What are your goals for 2019?
I’ll be honest, it’s been a while since I’ve been intention about goal setting and planning.
But the truth is, if you want to get anywhere in life you have to set goals. You can’t just sit idle by and hope something great accidentally happens to you.
This is the time of year that many people make resolutions, only to completely forget them by the end of January.
As a mom, I don’t have time to be making resolutions that don’t get accomplished after January 31st.
The truth is, moms don’t need resolutions, they need goals.
Goals get done, resolutions typically do not.
Resolutions are idle wishes that may or may not happen. Goals have plans of action that enable them to be accomplished.
Let’s talk about what my goals are for 2019, both as a mom and as a blogger.
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2018 Overview
Before we jump into my new goals for 2019, let’s take a quick peak at 2018.
To be honest, I didn’t have any goals for 2018.
I never took the time to set any–I don’t think I even ever thought about it. And that was a mistake.
Part of the reason I didn’t have any goals for the past year was that I felt like I was busy all the time taking care of a baby and trying to keep up with maintaining our home. It felt overwhelming at times.
But to be honest, it didn’t have to be that way. I didn’t have to be overwhelmed, I didn’t have to feel like I was just surviving from one day to the next.
A huge part of why I felt this way, I think, was that I didn’t have a plan.
I didn’t have goals to work towards, I didn’t have a plan of how to get there. Instead, I was just getting by and trying to figure out how to be a mom and a wife and not lose it at the same time. It was rough, and time consuming, and overwhelming at times.
And it just didn’t have to be that way.
I should have paused, I should have taken the time to take care of me. Not to the point of neglecting my family, but enough to recharge and regroup. If I’m being honest, I spent too much of 2018 trying to be super mom without ever taking the time to take care of myself too.
So even though I knew it in my head, I still had to learn the hard way that you can’t pour from an empty cup.
Towards the end of the year I did finally get that through my head and started this blog. And it’s the best thing I’ve done for myself in a long, long time.
(P.S. If you’re interested in starting your own blog, you can check out my posts on how to quickly and easily start a blog, and how to start a profitable blog in 2019)
All that to say, this year I’m doing things different. In 2019, I have set goals I want to accomplish this year, and a plan to make that happen.
My Goals For 2019
Personal Goals
Balanced Health
One of my big goals for this year is to have more balanced health. No, I’m not planning on going on a diet. No, I don’t plan to lose a ton of weight. But there are aspects of my health that I can see a lacking in some ways, and this year I want to try to fix that.
1. Exercise
In 2019 I want to make it one of my goals to exercise regularly. This past year I actually did exercise regularly during the summer, and it was really good for me. Every morning after breakfast I would put Elijah in his stroller and we would go for a walk before it got too hot out (Texas is hot in the summer, guys!).
It was good for me to get out, and Elijah enjoyed it too. We stopped going once it started getting rainy and then cold out. This year, I want to make the effort to get back into that routine of walking every day.
Until it gets warm enough to go for walks, I’m going to try to do some simple exercises at home.
2. Drink More Water
When I was breastfeeding Elijah, I made the effort to drink eight glasses of water a day. For the most part I succeeded. Now that he’s weaned and eating table food, I’ve been lax on this one.
And I can tell the difference. I know I don’t feel quite as good as I did when I was drinking non stop.
This year I want to try to drink more–maybe not as much as I did when I was breastfeeding, but definitely more than I am now.
3. Eat Better
Right on the heels of drinking more water, another of my healthy goals for 2019 is to eat better.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t eat junk all the time. I take the time to make meals for dinner every day. Occasionally we’ll get fast food or eat out, but for the most part we eat home cooked meals.
However, we do tend to eat a lot of meat and not as much fruit, veggies, or sides. That was all well and good for a long while, but now that Elijah is eating the same food I’m more aware of what we’re eating and what’s lacking.
So for 2019 I have a goal of making our meals a bit more rounded. More veggies, more fruit, more “good for you stuff” and maybe a little less meat. Not that meat is bad–it’s just not everything that you really need to give your body.
Read 15 Books
Okay, so something you may not know about me. I used to be a huge reader. Like, I used to read one or more books a week, and that’s all I did during my free time.
However, in the last few years I haven’t been nearly as good about reading as I used to be. Real life just got in the way, you know?
But reading really is good for you, and it does help you to relax and decompress. In 2019 I have it in my goals to read at least 15 books over the course of the year. That means I need to read at least one book a month, and two books a month for three months. I figure it’s a doable amount, but much more than I have been doing lately.
Related: Why Reading Is Essential For Every Mom
Blog Goals
The one really big thing I did for myself in 2018 was start this blog. And I have loved every minute of it!
In continuing on with this side hustle/project of mine, I’ve decided to set goals for myself and this blog for the next year.
Grow Engagement
My first goal for this blog for the next year is to grow my engagement. I’ve had several posts that have gotten a good amount of traction and shares, but for the most part I don’t tend to get many comments or tangible engagement.
I want that to change this year. I want to grow my blog following into an active, engaged audience.
Grow Profit
While my top priority is providing valuable content to my audience, I do want to turn this blog into a side income.
While I monetized this blog right away, I only really started making tangible money on it in November. My goal for this year is to grow my monthly profit to $200 a month.
Create A Product
My last goal for my blog this year is to create a product to serve my audience. I’ve already got some ideas in the works, and I can’t wait to share them with you all!
Pay Off Extra $500 of Debt
This is my “really big, probably not going to happen, but I want to push myself and try” goal. Yes, that’s a real thing.
Both my husband and I have student loan debt. That’s besides the medical debt that we are still paying off from Elijah’s birth (if all goes according to plan that should be paid off by the end of January!).
While we consistently pay our monthly payments, paying it all off early is definitely a goal for us.
I’ll be honest, it’s been hard with a baby.
When we first got married, we had plans to pay a lot of it off right from the start. But then I got pregnant and we needed our extra money to pay for the medical bills.
Long story short, our plan to pay off a lot of our student debt got put to the side in order to pay more immediate bills.
We still made our monthly payments, but because of our financial situation we just weren’t able to pay anymore than what we had to.
Making Changes
Now that our little one is a toddler, things are still pretty tight as far as money goes.
But one of my long term goals is still to pay off our debt early, and this year I want to make that a priority.
So for 2019, I’m making it one of my goals to pay off an extra $500 on our student loan debt.
I know, that may not sound like much, and in the overall scheme it’s a very small portion of what we owe total.
But even a small chunk like $500 makes a big difference in the long run. That’s an extra $500 that we won’t be paying interest on while we pay off the rest. It’s an extra 3.5 payments closer to being debt free–essential we will be debt free three or more months earlier than if we don’t pay the extra $500.
And, I feel that $500 isn’t an impossible goal. Don’t get me wrong, unless our financial situation drastically changes in the next year, scraping together that extra money will be a challenge. But, I don’t think it’s an impossible challenge.
So for 2019, my goals include scraping together as much extra money as I can and putting it toward our debt so we can ultimately live freer.
What are your goals for this year? Share them with me in the comments below, and don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and help me stay accountable to my goals this year!
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