2018 Goals & Word of the Year {+ 2017 Recap}

A yearly review of goals made in three life areas, personal, home/financial, and business – plus the new goals for this year and the word that helps guide them.

Here we are at the beginning of another year! It never fails to amaze me that as we get older time seems to go faster. Like every year. I mean I know it doesn’t really – but I can’t get used to how fast it seems. Maybe it’s because we’ve got all these memories now we didn’t when we where younger?

If you’ve been around here for awhile you know that sharing my yearly goals is a regular happening. I don’t do it just for me and my own accountability (though these are definitely motivating), but to hopefully inspire and encourage you to set your own goals.

I’ve read a lot about “intentional living” in the last year and what that basically means is that you work to create a life that you would like rather than just letting life come at you day after day. When you take “one day at a time” without thought to the next year – or 5 years – you risk looking back and wondering where all the time has gone. And why your life doesn’t look much different.

That said, sometimes we don’t have a choice about things that happen. But it’s great to move forward in areas we do have control over, right? We can become better friends, read more books, travel, and increase our savings. And when we look back and see progress in these areas (just to name a few), we have a sense of pride and fulfillment that really can’t be compared to anything else.

We’re living our lives for a purpose and moving forward in areas that matter to us and that’s a good – no great – thing! Oh, and perfection? You can probably guess that’s not a goal around here. Moving forward is the goal and if one goal isn’t met, then there’s room to learn and either remove it or keep working on it. I share both my successes and failures with you – we really are working on an imperfect simple handmade life around here. 🙂

While I’ve set a couple of goals in three areas, you don’t have to – you can set just one goal you work all year towards if you want – or you can set monthly goals. Basically, it’s up to you, but I do encourage you to envision what you’d like your life to look like in 5 years and then make a few goals this year to work towards making that a reality.

I’ll start with a recap of last year’s goals, then share my word for 2018 before listing the goals I’d like to work towards for the year.

2017 Goals Recap

Year’s Focus (these guide the yearly goals and are built from our bigger 5-year goals):

• Find/build a new house.
• Financial stability (to make up for a number of years of under employment) – includes goals for retirement and income.
• Better work-life balance.

Personal:

1. Maintain health: lose 5 pounds that have crept back (using real foods and no diets, of course); weights 3x/week & walking 2-3x/week. Results: so-so. After many years of off-and-on-again regular exercise, I’m happy to feel that I’ve finally made my 3x/week workouts a true habit – I hardly missed any this last year. Walking during the summer was more like 4-5x/week (it’s harder for me in the winter months…). As for the weight, I’m still working on it (my hormones are wreaking havoc – sigh). Healthy eating is for life, though – it’s not something I do and then don’t do. 🙂
2. Read 40 books. Results: Smashed! I read 50 books last year to my joy – here are my top 13.
3. Find a ministry area at our church to invest in (maybe mentoring or something flexible with my schedule). Results: not met. This year of transition really thew us for a loop, church-wise. I always felt a “when we are settled” kind of thing. Boo.

Home/Financial:

1. Find/build a new home! Results: met!! And just in the knick of time, year-wise. We found it the end of November and should close in a few weeks. Obviously, much more on this later.
2. Fully funded emergency fund. Results: met – after 5 years, ha! Shows if you just keep at it, right?
3. Ramp up retirement funding – meet with a financial advisor? Results: Half. We increased our input into retirement funds but we didn’t meet with a financial advisor, which I still think is a good thing.

Blog/Business:

1. New site design + refinement. Results: met. I still love the clean look and easy way to find all the recipes and projects on the site, though I’m still working on cleaning up back-end issues (it’s the never ending “black hole of blogging…”).
2. Create products that help us live better, simpler, beautiful lives. Results: not met. This is the hugest disappointment for me – what happened? I had so many ideas! Here’s where I can be honest: fear has held be back. “What if no one wants it after I do all that work? So-and-so already does something like it, probably better.” Etc., etc. Another boo.
3. Attend a conference (this is not my “thing” and was actually a scary goal for me!). Results: met! And I met some really nice people. 
4. Increase video focus: YouTube and Facebook Live. Results: mixed. By the end of the year we started scheduling regular video production days (Brian helps me with this), but the only FB lives I did were at the beginning of the year in the Healthy Eating FB group. I think this is another fear area…
5. Make newsletter more personal with exclusive content. Results: met! I’ve loved connecting more with my readers through the weekly newsletter and have gotten great feedback on it with some telling me they really look forward to seeing it in their inboxes! (Like to join them? Sign up using the box below the header…)
6. Learn affiliate marketing to increase income. Results: mixed. I do feel like I learned more and put much more into practice than in 2016, but I didn’t really see many results from it.

Word of the Year

Last year my word was HOPE. I really embraced this word this time, doing a Biblical word study that I added to throughout the year. I might go so far as to say I clung to the word both for personal reasons and during the search for a new home that seemed to never end.

This year the word that I’ve chosen (I always feel odd saying that because it does seem like the last few years the words have just jumped out at me from places…) is TRUST. This seems perfect for a couple of reasons – it builds nicely off of hope, I want to be a trusting wife, mom, and friend, and I want to be trusting God for all of His promises as well as the goals I (or Brian and I) make.

I really liked how adding the Bible word study throughout the year kept the word front and center instead of fading aways about mid-year, so I will be doing that again for sure.

Are you choosing a word for 2018? If so, please share!

2018 Goals

Year’s Focus:

• Move & start farmhouse fixer remodel
• Maintain steady biz income at 2017 level
• Work a set number of hours a week (only during workweek) to leave time for farmhouse projects and good work/life balance

Personal:

1. Keep healthy by continuing regular workouts and eating right. Specifically I’d like to add even more vegetables to lunch and dinner with 1/2 to 3/4 of meal to consist of veggies.
2. Read 50 books again this year.
3. Join church home group in new house area.

Home/Financial:

1. First phases of remodel for new house. These will include: foundation work; siding, new front door, and master bump-out.
2. Rent second home by end of 2018. We’ll be living in it the first half, but with a goal to rent to help fund the remodel of the farmhouse.
3. Retirement planning by meeting with a financial advisor.

Business:

1. Continue working on affiliate income and creating products. In fact, you can expect something this month that I’ve been working on for a few years!
2. Hire a social media specialist.
3. Increase newsletter subscribers.
4. Do regular FB lives and Instagram Stories (my ‘scary’ goal…) – I’m hoping having the new property will inspire me to see this as a fun way to communicate with you. Expect lots of befores, in-progresses, and afters!
5. Attend 2 conferences (still ‘scary’ goal for me!). Both are scheduled for the first half of the year.
6. Join a mastermind group for biz goal accountability. This is in the works and I’m so excited!

So I guess I have 12 goals again this year, but since about half are already in the works I feel pretty good about them and not overwhelmed. Remember to make just the number that feels good to you.

I do want to take a minute to say how much I appreciate you all – connecting with you, being able to do this as a job and be excited about each day is totally a blessing. It’s something I do not take for granted – thank you for stopping by, commenting and reading – you’re the best!!

You can visit past goals articles to see how I’ve done:

• 2017 goals & word
• 2016 goals and word
• 2015
• 2014
• 2013 goals and word
• 2012 and word (first word of the year)
• 2011
• 2010 (my very first!)

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave