Good Morning… Mom!
Well, it’s the end of the first full week of January.
The somewhat obvious topic this time of year is New Years Resolutions. Do you set them? Have you already abandoned any? Etc.
For several years I have set NYRs (”New Years Resolutions”, not to be confused with the New York hockey team……).
I think that every year that I’ve set them, I have failed or not followed through on them. Which as far as I know, is pretty common.
So naturally, as I assume any good blogger would do, today I’m writing a post on NYRs.
So do I have a list of ways to help you stick to your NYRs? No. Do I have a list of NYRs that for some reason are easier to stick to? Also no. BUT do I have a way to offer encouragement and accountability for the NYRs that you’ve set? Absolutely not.
However, I will give you the useless information of what I’m doing in this upcoming year.
I’m not calling these NYRs, though. I will be calling them goals. So when you see that, just know that we’re still talking about the same thing.
For the past three months, T and I have been setting goals to work towards throughout the month. A couple personal, individual goals and then a goal for us to work towards together.
With approximately three days left of the month I’ll ask T if he’s thought of his goals for the next month. At first he wouldn’t tell me until after the current month had ended, but now I think he’s getting the hang of it.
Around Christmas is when I notified him of the 2020 goal list deadline.
Ideally, the purpose of us sharing and writing down our individual goals was for accountability. But we haven’t been doing well at checking in with each other on them specifically. The goals we set together are much easier to keep each other on track with. Duh.
The first personal goal I have for the year of 2020 is to minimize the things that I own by 25-50%.
I didn’t have to think very long to come up with this goal. I’ve been listening to The Minimalists podcast for a few months and it has enlightened me to the crazy amount of stuff we own that is just taking up space in our lives. Im excited about this one.
One of the ways I’m going to help myself get started with this goal is the together goal we set specifically for the month of January. T and I are going to be playing the minimalism game (from The Minimalists). Each day, for 30 days you have to get rid of that number of things. One thing on the first day, two things on the second day etc.
This adds up to FOUR HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE THINGS!!! I had to spell that out just so that I could use caps lock. I obviously have that many things, but as of today, it’s already getting a little difficult.
Whoever loses, as in stops getting rid of things first, owes the other person dinner.
The second goal I had for myself is to create and stick to a budget.
If you’ve ever talked to me about money, or even follow me on Twitter, you knoooow how necessary this is for me.
Or if you followed me on Instagram a couple years ago, you may remember that I had to take a one year hiatus from shopping at Target. Because my lack of will power was getting out of hand.
I have gotten much better since then, but my current mindless spending habits do not support the future that I want.
Also, one of my personal goals for the month of December was to not buy coffee or go out to eat/ order take out or delivery. I did great. I’m hoping to continue as long as I can which will help so much in achieving this goal. Again, if you know me, you know how hard this would have been for me.
Third goal: Not purchase any new shoes or clothing that are not made by ethical companies.
For quite a while I’ve been wanting to be more mindful of the companies that I’m supporting with my purchases. This is going to be such a hard goal for me to stick with because I’m so used to fast fashion and buying something just because I think it’s cute.
Sticking to this goal is going to support all three of these goals. Taking the time to research a company’s values and making sure it’s within my budget are inevitably going to keep my total number of items low.
In fact, all of these goals support each other!
Another tool I’m using to achieve these three goals is that I’ve started an ongoing list of non-essential things that I want to buy, based on price or availability. A couple things that are on the list are a tea pot, a new nose ring, and new lunch bag.
I write the date next to the item and I have to wait at least thirty days before I purchase that item. That gives me time decide if that thing really will add value to my life and if it’s something that I’m willing to part with that money for.
The 2020 goals that T and I have thought of and set together are the ones that I’m looking forward to the most.
Goal number one: Learn a new language.
At first T was really intimidated and not a fan of this idea because he thought I meant to learn a new language fluently… Which I don’t even know if that’s possible in one year…?? It’s definitely not for us at least.
Goal number two: Read six books together… Like out loud together.
T “hates” reading. But I say that anyone who hates reading just hasn’t found the genre that they enjoy yet.
The four books we have picked out so far:
-You Are A Badass – Jen Sincero
-Everything That Remains – Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus (The Minimalists)
-Atomic Habits – James Clear
-The Organized Mind – Daniel J. Levitin
Goal number three: “Run” (walk) a 5k.
I don’t really have a lot to say about this goal. I’m more excited to accomplish it together than I am about the actual goal itself.
Goal number four: Go on two dates a month.
One date planned by me, one date planned by him. I feel like I hear or read all the time how important regular dates are in a relationship. It makes total sense to make it a “habit” now while we have more opportunity.
Goal number five: Travel to between two and four new places.
We’ll probably do one longer, bigger trip, and two to three smaller trips. Probably camping trips:).
Goal number six: Develop a new hobby.
We both have our own hobbies that we enjoy, and we do have indoor and outdoor things that we enjoy doing together. But I want to find a hobby that is new to both of us that we can both be terrible at, and learn, and fail, and get better at together.
Goal number seven: Volunteer a couple times.
We have both volunteered places before and we’ve both not done it in quite a while. So we’re looking forward to this one.
So that’s all I have on goals for 2020. I am sooo excited for this year and have so much ambition. 2019 flew by and even in my enthusiasm for this year, I don’t want to let that get in the way of living in the moment and not taking any second for granted.
If you have annnnny suggestions for any of our together goals, or my individual goals, feel free to let me know! We don’t have all the details worked out but we’re both really excited to discover and learn some new things together!
-J
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