A lot of people don’t like goal setting in January – or ever. It’s currently trendy to carry on from December to January as if years just didn’t exist whilst simultaneously calling out everybody on Twitter who dare whisper the word ‘goal’.
Personally, I don’t see the harm in setting a few goals. As long as you don’t punish yourself and you realise you’re just a mere human being, of course. I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder quite badly and so, for me, setting goals and planning is a nice distraction.
I’m trying to keep it as simple as possible this year, but hopefully, these will offer up a bit of inspiration.
A Nighttime & Daytime Routine
This is a nice, simple body & mind goal that – once I’m into the routine – should be fairly easy to manage.
It involves five key components:
- Daily yoga practice. I hear you like ‘hell no’, but this doesn’t have to be an hour-long session. It’ll mostly be 15 minutes in the morning & will involve stretches just to get my body moving.
- Skincare routine every day. I’ve been doing this 9/10 times for so long anyway, but sometimes I get lazy and clean my face with micellar water and it just isn’t the same.
- Drink 4 bottles (my re-usable bottle) of water per day.
- Floss my teeth nightly. Again, I do this most of the time.
- Read (rather than watching TV) before bed. When I read, I can sleep. When I watch TV, I can’t.
Spend More Time Alone
This is quite a personal one & probably won’t be applicable to that many of you. After a couple of break-in experiences whilst I was at University, I’ve never been all that comfortable alone at night. I’d really like to change that this year.
I’m not sure how this is going to work & exactly what it’ll take to change my mindset (I’ve been trying for a long time with no avail) but I’m going to keep trying.
Grow My Business
The main way I’m going to do this is by splitting my week into five. Being a freelancer (and having multiple projects) can be quite overwhelming. Towards the end of this year – especially with the addition of my skincare business, Maya Rey, I’ve found it a bit challenging to break up my time.
From next week, my days will be broken down as so:
Monday: Pitching & chasing pitches
Tuesday: Maya Rey
Wednesday: Article writing & editing
Thursday: Book writing & editing
Friday: Blog writing (I manage five blogs in total – for clients and myself)
I’m also going to be flexible with this. I will sit down on a Sunday and decide which days suit which activity. This isn’t meant to be something to stress me out, it will be fluid and chilled.
Build Savings For Travel
Going on holiday is my favourite thing to do. I want to do more of it but I’m not prepared to put my travels on my credit card – ultimately because I never really pay it off. This year is going to be all about being financially sensible.
We’ve bought our house & we’ve done all the major work we need to do, which made 2018 a rather expensive year. 2019 is going to be all about winning new work, building up reserves and making sensible financial decisions.
Goal Setting
And that’s it. Just four simple headings which lead to sub-tasks. This way helps me because if I break the goals up into individual tasks, they seem a bit overwhelming.
I do think – and this is especially pertinent if you’re a freelancer – that taking stock of your year is so important. I know that the new year, new you jargon can be a bit repetitive but January is the perfect time to review what’s working and what isn’t and make changes accordingly. It doesn’t have to involve making goals if that doesn’t work for you, but just a bit of light reflection can really help.
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