In my last post, I shared some of the known notable things coming up in 2025 for my family and me. I also shared that my word of the year is power.
Today I'm sharing my goals for the year, which I break up across a few areas of my life. I call these constellation areas in my workshops and they are: personal care and growth, health, relationships (including marriage, parenting, family, and friendship), fun and creativity, work, and home and finances. Although each of these areas overlap and interact, I feel grounded across my life when I consider how I want to grow and engage in each one for the coming year.
A general approach that I took to my goals this year was to be really discerning. Some years, I have many goals, and this year I want to consolidate my energy. I'm thinking of my intention for the year, power, and how I have the power to choose where to invest my time and energy. I considered the two bigger goals that I have and want to make sure I have the time and energy for those. Which means not putting big demands on myself in other areas of life.
So here's what I'm thinking for 2025...
Personal Care & Growth
Overall I feel good about my personal care and growth given the season of life I'm in, which includes three young kids, one of whom still needs a lot of time and attention from us. What I find myself craving in this area is more downtime and more introvert time. There's only so much available but that's what I had in mind when I created my goals.
Goals:
+ Monthly planning days. I mentioned taking a planning day in my January post, and I want to make this a monthly routine. I've decided I'll mark a "monthly planning day" on the last Wednesday of each month. The biggest tasks I want to take care of on my planning days will be: looking ahead to see what we have coming up and what details we need to figure out, texting a babysitter to ask about any upcoming babysitting, writing any birthday cards to family and friends for the next month, and checking to see if the kids need gifts for birthday parties. Additional things I could do on a planning day would include: taking the car for a car wash, finding new recipes I'd like to make the next month, batch meal prepping something, dropping off donation items, or a power hour to take care of nagging tasks.
The challenge with this goal will be staking out the time and committing to it, even when I have a lot going on in the week. I'll make a checklist for myself of the main tasks I want to get done and I think I'll see that I can get them done pretty quickly if needed. And hopefully I'll know that taking time to plan and look ahead is so beneficial, it's worth it even on a busy week!
+ Take a day off each quarter. This is a repeat goal from last year when I wanted to take three days off. Sickness threw off two of my three days off last year, blerg! Hopefully I'll have a much better batting average this year. I already have the last day of February marked as a day off for myself, and I'll also plan to take my half birthday off as well as my birthday. I'll just have to find one more day off in there as well.
To make this happen, similar to my monthly planning days, I have to mark these on the calendar and mentally commit. It's hard when my to-do list feels long. But I also know that recharging my own batteries is what helps me have the energy to tackle my to-do list on regular days.
Health
I am in excellent health. I often think about how grateful I am for my health, and I put a lot of effort into my health including exercising and how I eat. So for the most part I just want to keep doing what I'm doing. I'm going to track my workouts this year, as I've done in past years, but I don't have a goal number. I just enjoy seeing the little stickers accumulate on my chart over the year.
Goals:
+ Get new glasses. This has been on my to-do list for...four years?? I wear a very mild prescription only to drive at night or in the early morning when it's dark. My glasses are dated and my script has changed very slightly. I'd love to have glasses I love wearing.
Update: I already accomplished this! And I am totally the person who keeps something on their list just to cross it off. What helped me with this was enlisting a stylish friend to help me pick out glasses. We went to Target Optical last week, found a pair, and I ordered them. My insurance also covered close to half the cost. Hooray!
+ Get monthly InBody scans at Orange Theory. An InBody scan measures your muscle mass and percent body fat. I love having this kind of health and body data, and I get a free scan each month at Orange Theory. This will be interesting and fun for me to track all year. I got my first one in early January so I'm off to a good start.
Relationships
I feel good about the relationships across my life and I am fortunate to have a deep and wide community of family and friendships. The biggest challenge I feel in this area is having limited time. I love being an attentive friend and I enjoy being social. But I also value prioritizing time with Chris, my family, and alone time. I feel like I am almost always trying find a balance across those things and often feel like I'm not giving enough to one of them. I think that is just part of this season of life and doing my best is good enough. This year, I have two goals where I want to invest in new relationships and one very important existing one.
Goals:
+ Start a Girl Scout Troop. This is one of my big goals this year! I've thought about starting a Girl Scout troop ever since we found out we were having a girl, and honestly even before that as I imagined possibly having a girl one day. I had a good experience as a Girl Scout growing up (through middle school I think), and I also feel inspired to be a positive influence of confidence, leadership, empowerment, and citizenship for Maeve and any other girls who might join our troop.
I have a few local friends who lead troops so I'll be asking them to coffee to learn more. What feels most daunting to me are cookie sales! I never liked selling cookies as a Girl Scout and there are other aspects I don't love about it nowadays. I'm hoping to explore how to navigate cookie sales in a way that feels good to me, and perhaps that's where another parent volunteer will shine!
+ Celebrate our 15 year wedding anniversary and have a "marriage summit." Chris and I love having a summit on any topic, which is just a fancy way to describe having a deep and somewhat structured conversation about something. For our marriage summit I'd love to talk about what's going great in our marriage and anywhere we want to grow or improve. It's fun to reminisce too about all that's changed, and what hasn't, in the time we've been married. I'd love to talk about what we hope will happen across our next 15 years of marriage. We love having conversations like this about our marriage and I think it's something that makes our marriage really strong.
Fun & Creativity
I think it's so important to consider fun and creativity in our lives. I am someone who truly loves working and being productive, plus my work is already very creative. So I have to remind myself to find things to do just for fun. With my one goal in this area this year, I hope several fun things will come into my life.
Goals:
+ Make and maintain a list of date ideas, and try at least four new things this year with Chris. I often think about the advice of seeking to have new experiences in order to deepen a relationship. When you're married and in the midst of raising kids, it can be hard to seek out new experiences. Yes, there is comfort and fun in returning to our favorite restaurants and coffee shops. But usually the memories of doing so blend together. However, I vividly remember going ax throwing for the first time with Chris last year, and how much we laughed!
So this year I want Chris and I to seek out at least four new experiences together. I started a list on my phone to keep track of new restaurants I hear about or interesting things to do around town. I'm looking forward to seeing what we find to do!
Work
I'm so happy with my current portfolio of work, which I see as having four different "departments": the Girl Next Door podcast; my RISING*SHINING blog, podcast, and now Substack; teaching online at ASU (which is new this year), and managing our house in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I love the varied nature within and across each of these work endeavors, and that each of them are completely flexible which I value deeply. This year I want to keep each of these endeavors in great health, and push myself to accomplish a big goal.
Goals:
+ Write a nonfiction book proposal. This is my other big goal this year! I'd like to take the content I've already developed for my workshops about goals, habits, and routines and turn that into a book proposal. I feel as thought I've been steadily working towards this goal for years and I know I'm capable of accomplishing this. Thank you to Sarah who has been so generous with her time and encouragement, and who just turned in her first book draft–gooooo Sarah!
I plan to accomplish this goal by using the book Blueprint for a Nonfiction Book and breaking down the recommended steps. I do well with structure and deadlines so I will create those for myself along the way. I've started reading the book and have created an initial timeline for myself. I foresee putting in some weekend writing sessions, and I hope to have at least one overnight writing retreat.
+ Get new professional photos. Ack! My professional photos are from 2022 and feel very out of date to me. They're great photos but I definitely need fresh content. I've already reached out to a photographer and have a location picked so this is in progress!
Home & Finances
For perhaps the first time, I feel content overall with our home! In years past there's always been an outstanding update that I can't wait to make. There are still plenty of things I'd like to update around our home but overall I'm content with how it looks and functions. Especially given that it takes a beating from our three kids! No reason to prioritize certain things (like buying a new couch) while we're in this season of life. Our financial health is also very good overall. We still find months where we feel more squeezed but we are saving, paying for our day to day life, earning more each year, not accumulating debt, and Chris and I have great communication about our finances. Lots of good things to keep going!
Goals:
+ Write a house tour blog post. I love the house tour posts on Cup of Jo. My favorite home tour of all time is Catherine Newman's. I love how her warm, funny, and caring personality shine through the interview, and that her home looks like an everyday lived in home of a regular person (in a wonderful way). To celebrate my own everyday lived in home, with all its lovely bits and quirks, I want to write a house tour blog post and share it here. It'll be like inviting all of you into my home which would be fun!
That's what I have in mind for 2025!
I'd love to know of any specific goals you have this year, or what is going well that you want to lean into this year. It's so important to also recognize the good stuff that we already have going.
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