The last week of the year is almost always a week of reflection due to the time I take off from work. I tend to get introspective and think about how I want the upcoming year to be different from the previous one.
Despite my need to lose those last few pounds of baby weight, I almost never put weight loss as a goal. I hate diets of all kinds and I tend to focus on things that make me happy instead. When I’m happy, I’m active. When I’m happy, I eat better. When I’m happy, I’m skinnier.
These are the goals I have every year in some form or another:
- Visit 1 new place this year.
- Learn 1 new fun thing.
- Work on improving 1 new work skill.
- Eat 1 type of veggie at dinner any veggie.
- Pay down 1 Debt or save for 1 thing.
- Fix up one room in the house.
- Volunteer for one day.
Do you see a pattern? Yup, it’s all super easy and most of the tasks are things I want to do, not things I should do. The problem when you’re busy is that it’s easy to forget that you want to try a new hobby or the year flies by and you forget to book that vacation until it’s too late. The other cool thing about these goals is that you can do them at any budget level.
I also don’t put goals that I do automatically like like invest in my 401K and give to Charity.
Visit 1 new place this year.
Before I had kids, this goal was “Leave the Country at Least Once/Year”. Over a lifetime, you get to see a lot of stuff. Vacations have always been a priority, so we’ve spent some major coin on them over the years. It doesn’t have to break the bank though. How many of you have lived in an area for a while and still haven’t seen some of the local sights? Probably everybody. I’m now on my 15th year in the Berkshires and I still haven’t been to the Norman Rockwell Museum. I have no idea why but I just haven’t made it there yet. I even had free passes on my fridge for like a year.
Anyone can achieve this goal on any budget. It might be visiting a new park or nature preserve…or it might be a safari in Africa. Either way, you’re seeing a part of the world you haven’t seen before and I think that can only enrich your life.
Learn 1 new fun thing
I love Hobbies and I never tire of learning new things. I’ve always lived in dumpy houses so after 10 years of being in ours, I now know how to hang sheet rock, tile, make stained glass windows, lay hardwood floors, refinish furniture, paint, perennial garden, and a whole host of other things. Okay, so fixing stuff is not everyone’s cup of tea, but you can learn a new sport or start a blog, or get serious about putting your photos in a scrapbook or whatever. Trying to do everything on your bucket list is overwhelming, but getting good at only 1 thing at a time, makes it a lot easier to be pretty well rounded over time. I want to be a renaissance woman and hence I plan on learning new stuff forever.
Speaking of learning a new sport, I’ve been dying to join the Pittsfield Panty Raid. It’s our local Roller Derby club. My travel schedule makes it hard to commit to the evening practices, but it’s something to work towards. This type of goal is far superior to “lose 20 pounds”.
I’ve expanded this now that I have my own kids. For example, this year I had goals of teaching my older son to swim without a floatie and bike without training wheels. It’s double the fun when your goals include family too.
Work on improving 1 new work skill
I have a pretty structured review process at work, so this is usually incorporated during my self assessment stage. I’ve had quite a few jobs over the years, so a lot of the time, the goal was just centered around getting to learn the skills of the job. This year I decided to start a blog so I could learn wordpress. I figure knowing wordpress would be pretty useful in a variety of ways…plus it doubled as a fun thing to do.
You can also take a class, borrow books from the library, brush up on advice off the internet. There are ways to learn at all budget and skill levels.
Eat 1 type of veggie at dinner any veggie
It’s amazing how easy it is to just carb up and not eat vegetables. We are fine with fruit in this household but veggies can be a challenge. I discovered frozen edamame this year, they steam in 5 minutes and my kids love them. I also love Alexia Fries. We call them emergency fries. They have great sweet potato fries. When I bake them, they get crispy like deep fried fries, but they are not fried and are very nutritious. Thank goodness both of my kids eat broccoli now because that steams up in 5 minutes too.
Pay down 1 Debt or save for 1 thing.
I actually am a personal finance nerd. This is probably not a fun goal for many, but for a number cruncher like myself, I like to have a purpose behind the hours I put in at work.
Fix up one room in the house.
If you’re a renter, maybe this is not important, but even when I was renting, I’d paint a room a year. I care about what my home looks like and I like change. I’m just now at the point where my house is nice in every room but I still planning on painting a room a year moving forward. I don’t want to have to do the whole house over at once. This way it always looks nice and I am never overwhelmed with having to do a bunch of things at once. We also have enacted the “Paint one side of the house a year rule.”
Volunteer for One Day
My company used to organize a volunteer event in September and I usually would go. I figure if everyone in the world volunteered for 1 day out of 365, the world would be a better place. If you can’t find a charity that doesn’t require a long commitment, then help an elderly neighbor for a day, help a friend with a house project, help someone. You won’t regret it. We help a lot of people and never have trouble finding help when we need a hand. It’s a great way to live.
So there you have it, my annual generic goals that always change but are fundamentally the same year to year. Are any of these goals on your yearly list? Are there any that you will add to your list?
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