It’s that time of year again….the time to set goals for the upcoming year. Once upon a time, I had a serious problem with setting “new year’s resolutions.” I talked about that a bit in last year’s goal post. As a matter of a fact, I still don’t like that term. However, I do like setting goals. 2014 was a big year for goal setting for me. I set several goals for the year. I even ended up setting goals for the month, for the last part of the year. What I learned from my obsessive goal setting in 2014 is that I love setting goals. Turns out, I respond really well when I set realistic and manageable goals for myself. I quickly learned that making these goals public gives me just the push I need to actually make big things happen. In thinking about what my goals would be for 2015, I knew that I’d end up sharing them here with you.

I actually started lining out my 2015 goals in October. Yes, that’s a tad crazy. Nonetheless, I was getting very excited about wrapping up 2014. There’s just something about the fresh start that a new year brings that gets me excited! I started getting a little carried away (too many goals), so I spent quite a bit of time trying to narrow them down and make them more realistic and specific. Remember, a good goal must be realistic and attainable. Setting a million goals for one year was neither of those things, so I had to force myself to pare themdown a bit. I decided to approach goal setting a tad differently this year, so I broke my goals down into three different categories: personal, business, and home.

Without further adieu, here are my personal goals for the year:

1. Maintain a regular fitness plan. – My goals is to do something active at least three times per week.
2. Be up by 6:00-6:30 every weekday morning. – I’ve never been accused of being a morning person. I tend to wake up just in time to get dressed and make it to where I need to be. (I literally count this down to the second sometimes.) Instead, I’d like to be up early enough to have a few minutes of quiet time (sipping coffee of course) before starting the madness of my day. I might have to increase my coffee intake a bit.
3. Blog 2x per week. – This was one of my goals for 2014 too. While I didn’t quite make it, I did definitely feel like I improved on posting regularly here. I’m going to do even better this year! (Fun fact: I made 50 posts in 2014. Doesn’t that seem wild??!)
4. Have monthly quality time days with Matthew. – We’re busy people. Sometimes finding time to really spend together is tough. I didn’t want to say “date nights” here, because some of my favorite times together are days that we take off and do something special during the day. The goals here is to be sure we disregard everything else and actually spend time together at least once a month this year.
5. Complete three random acts of kindness per month. – Last year, I wanted to say more nice things. I definitely did better at this, but sometimes I’d forget. Life gets busy and it’s sooo easy to forget to do little things like this. This year, I want to continue trying to say nice things, as well as doing other random acts of kindness. I hope to do this at least three times per month.
6. Volunteer 4x. – I love to help people. Sometimes that’s actually a flaw of mine…I get too involved. However, my good intentions sometime get the best of me and I don’t actually make it to helping out causes that I care about. This year, I want to be sure to volunteer my time at least four times throughout the year. Four doesn’t sound like a big number, but I know that a quarter of the year will pass before I know it, so I’ll have to be very diligent on this one.
7. Host at least two parties/events. – There were several times throughout this last year that Matthew and I would run into old friends. I felt like we were constantly saying “we should get together soon,” and yet not actually doing it. This year, I want to be sure to host people at our home at least twice. These can be big or small gatherings…I just want to be sure to focus on spending time with thepeople we love.
8. Replace 3 mediocre things with 3 beautiful things. – I talked about living a beautiful life before. I’ve been working hard to put an emphasis on surrounding myself with things that I love, but it’s a daily battle. This year, I hope to replace at least three things we don’t love with things that we do…big or small.

Amanda  and I starting meeting in late October/early November to talk about goals for 2015. (We had regular goal tracking meetings in 2014 but sort of dropped off later in the year.) We agreed that we needed some sort of way to track our progress this year since we both love that feeling of marking something off a list. We decided that we’d create some sort of spreadsheet to track things quarterly and then meet back up to talk strategy. Then something magical happened. Elise released her December Make29 product.

I follow Elise’s blog religiously, and I think she might be the master at getting things done. (She’s releasing a Getting Things Done workbook/calendar later this year and I can’t wait to see it!) As I looked over her December product, I realized that this was exactly what I needed to track my goals for this year. As soon as it was available, I purchased the PDF and began printing sheets for each of the items that I wanted to track. I knew that I might get a little carried away (with too many sheets tracking too many things), so I decided to combine some of the smaller, more yearly items on one sheet. For example, I have just one sheet for all of my home goals. (More on that later.) If you’re looking for a way to track your goal progress in 2015, I highly recommend purchasing this file. It’s a mere $4 to get an instant download that you can print as many times as you need.

I ended up with eight sheets tracking some of my personal, home, and business goals. I envision these being marked up, tattered, and stained (most likely with coffee) by the end of the year, and if that’s the case, I’ll be thrilled. I love how these trackers focus on the big picture. You can miss days here and there. Not every circle has to be filled. Instead, the goal is to see that you have 365 days to work towards something. If you fill in even half of the circles, that would be an amazing accomplishment! If you feel overwhelmed by goal setting, pick a few simple goals, purchase these sheets, and then begin chipping away at it one little bubble at a time.

It’s not too late to set a few simple goals for this new year. After all, it doesn’tmatter when you start working towards something….it only matters that you do start. What are you hoping to accomplish this year? I’d love to hear about your plans. I have a feeling that it’s going to be a great year!