun training goals for 2024. Going forward, you'll see more regular contributions from me to the AmmoSquared blog like Danielle did last week with her Christmas Message.

In case you didn't know, I'm Chris, the main tech/product guy at Ammoquared but I don't want to bore you with my day-to-day tech-related stuff. Instead, I'd like to write some articles for you based on my three years of experience competing in Run N Gun events. I'll also include some posts about my seven years of homesteading experience running our small little farm in the Texas Hill Country.

Hopefully, we can mix things up a little and it will add some fresh voices to our blog. The idea is to share some knowledge and experience from my perspective and also give everyone a glimpse of who I am.

Honestly, it won't be hard for me to contribute articles and share my love for Run N Gun competitions. You may not have heard of these yet because they aren't in every state, but they have them where I live in Texas, and I love them. I first got into Run N Guns about three years ago. They are growing in popularity and you might even now have some in your area. There isn't much content out there on them yet, so this will be my primary focus in writing. I hope you'll join me on my training and competition journey! If you have any questions, please add them in the comments below.

Now let's talk about goals...

Goals are an important thing, everyone should have some. They are good to set on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. Setting goals helps us improve and be the best version of ourselves. Writing blog articles is something Dan has primarily done but it has been something I've talked about doing all year, but haven't done yet, until now.

As you can see in this Slack message, Dan called me out on it and set the challenge:

So, here we are with the last blog post of 2023... fittingly about goals.

Personally, I work better with deadlines but when there's a challenge, it fires me up even more to get ahead of it and get it done. Like this first article, I got it done well before the date Dan set in the Slack message above. But now I've got to deliver at least one article per month. That is my writing goal for 2024.

I've found that when it comes to setting goals you need to write them down, they have to be quantifiable, and the best case is to have accountability for the goals with someone.

So consider this blog article my version of writing it down. Step 1.

Step 2 is quantifiable. This means you have put a number and typically a time frame to them. As an example, you can't just say I want to lose weight. It won't work and you won't accomplish it cause it's not specific enough. You write down something like: I want to lose 15 lbs by May 1st, 2024. This way it's easy to work backward and figure out what you need to accomplish monthly, weekly, or daily. Then you know if you are on track and can make the corrections or adjustments to reach that goal. Starting today in the example you'd need to drop 3lbs a month, totally doable.

Lastly, you need some accountability or an accountability partner (like Dan for my writing goal) who keeps you in check and gives you a reason to accomplish that goal. I think accountability can also be viewed as a prize or outcome.

So here goes... These are my 2024 Run N Guns goals so you learn something about me and hold me accountable by the end of the year.

2024 Goals

In no particular order, with some background.

Many of the goals listed should make sense, but some might not. I've got goals that I achieved or over-achieved (in Yellow) in 2023 and have made some adjustments going into next year to grow and improve. Then there are goals I didn't meet or I'm pretty disappointed in my performance (in Red). These are places where I won't make or give excuses, I'll just focus on achieving these in 2024. I have some new goals or goals that I feel okay about (in Blue) that will correlate or help push me toward other goals.

When setting the goals you want to make them a challenge. They shouldn't be easily achievable and you should end up, as I did, with some you succeeded at and some you failed at. It's like working those strong hand and weak hand drills. We all don't like working the weak hand, but doing so will make you a better shooter.

My last goal for 2024 is a new one (which is why it is in blue):

I look forward to writing more and sharing content about myself in general and Run N Guns in particular. We'll get into the numbers, data, some strategy, and of course the action. I hope that you get some value from my training perspective and the goals I'm setting for 2024.

So what are your goals for 2024?