I love New Year’s goals.
I don’t call them resolutions, not that I really have any issues with that term, but I just like calling them goals. They are a big deal to me, and I make them every year.
I keep track of my goals in my bullet journal, and I love being able to look back at past years and see which goals I accomplished and which ones I lost track of. I don’t put too much pressure on myself with my goals each year, but seeing all my goals on a list really motivates me to work towards them.
As 2022 comes to an end, and a brand, shiny new year gets started, I have all new goals to be excited about. I’ve been thinking about these goals for at least a month, tweaking some, adding or deleting others. I didn’t just sit down on January 1 and write down all the ideas that first came to mind. Instead, my goals are actionable items that I really hope to accomplish this year. These aren’t necessarily all of my goals, but they are the most fun!
Run a Half Marathon
So, one way or another, this goal is happening. Ben and I are signed up to run a half marathon in New Zealand in March, and honestly, I am dreading it. I have been training for about six months already, but was majorly set back over the holidays (as in I only ran once the whole month of December). I’ve discovered over the course of this journey that I just do not like running. I am excited to cross this off the bucket list and to prove to myself what my body is capable of, but we’ll see if I keep running after the race!
Cook Dinner 4X a Week
I’ll be honest again. I hate cooking. My sister loves to cook, and always talks about how relaxing it is at the end of a long day. I don’t get it. But because I don’t enjoy cooking, I end up eating a plate of cheese and crackers or a bowl of cereal for dinner more often than I’d care to admit. I know I would be lying to myself if I pretended I was going to cook every night, but I think making a healthy meal four times a week is a doable goal.
Read 75 Books
In 2022, I read 97 books (so close to 100!), so 75 shouldn’t be too much of a struggle for me as long as I keep reading at my current pace. A slight twist on this goal is that I am going to try to read more new releases this year than I usually do. The number one place I buy books is Goodwill, which means I often end up with a really random assortment of books. But as I want to enter the world of writing and publishing books myself in the near future, I think it’s important to keep a little better up-to-date with what books are being put out right now.
Learn to Take Care of Lawn
Ben and I bought our house about six years ago, and our lawn has looked a little bit worse each year we have lived here. I don’t know what else to do for grass besides water it, but clearly, that is not enough. This year, I want to learn a little more about how to properly take care of our lawn, you know, soil test kits, aerating, all that type of stuff.
Host a Dinner Party Once per Quarter
Although I don’t like cooking on an average day, I love hosting parties, and when I host, I go all out. I’m talking cocktails, fancy place settings, seasonal recipes. There are often themes. There are always multiple courses. I want to be more intentional about hosting dinner parties throughout the year, and not just around Thanksgiving and Christmas. I’d ideally like to host dinner parties closer to once a month, but once a quarter seems like a more achievable goal.
Start Querying my First Novel
And saving the best for last, I want to start sending query letters for my first novel this year. I finished the first draft of my manuscript on December 31, 2022 (really came down to the wire on that one), and hope to move into the next stage of getting my book published this year. It still needs a lot of work, but I think it is reasonable to make it a goal to start sending out query letter sometime in the next few months. (For those of you who don’t know, a query letter is the first step in finding a literary agent, which is the first step to getting a book published.) I only make goals that are things I can control, so “get a literary agent,” is not a goal of mine for the year because I can’t force someone to want to work with me. I can, however, control how many query letters I send out, so that’s why I phrased this particular goal that way. But getting an agent is the real goal.
Well, that’s my brief list of goals for the new year. Happy 2023 everyone, and I hope you’re as excited as I am about your goals for the coming year!
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