These are my 2017 goals in various areas of life. for several years now, I’ve been posting my goals here for public accountability. Last year, I was negligent in posting updates. I promise to do better this time!
(Note: my first 2017 goals update, for February, is here. The second, in April, is here.)
January 1 is an arbitrary time to set goals, and I don’t do “resolutions”. But, I find there is an advantage to setting goals at the start of a new year: it’s helped me avoid winter blues because I get excited about reaching my objectives.
Here are my goals for 2017.
Personal and Spiritual
Get back to daily French practice. Once homeschooling started this year, I slacked here. Boo! (This is a perfect example of a non-essential, non-urgent activity that is so easy to push aside.)
A few things that are working: I bought earbuds to take to work with me each morning. For a month now, I have been listening to French podcasts while I work. Even if I do nothing else all day, I’ve immersed myself in high-quality French for a couple of hours. I also started working with an actual textbook. Writing is helpful, and will probably help with my spelling.
Stretch for 5 minutes every day. I’ve noticed that I’m getting stiffer, and after I lift weights especially, my hamstrings feel like they’re going to snap. No good! This habit has been pretty easy to implement. It feels great and is self-motivating.
It helps that I have a pretty adorable stretching accountability partner.
Do a girls’ night at least 4 times. I’m an introvert, and social events really wear me out, but I still need to do them.
Habits I want to continue in this area:
Moving my body every day: walking, biking, and lifting weights. I need to add stretching here too, because I find that I’m becoming stiffer as I get older. To make this easier, I have a simple activity tracker in my Bullet Journal. Putting a simple check mark in it every day is surprisingly rewarding.
Reading the Bible every day. I do this every morning with the kiddos before school. Two birds, one stone.
Family & Relationships
Implement a family fun hour each week. Again, as the bigs get bigger, I find it harder and harder for us to do activities as a family. I miss that! There is literally only one night that we’re all home, so we set aside an hour that day after supper to just play games, talk, make popcorn and cocoa, etc.
Restrict social media use to business hours. I try to limit the time I spend on my phone around the kids. I want to set a good example and not be distracted, so I removed the social media apps and Gmail from my phone (except Instagram, because you can’t update it online).
I’ve been using the Tailwind plugin to schedule updates for Pinterest and Twitter, and I love it. And I created a time slot for social media at the end of my work time and will stick to only checking it then.
Make a daily to-do list for non-business activities
Not exactly earth-shattering, but my life is much happier when I operate this way. People think of me as a very self-disciplined person, but the truth is, I’m not self-disciplined so much as obedient. In other words, I understand the elephant and the rider, and make sure the rider is in charge!
I always have a list of objectives when I sit down to the computer to keep me on task, but I’ve been forgetting to make a to-do list for other things. Having a to-do list means I do the things I want to do (as odd as that sounds!), the things that lead to lasting happiness.
Re-implement Screen Sabbath.
We used to do this and somehow forgot about it last year. We had a family meeting and decided that Saturdays will be our screen-free day each week.
Do a weekly “facial hour” with my big girls.
As a recovering low maintenance gal, I decided to start doing a weekly spa hour with my big girls, who loooove this kind of thing. So I get bonding time with them and (hopefully) a luminous glow. I put some fancy-pants organic peeling face mask on my Grove order to facilitate this.
Habits to continue in this area:
Hug each of my kids at least once a day. The little ones are all over me and get their need for touch met easily. But I find that as the big ones get older, they aren’t as affectionate, and I don’t touch them as much. This isn’t good, however, so I created this goal for myself a couple of years ago to remind me that they need touch too and have stuck with it.
Interestingly, one of my children got upset with me the other day because he lost something expensive and important to him and said that “a hug would’ve been nice“. Which was funny, because I did remember hugging him – twice, even. But he couldn’t recall it, which means I probably need to do that more. (Kids, even good kids, are egocentric and sometimes blame a parent for things that they’re not responsible for. My son could have chosen to hug me, but he didn’t, and instead blamed me. When I forget this fact, I can easily get my feelings hurt. But I digress.)
Financial & Business
Read 17 books on personal finance. Why am I doing this? Because I have been ignorant of the principles of good money management for too long. I’m 41 and I’m not growing any younger. I want to set a good example for my kids and change my legacy. I’m about 5 down, 12 to go at the moment. I’ll update the page every month: 17 books on personal finance in 2017.
Increase the pageviews on this site by 400%.
I want to publish at least three times a week on this site, twice a week on my other blog, send the newsletters weekly, as well as guest blogging somewhere at least once a month. I did well with publishing content last year, but was not consistent with sending newsletters.
Recently, I completed Crystal Paine’s Blogging Coaching class and by implementing her advice, I’m already seeing big results. There was a time I earned a full-time income from my business, and my goal is to get back there.
Go to a live blogging conference. Not sure which one yet. Definitely Exposure & Profit, because it’s longtime bloggy friend Kelly McCausey’s baby, several other bloggers I know will be there, and also because it’s in Atlanta. Kind of a no-brainer! I would like to do another one that involves travel and an overnight hotel stay. I’ll bring along hubby (to babysit!) and the baby. Should be fun.
Buy a house! This is more of a to-do, not a goal really. We’re looking at houses right now and will move by March. But still, it’s a pretty huge thing for us, so I list it here. Another related goal is to decorate the new house. 2016 was the year of savings, 2017 will be about intentional spending (and investing). (Be prepared to read my tales of struggle in this area! Decorating is so very difficult for me…)
Habits to continue in this area:
I work 6 days a week at dark-thirty in the morning. That was my best change in 2016.
What are your goals for 2017?
You have some very meaningful goals in here – best of luck in pursuing them relentlessly all year long, even as distractions inevitably pop up! Feeling inspired now to set my own goals – going to start working on that today!
These are great goals Carrie. I too plan to attend more social events with my friends no matter how tired i am. We need that sisal interaction and girl time!! Good luck on the house search!!
Very practical goals. Thanks for sharing.
Great goals, Carrie. And 17 financial books? wow! My goals are to start making money from my blog, be more generous, draw closer to God, and think about having a baby!
Those are awesome goals! And yes, 17 is a lot but I’m already 6 in, and I’m a very fast reader. 🙂
Yes we do! And thanks 🙂
Cool, circle back around and share the link here, I would love to read them 😉
I need to write out goals like this. Love the idea of spa hours with my daughters
What wonderful goals to set! I see several I should add to my list:) Thanks for sharing. It has inspired me to get busy on my own goals for the new year.
Oh my gosh! I need to stretch too. I never do it, and then I get so sore that I can barely walk. Why do I have such a hard just taking a break for a few minutes to do it?!?!
I love that you post your goals for accountability! That definitely makes me want to do the list. I’m also working on a “screen Sabbath,” but I’ve been calling it “taking back Sunday”! Fantastic goals. Thank you so much for sharing!
I would love to know which French podcasts you listen too. I am too trying to learn French and found the app Duolingo to be fun and a big help with pronunciation.
French With Alexa, Learn French with Daily Podcasts, Learn French avec Moi, Learn French for Fun.. there are so many! Most of them allow you to listen to a certain number for free before getting a paid subscription, so I have a ton of them in my feed reader and just cycle through. 🙂
you’re welcome! Feel free to leave a link to your goals here if you’ve written on them. (And yes I do find it helpful to post, but there are a few that I keep to myself for privacy purposes.) 😉
Glad it was helpful Maribeth!
also comme une francaise – hers is a YouTube channel, she is so cute and fun, the epitome of gamine!
yes, speaking of accountability – I may never do a facial unless my girls are expecting me to! LOL
and when you said “practical”, you just reminded me that I forgot to post my “Fun” goal of watching a French film once a month – off to edit! 🙂
It sounds like you have a great year ahead of you! I’ll be attending FinCon for the first time next October if you feel like a Dallas trip. 🙂 Also, I’d love to have you guest post over on Picky Pinchers if you’re interested!
As far as my 2017 goals, here’s what I’m working on:
1. Growing the blog. I’ve gotten a big sense of purpose from my blog and met a lot of wonderful people. I’d love to continue growing the blog and seeing where it goes. 🙂
2. Get the house in shape. We renovated our home this fall and a few projects are still lingering. I’m hoping to finish these up and get our house done-zo.
3. Exercise regularly. I used to be so good about exercising! That really went out the window once we started renovating. I’ve started a new medication this year that makes me extremely tired, so it’s been challenging to get exercise. But enough with the excuses! I know I don’t move enough and I just have to overcome my own barriers and just do it!
4. Increase our savings rate to 60%. We’re currently hovering at the 50% savings rate range, which is fantastic. I remember when we used to live paycheck to paycheck, so this is a great accomplishment for us. However, I know we could still do better. My goal is to reach a 60% average savings rate in 2017.
We’ll be paying off our $65,000 student loans over the next 18 months, so every penny counts!
5. Cook more at home. I’m always a work in progress, and I know we’re MUCH better about eating at home now than we used to be. But we can always be better. I’m aiming to never have to eat at a restaurant out of necessity, and only as a rare treat.
You mentioned your other blog- which one is that?
@Mrs Picky: emailed ya!
@Elizabeth: http://www.LaSlimFemme.com 🙂
Whoa!! That is a ton of writing each week! Good luck with all of your goals, I think my favorite of yours is to hug each child every day, what a great way to connect!
These are all really great goals for the new year! I love posting my goals and ambitions on my blog because it helps keep me accountable too. This year I am hoping to do more yoga practice and get out more with my family ?
So we bought a new house (without a lot of savings) but it was the right time and all that–except I have discovered I do not so much love the decorating. Give me words, not fabric bolts and paint.
HAHA YES. I am so much the same. Funny, when it came to fashion (something I’m not naturally good at), Pinterest came to my rescue. I started pinning looks that felt like “me”, and after months noticed definite patterns. I am doing the same with decorating. I’ve discovered that I have a definite minimalist but cozy, eclectic style. I plan on studying my pins before buying anything for the house. It sounds weird, but I have to remind myself of what I like!