Here we are, almost through the second week of 2017 and I’m just now getting my goals finalized for the year. I haven’t felt well (stupid asthma) and simply haven’t had the mental bandwidth necessary for this task. Better late than never, right?

My Word of the Year

I’ve been wrestling with my choice for a “Word of the Year”. I knew the concept I wanted but couldn’t find just the right word. I wanted something that sounded poetic but when it came right down to it, I just had to go with the most descriptive word – Release. My focus for 2017 will be on releasing or letting go of things that have been holding me back. Household clutter, too many activities, excess weight, relationships which only cause me pain, fear, time wasters, procrastination…anything that is keeping me from living the life I envision for myself. This is the year I release these things.

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2017 Goals

To determine my goals and aspirations for 2017 I came up with ten categories or life areas and then created goals for each. I like to do it this way because it helps me be sure that I’m addressing all areas of my life. Here is what I selected:

Health

These categories are in no particular order other than this one. For a variety of reasons I am making health my top priority this year.

1. Consistently meet my current daily goal for steps (love my FitBit!) and then gradually up that goal until it is doubled by the end of the year.
2. Increase daily water intake until I am consistently drinking 6-8 glasses a day.
3. Consume 5-7 servings of fruits and vegetables per day.
4. Monitor my blood pressure regularly, adjusting medication and taking other steps necessary to get it into a desired range.
5. Improve my sleep habits. I currently get very little sleep and what I do get is often of poor quality. My goal is to regularly get 7 hours of sleep a night.

Relationships

Husband, kids, parents, friends and other family…these relationships are important to me and I want my actions to reflect that.

1. Weekly date night with David
2. Plan at least a quarterly mid-week getaway with David. He has more vacation time than he usually takes, in part because it’s hard for him to get away for extended periods of time. Taking a night in the middle of the week to go to a hotel is something I think we can manage but only if I take the initiative to plan it.
3. Institute a monthly game night with our kids. It’s hard to find times when everyone is available but I think I may just set a regular night and hope for the best.
4. Visit my parents weekly or have them over for dinner. My mom had a stroke in November and my dad’s health isn’t great. I need to make this a priority.
5. Make an effort to write friends and out-of-state relatives…maybe even real snail mail letters. I used to correspond with various people years ago but that seems to be a rare thing for most people these days. I’m going to order some beautiful personalized stationary and use it!
6. Plan regular times to meet up with my cousin who lives in the city. We were best friends growing up and I miss her.
7. Also plan get togethers with a dear friend in the city. Maybe even plan another “Thelma and Louise” road trip together (minus the crime spree, of course).

Blog

I have oodles of plans for Life With Dee for 2017. The challenge will be to stay focused and not take on too many things at once.

1. Create at least one product – a course, eBook, or something similar
2. Double monthly page views.
3. Increase social media followers (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram) by 20%.
4. Monthly themes. I wrote about this here.
5. Interview one person per month in conjunction with the monthly theme.
6. Update at least 20 of my old posts and repost them. I’ve been blogging for over a decade and have a lot of old content. I used to post a lot of recipes on my old Dee’s Kitchen blog which I rolled over into this one. Many of them lack good photos and they all need to be reformatted. I want to categorize them so they’ll be easy to find.
7. Formally launch a group forum here on the blog. You may have noticed a category at the top of the blog called “Le Café”. I set this up months ago but haven’t mentioned it because I wasn’t quite ready to take on the task of moderating it. I still need to add discussion categories before I begin encouraging people to use it. My vision is that this will be a place where readers can ask questions, share information, and support one another.
8. Increase newsletter subscribers by 50%.
9. Continue to build relationships with my readers via blog comments (I try to respond to every comment), the Life With Dee Facebook page, and my Facebook groups:
   Make Over Your Life With Dee
   Namasté, y’all
   Creating a Beautiful Life

HMA Foundation

I’ve mentioned that David and I, along with a terrific Board of Directors, have created a nonprofit recently. HMA Foundation‘s mission is:

Spiritual

1. Continue daily reading from my grandmother’s Bible which she left to me. I am honored that she chose to leave her most precious possession to me and I want to honor that by reading through it all. It’s full of notes and other little things she tucked away between the pages.
2. Make daily meditation a habit. This has been an on again/off again pursuit for me but I feel this is very important.

Home

I’m a homemaker and a nester by nature. I love creating a beautiful and peaceful home life and I know it’s one of my gifts. However, I’ve let other pursuits crowd out much of what brings me joy in my role as a homemaker. By “releasing” other obligations I plan to create more time for my home.

1. Create a room-by-room list of repairs, updates, and organization tasks.
2. Systematically declutter each room of the house.
3. Create a home office.
4. Get back in the habit of baking bread regularly.
5. Make homemade yogurt every week.
6. Hopefully get chickens again this spring and plant at least a small vegetable garden.

Personal Development/Learning

I’ve always been passionate about learning new things. That’s one of the things I love about blogging – there is always something new to learn!

1. Read 52 books this year. I used to read voraciously until Facebook began sucking up a lot of time. I’m going to be changing that.
2. Learn to crochet granny squares. This has been on my list for a few years now.
3. Do at least one Rosetta Stone lesson a week. I’m instituting “French Fridays” for myself and part of that will include a French lesson.
4. Make a list of all the e-courses I have purchased or signed up for and begin doing them.
5. Step outside my comfort zone occasionally. I’ve recently been asked to speak to an advertising class at our local university. Public speaking is way  outside my comfort zone but I was honored to have been asked so I’m going to do it.

Green Goals

I care deeply about the environment and I believe it is now more important than ever that I do my share to live an eco-friendly lifestyle.

1. Decrease the quantity of trash we produce. I was doing well with this a couple of years ago. We had gotten to where we only filled our kitchenwastebasket about every 10-14 days. I’m going to work toward that goal again.
2. Compost consistently. Again, something I used to do.
3. Get David to put up a clothesline for me outdoors, plus a pull-down laundry rack in our laundry room so I can hang most of our laundry.
4. Begin to replace lightbulbs with high quality LED bulbs. Many of ours are CFL bulbs but as they go out I want to switch to LED. We did make theswitch to LED lights on our Christmas tree a few years ago.
5. One of the monthly themes for February here on Life With Dee is “green living” so I’ll have a lot more to say about the subject then.

Financial

David handles the bills and most of our finances these days which is a huge relief for me. I love words but numbers are not my thing. For a number of years David gave me cash each pay period for household expenses such as groceries and other day-to-day expenses. Somehow we got out of that habit but I know I spend less when using cash.

1. Reinstitute a cash envelope system for routine household expenses.
2. Open my own bank account and PayPal account for blog-related accounting purposes. I’m hopeful that this will be the year I begin making enoughfrom Life With Dee that this will be warranted.

Personal/Fun

And finally, I intend to set aside time for some things I love to do. I tend to put these off until I’m “done” with my work but the truth is, work is never done. It simply expands to fill all available time. I’m going to begin scheduling time to pursue things I enjoy.

1. Play the piano
2. Color in my adult coloring book.
3. Watch French films and other movies that David isn’t interested in. I’m going to set aside Friday afternoons for this.

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So that about wraps it up. Do you set annual goals or select a “Word of the Year”? If so I’d love to hear about it. Leave me a comment. And if you’d like to but haven’t gotten around to it yet, there’s still time. Here are a few resources that might help:

New Year’s Resolutions: Planning For a Year of Achievement

12 Life Goal Categories

Free Goal Setting Worksheets

SMART Goals: How to Make Your Goals Achievable 

10 BIGGEST MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE IN SETTING GOALS (AND HOW TO FIX THEM) – podcast by Michael Hyatt

How To Change Your Life By Setting Goals by Crystal Paine

Top 100 Goal Setting Books 

Daily Goals – A simple habit tracker (this is the one I use on my phone)

Related Life With Dee posts:

Setting and Achieving Your Goals: A Challenge

Setting Goals for 2016

Mid-Year Review

Resource List For Goal Setting

Dee’s New Planner: Getting Organized in 2016

Happy Planner (this is the one I have)

Home Planner Insert

Fitness Planner Extension Pack

Weekly Menu and Grocery List Inserts