wellness wednesday: goal setting for the new year

So the first month of 2019 has pretty much come and gone already (like HOW?!) and I have a confession to make. I still have not made official “new year’s resolutions”…which, in a way is kind of nice, because that also means I haven’t broken them yet LOL. I always like to set goals for the new year around Jan 1, but this year with a newborn, I just haven’t gotten to it yet. BUT, if you are in that same boat just know…it’s not too late to set goals for 2019! Heck even if it was JULY it’s not too late. If January has already come and gone and you haven’t set goals and resolutions for the new year, I’m going to share my “goal-setting” process with you guys today.

First of all, I got this goal planner from Cultivate What Matters and it’s been extremely as I start dreaming / thinking about the new year! I highly recommend if you’re wanting help in setting + keeping goals in 2019. I’m also giving one away to one lucky winner on my instagram! So make sure you check out my page there to enter!

Before I get down into my goal setting process, let me just say…this takes time! If you have the luxury of dedicating a whole Saturday to do this…TAKE IT! I don’t have that option right now with a newborn, so I’m having to do this process in different chunks of time, which is totally fine too. So every year before I make my new year goals…I like to review the previous year. I divide my life up until categories: work, health, personal life [within personal life, i have a few more categories like ‘faith’ ‘marriage’ ‘relationships’ etc. You can obviously personalize this based on what your life looks like!]. Once I make those categories, I make two lists for each category: what went well and room for improvement. And then, you just BRAIN DUMP all over your paper (or laptop. wherever you are making these lists).

For example, when I think back to 2018 and my “personal life”, some things that come to mind as far as what went well: marriage: michael and I had lots of quality time together + amazing trips. faith: got more plugged into our church and started serving there. For “health”: consistently worked out throughout pregnancy, had a healthy pregnancy / delivery, etc etc. So just list out anything and everything that comes to mind when you think of the previous year. Make sure to take note of both what went well and what didn’t go so well. These are both equally important!

Once you’re done reviewing the previous year, take a good look at your lists. What things on there really bring you life? Was it the trips you took? Relationships you formed? A new workout regimen? Your “me time” once a week (whether that’s a bath or a regular mani/pedi, etc). When you look at your previous year, find the things that truly brought you life on that list, and make sure you make time for those in the new year, and carry those things into your 2019 goals.

The next step in my goal-setting process is to look at 2019 and again, write out my life categories. For me, those categories this year are work, personal life [which for me is marriage + relationships, & things of that nature], health [this encompasses physical fitness, as well as just wellness and self care!], and faith. Once I have my categories, I just start brain dumping any and every goal that comes to mind! Doesn’t have to be pretty or specific or realistic at this point. Just write down any goals or dreams that come to mind for this upcoming year. After that, I go back and look at my previous year under the “room for improvement” category…and see if I can turn those into goals for the new year. Does that make sense? For example, last year, Michael and I did not read one single marriage book together [don’t judge]. So that was under my 2018 “room for improvement” category, thus, getting moved to one of my marriage goals for 2019.

The next step, after you’ve kind of “brain dumped” goals for the new year…is making those goals more specific and realistic. For example, if you wrote out “workout more in 2019” under your health goals…now I want you to make that resolution more specific. Get a new piece of paper, re-write your categories, now with more specific + measurable goals underneath it. So, instead of “workout more in 2019”, make a goal that says “work out at least 4 times a week, every week”. Try to make each and every goal on your list as specific and measurable as you can! This will make it so much easier to accomplish! If one of your goals under “health” was “go to bed earlier” (that is for sure one of my goals)…make it specific. I’m making it a goal for myself to be in bed, sans phone, lights out, by 10:30pm every night. [I’d like for it to be earlier, but trying to be realistic right now haha].

So NOW. You have a list of specific + realistic goals for the new year, divided into life categories. Where do you go from here? I would encourage you to talk to your sister or best friend about these goals. Have someone who will hold you accountable and ask you about them. Also, the goal planner I shared above is a GREAT tool to help you check in throughout the year and see how you’re doing on those goals!

This is just my process for goal-setting for the new year – something that’s worked for me throughout the years, but I’m sure there are TONS of other methods out there! I kind of just made this one up and stuck with it. I’m kind of thinking about sharing my 2019 goals with y’all if that’s something you’d be interested in! Might leave out some of the personal life ones for privacy reasons haha but I always find inspiration from reading other people’s goals. Let me know if y’all would want to see that!

Outfit details: Striped pullover sweater | High rise jeans | Leather booties | Gucci bag | Hoop earrings

Wowza, sorry for such a long post! Hopefully this is helpful for you guys and you feel inspired to take some time within the next few weeks to set some goals for 2019! Thanks for reading!

xo Lauren