My Personal Goals for 2023

My Personal Goals for 2023

It’s been a number of years since I put up some annual goals on my blog (aside from the attempt I made in the middle of last year), but this is the year I’m getting back to putting my goals ‘out there’, to help keep me accountable, to stay on track and, most importantly, to set the direction that I want my life to travel this year.

For those of you who have been following the blog for a few years, you’ll already know that I use the Wheel of Life tool to add structure to the process, scoring broad areas of my life so that I have a feel for where my life is at now.

Without this structure I’d be guessing at the things I want to do without seeing the full picture of my present reality.

Once the scoring is done, I then go about deciding what my goals will be.

It took me about three hours to go through the process this year and, as well as sharing the goals I’ve decided upon, I’m also going to share part of the method I use with you too to give you a little more insight into my thought processes.

A List of Instructions and Questions

I’ve found it useful to use instructions and questions to really dig down and find out what’s going on in my mind. Here are the questions and instructions I came up with for myself:

1. Write a quick sentence about each area to articulate your scoring.
2. Write some thoughts about what you would like to see happen in 2023 to make this area better
3. What could stop these plans/goals happening?
4. What mitigations can you put in place to overcome or minimise these?
5. Articulate some actual goals (as close to SMART as possible).

I’ve shared a real-life example of my answers to these questions and instructions in my January Newsletter, which is linked below.

My 2023 Goals

So here we go…!

Fun, Adventure & Relaxation

To explore and spend more quality time together

Travelling has always been one of my most important annual goals. Accordingly, my husband and I have come up with a list of places to visit in 2023:

· Trip to London
· Trip to Seville
· Trip to Durham
· Two-week sunshine holiday, location tbd
· Trip to Winchester
· Trip to Bruges

To have more fun

Well if ever there was a non-SMART goal, then this is it! The Merriam Webster definition for fun is:

providing entertainment, amusement, or enjoyment

I like this definition because it breaks away from the idea that fun has to be something humorous or funny when in fact ‘fun’ is much broader than that.

I’m not certain yet how I’m going to measure my idea of fun, but for the now, I’m just going to hold the definition above in mind and keep some kind of list of experiences that would meet these criteria.

Health & Fitness

To explore a sustainable eating plan and achieve my target weight

For the last few years I’ve lost and gained weight in rotation. I lose while following a specified plan and then re-gain the weight when I’m “off plan”.

This year I want to find a sustainable way of losing weight and then maintaining that weight loss. This is going to be an effort in finding out what works for me, rather than following a traditional slimming plan or class.

I’m expecting that it will be a slow, iterative process, but hope that this way will become a way of life, rather than an on/off plan.

Relationships

To create regular opportunities to meet up with family and friends, and to remember and celebrate important dates.

This goal has been a feature in previous years, but it’s still something that I need to keep ‘front and centre’ otherwise time just goes by and I forget to make the effort :(.

As in previous years, I’ll just keep a short log here each month of progress.

Home

To declutter at home, to include clothes, nick-nacks, paper piles, etc and also electronic storage.

I don’t think I’m alone in wanting to regularly declutter. It seems this goal turns up frequently for lots of people!

So far I’ve created a number of checklists, that, if used regularly will gently, but regularly take me on the declutter journey. My updates are likely to be short bullet points of progress.

Achieve Your Best Life

To develop my Youtube channel, creating and publishing regular video content.

Many years ago I set up a YouTube channel, posted a few short videos and then left it to quietly fade into the background.

2023 is the year I want to make the change and bring my YouTube channel to life. I have so much content on the blog that can be utilised for YouTube videos, as well as new ideas that I want to explore.

Expect my early videos to be trial and error as I get used to being in front of the camera and learning how to edit! But I’m looking forward to the challenge and the personal growth this will offer me…and here is my first video!

 

To have a regular writing habit to produce, say, 1,500 words/week

I love to write and can easily get into ‘flow’ when I do so, but I’ve yet to establish a regular writing habit. Instead I tend to write as needed, which basically amounts to producing my monthly blog and newsletter.

This year I want to explore what writing more regularly and consistently can achieve. I’m hoping that by creating a writing habit I will get me into the flow state more often and allow me to dive deeper into some of my ideas.

Achieving this goal will also support my blog, newsletter, YouTube channel and my other social media platforms as it will give me more readily available content to use.

To increase email subscribers and followers across my social media platforms

It goes without saying that because of my inconsistent approach to maintaining my social media platforms, that growth in these areas has stagnated.

In 2023 I want to reverse that trend by improving my content and consistency when posting.

Other stuff I want to monitor

• I also want to keep a log of the books I’ve read or listened to in 2023. I started keeping a log of the books I’d read in 2022 on my Facebook page but it fell by the wayside part way through the year. I’m looking to improve on that outcome this year and will share the books I’ve read with you here.

• Anything else that feels relevant to my goals and plans. For the most part this will probably slot into one of the categories above, but where there isn’t a neat fit and it feels worthy of a mention, I’ll record it here.

So there you have my personal goals for 2023!  I’m excited to finally feel like I’m moving in the right direction and will be sharing my progress through the year.

Now, over to you…what goals have you set for 2023?

What to do next…

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