Personal Goals Review 2021 #2

Andy Callow
3 min readJun 27, 2021

I’ve done this for a few years now. At the end of 2020, I set out some personal goals for 2021, and reviewed at Q1. It’s now time to review progress at Q2.

TL;DR: Was progressing nicely until breaking my collar bone in May.

>> Read 50 books. On target, 28 books read so far. This year I also added some sub-targets:

  • Read three Victorian classics. On target — read a Gaskell in June.
  • Read three books to educate myself more about race. On target.
  • Finish the long-neglected Biography of Ceasar — no progress.

>> Summarise 100% of non-fiction books read. On target. Read and summarised 8 so far. Only reading books on the Kindle currently, which is impacting on non-fiction progress.

>> Cycle 4000 miles. A little bit under target. 1604 miles cycled so far this year. Was about on track for hitting 2000 miles this month before my breaking my collar bone.

The frustrating thing when I look at the last two years of the dubious science of Strava’s Fitness and Freshness chart, is that I’ve been much more consistent in 2021 and felt like I was getting stronger and ready for a lovely summer of riding. As it is, the only day in 2021 so far that I’ve worn shorts on the bike was the day I did the collar bone.

My fitness and freshness chart from Strava showing peaks in fitness in June 2019, Sept 2020 and May 2021

>> Cycle a Gran Fondo each month. Slightly below target — 5 done so far. Again, was on track to exceed the target before collar bone.

>> Write 10 Blog Articles. 5 done so far.

>> Get 2,000 Twitter Followers. 1692 currently. But still lagging well behind my colleagues Debbie and Simon (I’m the orange line on the plot below).

>> Get to my target weight. Was making progress before collar bone. At least I’m not in negative figures anymore.

>> Spend more time with my family and friends. Same as Q1. Spending a lot of time with immediately family, but missing wider family and opportunity to be with friends.

>> Write weeknotes. No target (intentionally). 23 done so far this year.

>> Write two “Thought” Pieces. Achieved. Did a few things in Q1, nothing more significant since. I was humbled to join an esteemed panel for a NHS Providers podcast on diversity in digital transformation.

>> Achieve a Coaching Qualification. No progress.

>> Achieve Certified Healthcare CIO Status. On target. Still waiting to hear about my FEDIP application. I did the CHIME exam a few weeks ago and await results.

Any Adjustments in targets? No, although an early recognition that I’ll struggle to hit the 4,000 mile cycling target I expect given rehabilitation times.

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Andy Callow

Husband. Dad to 3 smashing lads. Cub Leader. MAMIL. CDIO for Nottingham University Hospitals. Ex UHN and NHS Digital. Views own. Always learning.