As I mentioned before, I don’t do resolutions. Instead, I like to pick specific and attainable goals to focus on for the year. I’ve been letting the idea of my 2020 goals marinate for awhile and I think I’ve finally come up with this year’s list.
Rather than choosing a word, like “Balance” in 2017 and 2018 and “Thrive” in 2019, I’ve decided to pick a phrase: “Do something about it!” This year’s focus is on being my own problem solver, not procrastinating and pushing myself outside of my box when necessary.
When it comes to my specific goals, here’s what I’ve come up with for this year:
Goal #1: To Get out of my Rut
Specifically: Plan a fun weekend each month of the year.
It becomes so easy to just work-work-work every week and then chore-chore-chore each weekend. If I’m lucky, I snuggle up on the couch with a book or a television show for a bit, but still… I get stuck in a rut. My plan for 2020 is to plan (and look forward to) one weekend of fun each month. I’d like it to be a weekend *away* each month, but I’m not sure if that is sustainable for the whole year.
My initial list includes: a weekend at Kingsmill to celebrate my mom’s birthday, a snow tubing trip, a weekend at my bestie’s house, possibly traveling for a conference, a trip to Universal Studios, beach weekends, and more!
Goal #2: Take Care of Myself
Specifically: doctor’s appointments, annual screenings, dentist appointments, massages, pedicures, etc.
I’m 42 years old, which apparently comes with a bunch of health-related appointments. Just off the top of my mind:
- Annual physical – once a year
- Annual OBGYN check-up – once a year
- Annual mole check at the dermatologist – once a year, sometimes every 9 months
- Annual mammogram – once a year
- Doctor’s appointment/labs to keep an eye on my cholesterol – every 6 months
- Dentist cleaning/check-up appointments – every 6 months
I feel like I’m missing something? Anyways, there are also extra appointments… like next week I get to have two more moles cut off and tested. Then I get to go back two weeks later to have my stitches taken out. If I have to force myself to get poked and prodded, and sliced and diced… I feel like I need to get some annual goal points for it!
The other part of taking care of myself is self-care. This includes hair appointments (cut and color), massages, pedicures and doing my own fingernails. These little things make me feel happy and I often put them off way too long. So my goal for 2020 is to keep up with a more frequent massage and pedicure schedule because it makes me FEEL good.
Goal #3: Improve Healthful Habits.
Specifically: increase our automatic deposits into our retirement accounts, drink more water, incorporate more movement into my day, pack my lunch, exercise, and learn.
Let’s break these into little bite-size goals:
- Increase our automatic deposits into our retirement accounts: I’ve already taken the first step by having a call with our finance guy to discuss our plans. Increasing the monthly amount for our existing account was easy, as a verbal instruction was all he needed. Now, it’s on to the paperwork for our second account. It’s sitting on my desk and I’m hoping to get everything together and turned in… soon.
- Drink more water: Why is this one so hard for me? I can literally go days with just drinking coffee and the occasional sip of water with meals, but I KNOW I need to get more water into my system. I have a big cup at work, so my 2020 goal is to drink at least that cup full during the workday, every day of the week.
- Incorporate more movement into my day: it is very easy for me to sit down at my desk and not get up again for hours. Sure, my iWatch reminds me when I’ve been sedentary for too long, but I’m pretty good at ignoring it. I’ve decided to give myself a goal of doing laps around the office. I initially set 10 laps as my goal, but so far I’ve only gotten up to 5 laps. I’ll keep trying though!
- Pack my lunch: I spend less money and eat healthier when I pack my lunch, so my goal is to pack my lunch 3 – 4 days each week.
- Exercise: In addition to just being more active throughout the day, I also want to get back into a gym routine. I’ve already signed up for a 10k in April, so I should probably do some sort of exercise before I run it.
- Learn: I am a total nerd and I really do love learning. I’m planning to continue checking out lots of random books at the library, and I’d like to take some lessons throughout the year. Maybe do an iSky visit and a cooking class (perhaps one with Jack too!). I also bought myself a ukulele because I’ve always wanted to learn how to play a stringed instrument, so I’m slowly learning how to play!
How about you…do you set goals or resolutions for yourself for New Years?
One thing that helps me stick with my goals is to listen/ready inspiring books! I just finished You are a badass. It was like listening to a personal pep talk that helped remind me that I am destined to be in my own ruts. Opportunity is all around me for things to change. Thanks for sharing your goals!