I’ve been thinking about goals recently. I have about a million things I want to do in my life, and I find that if I don’t write them down, the most important ones tend to get missed.

We people with diabetes have our own goals, frequently imposed on us by other people. “Have an A1c less than 7.5% 7.0%,” says the ADA.* “Have blood glucose readings in the range 80-150 mg/dL,” say the doctor. “Check your feet everyday,” says the nurse educator and Diabetes Forecast.

While these are all fine goals, I often don’t find them very actionable. Plus I’m better at meeting my own goals than other people’s. (It’s probably a character flaw, I suspect.) So I’ve made a small set of goals for myself:

• Fix my basal rates — This one is almost done!
• Determine my correct bolus amounts
• Always use the bolus wizard on my pump (instead of manually picking an amount)
• Have ⅔ of my readings in the target range(s)
• Achieve an A1c <7.0%
• Start most exercise sessions below 150 mg/dL and finish above 100

(As I mentioned earlier, I have a ton of different things that I want to do. You can see a few of them on my “To Do” list.)

If you have diabetes, do you have D-related goals? What are they?

* — The American Diabetes Association seems to be the only group who recommends this value, with most of the rest of the world recommending 6.5%. Researchers have found that most doctors don’t really recommend making changes until their patients’ A1Cs are a full percentage over the target, which in this case of the ADA number means 8.5% 8.0%.

Update — Someone from the ADA sent me a personal message to set me straight on the organization’s position. It’s 7.0% not 7.5%. My mistake! The AACE and the International Diabetes Federation do recommend 6.5%, though. More info: general and position paper.