Ask me what I’m thinking about in November of each year and I’ll reply “goals.” Ever since I first took Aby’s Achieve Your  Goals and Create a Life You Love class I usually start making lists in mid-November of what I might like to accomplish in the coming year. I’ve also participated in Ali Edward’s One Little Word idea for the past five years so I’m also thinking about what word might be appropriate for the coming year. If you’d like to challenge yourself in 2015, then I’ve got a great book recommendation to help you think about making the coming year exciting and interesting.

The Happiness of PursuitThe Happiness of Pursuit by Chris Guillebeau is an inspiring look at an entirely different category of goals — quests. The book is subtitled finding the quest that will bring purpose to your life. But even if you’re not looking for some huge quest to challenge you in the coming years, this short book is full of inspiration and exciting stories from “questers.”

How is a quest different from a goal? The author explains his criteria “A quest has a clear goal and a specific end point. A quest presents a clear challenge. By design, a quest requires that something be overcome…a quest requires sacrifice of some kind…a quest is a often driven by a calling or a mission…a quest requires a series of small steps and incremental progress toward the goal.” Basically, a quest is a big, challenging goal. The author’s example is his personal quest to visit every country in the world.

This book is an interesting combination of memoir, how-to, and inspirational writing. Throughout the book the author includes “Dispatches” which are asides about his quest to visit all 193 countries. Each dispatch ties into the previous chapter topics with an overarching theme such as “courage” or “routine.” But aside from telling of his own journey, Guillebeau shares the tales of other questers—such as the man who biked across Turkey or the woman who went on a date in all 50 states. Sprinkled throughout is practical advice on how to achieve big, multi-step goals. Each chapter ends with a short “Remember” section that includes one sentence about three key takeaways.

The Happiness of Pursuit covers all facets of goal planning from the initial step of identifying your big goal (or quest) through its execution. This includes finding support, how much a quest might cost, how to handle misadventures (or failure) and finally, what to do when a quest ends.

I would highly recommend reading this book in tandem with Aby’s Achieve Your  Goals and Create a Life You Love. Her practical process coupled with the inspiration in the book will put you on an exciting path for 2015 and beyond—since most quests are multi-year efforts.

As for me, I recently decided that my new long term goal is to read a biography of each president (in order) and I’m currently wading through an 800 page biography of George Washington. I estimate this quest to last at least the next four years.

Until next time, Happy Reading!

Alissa