Personal Goals for 2018

This post took a bit longer to get written and posted than I had anticipated… I kept getting distracted reading everyone else’s posts on their goals for 2018… I posted my financial goals for 2018 already, and now I want to go over my personal goals for 2018.

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As I mentioned when I wrote about my financial goals, it is very hard to predict what this year will hold for me, or know how everything will play out with baby-to-be, and so it is very hard to think up personal goals that will be applicable for the whole year.  I was considering only doing monthly goals, but I think I can find a few goals that I can work on all year.  If you followed along with my personal goals from 2017, some of these might seem a little familiar…

Goal #1: Visit or keep in touch with Family & Friends 4 times per month

I loved the intention of my friends and family goal from last year.  I want to continue doing that one.  But, this year, I want to increase it from 2 times a month to 4 times a month… Think I can do it?  I dunno…  It will be a challenge sometimes, I’m sure.

Goal #2: Read 15 Books

Another copy from last year.  Last year the goal was 12 books, and I managed 11.  I want to push myself to read a few more this year, so I have increased this goal to 15 books for 2018.

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Goal #3: Focus on my Habit Tracker

Last year I had the idea to have a monthly focus, which was great in concept, but I wasn’t super successful at it.  I think I was trying to add too much to my plate because I was still using my habit tracker to try and focus on a bunch of good habits I want to develop, and the monthly focus was an additional thing to focus on, and I would get spread too thin.  So, this year, I have decided that my habit tracker goals should be their own goal, rather than whatever it was acting as last year… Each month I make a habit tracker in my bullet journal and I put in 10-15 habits that I want to work on, but I haven’t really been focusing on them, or paying attention to my results (good or bad).  I want to really focus on these habits this year.  (The great part about this goal is that it can be updated each month with new or different habits based on my current life situation.)

Goal #4: Declutter 1000 Items from our House

Now that the renovations are pretty much complete, and we are starting to move things back up from the basement, I want to be sure that we aren’t bringing things up that we don’t want or aren’t useful anymore.  I was originally thinking of 1 item per day for the whole year (so 365), but that felt too easy… And like a couple of good weekend days of decluttering a couple times throughout the year would cover that easily.  I know there are a bunch of bloggers that are going for 2018 items in 2018.  And that would be a great goal, except that I don’t know how realistic that will be for me.  So I decided on a middle ground number.  1000.

Obviously, if I want to be successful at this, I can’t document and blog about all 1000 items (that would promote procrastination, which I am great at), but I will try my best to do occassional updates and at least keep track of the number of items leaving the house the best I can.  (My husband has already started removing things from the house, and not keeping track, so the total number might be more than 1000, but hopefully I can keep track of most things and get to that 1000 number.)

And I guess I should be wary of how much stuff enters the house in preparation for baby… I’m not sure I can control that too much though… babies apparently need stuff… not too much, but some stuff…  I will do my best to keep baby stuff to a minimum in order to actually benefit from the decluttering.

Goal #5: Do 4 Tasks Each Month that I’ve Been Procrastinating

When I started blogging, there was a blog that I followed called Settle Your Finances.  It appears that Jessica hasn’t updated her blog in a couple years, but I remember that she made monthly goals, and one of the regular goals was to “Complete 4 Tasks I’ve Been Procrastinating”.  I always loved this goal because it was specific enough to require action, but flexible enough to be doable even in the craziest of months.  At the end of the month she would explain what tasks she was able to complete.  These are the tasks that aren’t urgent, but are still important (as GTD would explain).

So… this year I want to do 4 tasks each month that I’ve been procrastinating… at the end of the year, that should be a whopping 48 tasks that have been checked off the to-do list!

First step will be to make a giant list of all the things that I can think of that I’ve been putting off, and then I can use that as a reference for this goal…  And as things come up, I’ll add to the list, and then check at least 4 things off each month.  Here’s to defeating procrastination!

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Other Stuff:

So there are my 5 personal goals for 2018.  I think they are pretty doable.

You might be wondering where my health and fitness goals are… Historically I have had at least 1 goal relating to fitness.  At this point, my health is important, but the more traditional goals of losing X pounds, or running a certain distance, are not really applicable since I am actually supposed to be gaining 1 pound per week as baby grows, and I’m not supposed to start any new physical activity at this point… So my fitness goals will have to wait until after baby is born and I’ve sorted out my new normal.

The other side of things that has come up in my brainstorming of goals is blogging… Do I want to have blog goals?  Well, yes and no.  I would love to become a consistent blogger with quality writing and interesting topics, but honestly, this is my hobby.  I don’t ever plan to make an income from this blog, and so I just don’t think I want to put any pressure on myself to reach a certain number of readers or whatever.  I don’t want this blog to take over my life, I want it to be a fun addition to my life.  So… All that said.  I am not making any blogging goals or promises for 2018.  I will try my best to keep up regular posting (last year was around 4-5 posts a month), and I will try to make sure I am posting quality writing (as quality as my personal stories can be, I suppose), but I won’t put any pressure on myself to meet any specific criteria.  Hopefully that is okay with you, my readers.

So, there you have it, my personal goals for 2018.  Do you have personal goals for 2018?  Are any of them similar to mine?

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