by Gunnar Engblom January 1, 2021

52 weeklong New Year’s Resolutions.

New Year Resolutions — 2021 – What are you going to do?

Let’s face it. You will likely fail your new year’s resolutions. I know I always do. But that is OK, a few things stick and you become somewhat more mindful of who you want to become.

The problem is that it is hard to create new habits, and I also struggle with too many things I want to do. In the end you feel that you hardly do any of them after you failed to keep them up. I have thought a great deal how to handle this.

There are two simultaneous strategies for me in 2021.
First – The Most Important thing of the year. Set One Goal for the latter part of the year.
Second – Make a huge list of smaller projects, books you want to read, habits you want to obtain, but only make a commitment for one week. There are 52 weeks, and 52 commitments. I will explain below.

The Most important goal of 2021

Decide on just one thing!
I have decided to make one thing the most important one of the year – a Sub 3h marathon!
Having missed Sydney Marathon last year when I was in quite good shape, and also the canceled Berlin Marathon this year which I managed to get into, but which was canceled because of COVID, I now have the Berlin Marathon on September 27, 2021, as the most important date of the year. The goal is not only to complete the race, but to run it in less than 3 hours!
It is a flat course.

I am very aware that this seems next to impossible. After all, I am 60 years old. My best times have been 3:04 in 2016 (a downhill race) and 3:14 in New York in 2014.

On the other hand, I have become a much better runner since 2014 and 2016. I have a better technique. What has been lacking to get good times have been hiatuses due to too much sitting/driving which tighten my hips (piriformis) and taken me off training for periods of 2-3 months in some cases. The other thing has been the lack of a long 18 week period with no guiding/travel when I can totally immerse myself in the training.

I am keen to learn what I would be able to do if I gave it my very best shot and not let anything in the way, It will be a lot of hard training ahead.

I have already started the plan. First I am going to build up to a lot of slow miles. Even reach 100 miles in a week. Then, I am setting off 18 weeks before Berlin Marathon for intense training. Speed, Marathon pace, and Long runs will be the important sessions. The only scheduled guiding work during this time is a month with a bird photographer (which means I should be able to go for lunch runs or times during the day when photo conditions are not ideal). I will also do a couple of Lima day tours, as well as an Uganda trip in late August for a week if we get the clients for this trip, but should be able to include some running while at it. I will be following the 70 miles 18-week plan in the book Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfizinger and Scott Douglas.

What is your most important goal for 2021?

52 New Year’s resolutions

I am notorious to try to do too many things. I did a fairly successful 10-day good habit reset at the beginning of the pandemic which I described in a blogpost. (Check it out for some ideas). It worked to some extent, and some of the habits are very much in my mind every day, but actually complying with each and everyone on a daily level is a different story.

So I am playing with a new strategy. I am giving myself 52 weekly projects. I don’t have to decide which one I have to do beforehand, but I shall have 52 different ones to complete through the year. As the calendar of the year fills up with birding trips, marathon training, and holidays I need to stay flexible. For instance, I can’t do a 100-mile running week when I am guiding, similarly it is probably not a great week to not drink beer, as I totally enjoy a beer after a birding day.

Want to try this? Get a piece of paper and a pen and think of 52 things you would want to try out during this year. It could include books you want to read, skills you want to learn, projects that have been postponed, and habits you want to take on etc.

Next year 12 of the habits you have tried, – the ones that you felt gave you the most value, could become 30-day challenges. That is what I plan to do.

I don’t know if I could go vegan for life, stop drinking alcohol and get up at 5 AM every morning, but I sure can try one week, and perhaps a full month next year.

Here are some of my 52 bullets. I have included some links to books I have in my library, which include both books I have read as resources as well as some I have yet to read. The original list is in random order, and I get to choose week to week which commitment I want to take on. I will edit the list chronologically, as the year unfolds.

Brush up Peruvian Bird Calls. Started this on Jan 1-3, but my upcoming trip was cancelled so I jumped to next item.
✅Udemy: Facebook Ads and Facebook Marketing. I bought a bunch of Udemy’s featured courses in 2019, but have still not even looked at them. Udemy has 90% sale right now, so a good time to buy courses. Below are the ones I bought. It is time to dust them off. ✅ Did the course Week 1 between Jan 4-10. About one third done and tested a few ads. Deadline for completion Jan 28.
✅ Fasting and ketogenic week – Tools of Titans Tim Ferriss. The complete guide to fasting and The Obsesity Code by Jason Fung. This was week two.
✅ Drink-no-alcohol-week. Not too difficult to stay away from booze for a while, but sometimes it is good to be mindful about it. When I drink, I have a tendency to drink one more than I originally intended, with consequences to sleep quality, bedtime, hydration, recovery, and productivity. Additionally, with the tight economy now with the lack of birding trips, there is also a financial reason not to drink.
✅ Get up at 5 AM every day for a week when not on a birding tour. Read Miracle Morning and 5 AM Club and Morning Makeover. I have read them before. Early mornings is a constant goal for me that I have a hard time to fulfill. I am a night owl. I often go to bed between 1 and 3:30 AM. If I get up at 5 AM regardless, I will nap during the day to recover.
✅ “Show LOVE to my WIFE” week. Not that I don’t always do that, but it will be my main focus this week and I will be more mindful about it. Read: Rewire your Brain for Love, and the 5 Love Languages.
✅1 hour running per day – Almost there this week. But I want to make it a full week.
✅1000 birds project. Compile a list of the 1000 best birds of the world. A long-overdue project. With an immersion week, I may get going again. It is also a way to highlight my own bucket list of birds I want to see
7 Wonders Birding and Kolibri Expeditions websites improvement week. Check for typos, enter maps, and photos in the itineraries.
Vegan week. Animal Liberation Peter Singer, No Meat Athlete Matt Frazier
Avoid anti-inflammatory food week. (Gluten, casein, alcohol, trans fat, refined sugar, artificial food, and saturated fat). See this website. The problem with my hip is basically inflammation of the piriformis muscle.
2 times Seven per day. Seven is a great fitness app with several different HIIT workouts (High-Intensity Interval Training). And it only takes Seven minutes per workout
50 pushups per day week – I am horrible at pushups. I can only make 13-14 pushups in one go. Start with 5 sets of 10 per day.
Run twice per day. Preparing for the big 100-mile week.
100 miles running week – that is about about 23km per day. Mostly done in two runs per day.
Learn Everything about Lightroom. My photo editing skill and cataloging and tagging my photos leave much to desire.
Learn everything about Photoshop. Really should learn this software once and for all. There are two tutorials for birders by Tropical Birding guide Andres Vazques on the School of Birding website.
German. Need to brush up German before traveling to Berlin. Some German films, German Music and DuoLingo and Pimsleur this week
Language cultural prep before Asian Bird Fair in November. Not clear where it will be yet – but it may be Myanmar.
Chess immersion. A week of playing chess.
French immersion week. Duolingo podcast, Stories and try to find some conversation online. Pimsleur while I am running
Chinese immersion week. Hello Chinese, other courses, Pimsleur while running.
Japanese immersion week
Italian immersion week
Portuguese immersion week
Read James Joyce Ulysses. Three classic James Joyce in one set was found in my bookshelf. But what is more, the bookworms had eaten the complete set. I threw away the book. I got them on my iPad with the convenient and cheap Kindle version of James Joyce’s complete works, so will read them there. It will be a challenge to read all three in one week each, but I will concentrate on one for a week and then continue with it being a secondary book for weeks to come. I will not necessarily read them in this order.
Read James Joyce Dubliners
Read James Joyce A portrait of the artist as a young man
10 pull-ups per day. I suck at pullups. I can make 3 in a row – at the most at present. A goal is to be able to do 10 pull-ups in one go by the end of 2021.
30 min yoga per day for a week. So far I am just doing about 10 minutes per day, if that.
Meditate for 30 min per day for a week. Again, just doing about 10 minutes of guided meditation. Read “Waking Up” by Sam Harris. This is the guided meditation I am presently using. It is a good app.
Read “Antikens Historier” – A classic book on my bookshelf by Alf Henrikson – about principally Greek stories.
Study Egyptology. I want to get my head around Egypt’s vast history before our 7 Wonders Birding trip there in 2022.
Read Don Quijote de La Mancha in Spanish.
Read The Battle that shook Europe: Poltava and the birth of the Russian Empire – Peter Englund. A book in Swedish in my bookshelf that I still have not read. I brought it with me from Sweden 25 years ago. About time.
Read Among the believers. V. S. Naipul. Another book in my bookcase, I still have not read.
Udemy: Instagram Marketing
Udemy: Entire MBA
Udemy: Google Ads
Udemy: YouTube masterclass
Udemy: How retargeting works
Udemy: Modern Copywriting.
Swedish with kids immersion. I need to get my kids to start speaking Swedish. They want to learn, but I often find myself too busy. So a dedicated Swedish week with the kids would be great. We have been using DuoLingo together.
In bed at 10 pm every day. Read “Sleep Smarter“. It is related to the previous point as well as recovery for the marathon training. I need to get to bed earlier to recover. The most effective time in the night for restorative sleep is between 10 pm to 2 AM.
Learn how to Swim better – go swimming every day. Bit of a challenge for me. I only know breaststroke. And I don’t enjoy swimming. Tim Ferriss describes how he learned swimming in The Four Hour Body.
Read Start Finishing and Make your Bed.
Prepare my Audiobooks library to my new phone, so they can be enjoyed while running.
Read “Profit First” and “The One Thing“. Books on how to make a business more effective.
Read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker. Two classics on Business and management that I have planned reading for a long time.
Read “Poor Charlies Almanac” about Charles Munger and “Who Not How” on how to build teams.
Duct tape marketing, Talk triggers, and Marketing Rebellion. Three books about new marketing ideas I picked up at the Social Media Marketing World in San Diego in 2019.
Social Media Marketing World lectures online. I have a lot of online lectures from SMMW that I have not checked. I should spend a week doing that to get some ideas from these great people.

So, as I said, it does not have to be in order. I will start the first week with Peruvian Birdcalls, since I am leaving on Jan 3 on a birding trip in the North. The second week is Yoga week 30 min per day. Third week I’ll do two times 7even per day. Finally week four I will do a vegan week (while birding).

I shall update you once a week to let you know of my progress on each challenge.

What New Years resolutions are you making? Does this idea of 52 weeks of different immersion resonate with you?