My Goals For 2019

If there’s one trait that I’ve developed over the past few years, it is my total love for setting goals. I’m a strong believer in the power of writing goals down and putting them out there for the universe. Last year I didn’t do this as a blog post, but I wrote down a few very specific goals in a notebook and kept referring back to them throughout the year to see how I was doing. And I’m happy to say that I achieved most of them! This year I am going to make myself even more accountable and share them with you all here. That way I’m even more likely to work towards them and hopefully in a years time I will be sitting here writing that I have checked them off. I recently got a phone case which has the phrase ‘Don’t Stop Until You Are Proud’ written on it, and that is basically what all of these goals amount to. I want 2019 to be the year that I can say that I am proud of all areas of my life. However, I think it’s important to be specific with goals and resolutions so I have split them down into categories and smaller aspirations which I will share with you now.

Personal Goals

Reintroduce Date Night

Sometimes I’m so busy working on all of my other goals that I forget the things I have right in front of me. One of those things being my boyfriend who almost certainly deserves a bit more of my attention. We got into a really good rhythm with indoor date nights in 2017 but totally fell off the wagon as I got pregnant and Ernie was born. As he gets older and hopefully starts sleeping better, we should be able to find more time for each other again and I want to make that a priority this year and for years to come.

Improve My Posture

This is such a random goal but I’ve noticed over the last few years, my posture is getting worse and worse. I could blame the toll of pregnancies, breastfeeding, carrying children around all day, but maybe it’s just simply bad posture and laziness. Whatever it is, I’m determined to spend less of 2019 slumped like a sack of potatoes and have instructed those closest to me to give me a slap if they see me doing so. I’m hoping to find some time for strength exercises and yoga too which should help.

Lose Weight

I wanted to write something like ‘be happy with my body’ or anything less blunt than just ‘lose weight’. There’s a certain stigma attached to admitting that this is a goal, but you know what? I do want to lose weight, and I’m owning that decision. I’ve had two babies in the space of three years and I’ve been breastfeeding almost that entire time too. I find it hard to lose weight while breastfeeding as it affects my supply, so to an extent I have to just wait for the right time for my body to shed the pounds. As much as I want to lose the weight I also want to be kind to my body so I’ll just be making as many healthy changes as I can, and hoping my body gets the memo.

Blogging Goals

Hit 10k On Instagram

I know it gets boring listening to people talk about Instagram numbers (don’t mind me just planning a blog post about this exact topic!) but I would love to hit 10k purely for the ‘swipe up’ feature. ‘Swipe ups’ enable you to easily link blog posts and links in your stories and just makes it so much easier for everyone! Last year I had a goal of 3k and I reached 6.5k so I’m really hoping I can smash this years target out of the park too.

Work On My YouTube Channel

I halfheartedly started my channel this year, filming from my phone which was such a pain – and didn’t look great. I so badly wanted the Canon Powershot G7x Mark ii and so I cried actual tears of happiness when Dan bought it for me for Christmas. This camera is going to be a total game changer for YouTube and will make vlogging so much easier. I still need to work on my editing and upload consistently but it’s something I really want to put focus on this year. I love having memories in video format to look back on and also feel like it is the direction that blogging is generally going in. I love talking on Insta Stories and so I want to film lots of chatty videos for my channel too. I’m putting it out there that I would love to have 5k subscribers by the end of 2019.

Improve My Photography

I’m enjoying using my new camera so much, and really want to get to grips with how it all works. I’d like to fine tune my editing style and get creative with Photoshop and special effects. I love taking photos of my kids for the memories but I also love the creative inspiration that I get from places like Instagram and Pinterest and want to try and channel that in my own photos.

Arrange A Meet Up

This is a big one for me to put out there, but that is what this post is all about so here goes! I would love to arrange a big meet up for all the local mums who I’ve got to know through social media and my blog. One of my favourite things about blogging is this amazing community of mums that I have found and the messages and comments I receive saying that they feel less alone as a result of finding my blog. So I would love to really make the most of this platform and find a way to get all of these amazing women together to form some real life friendships too. I had this idea in November 2018 and wanted to arrange a big Christmas Party meet up but I definitely didn’t have enough time to arrange it, so hopefully it can become a reality in 2019 instead!

Family Goals

Go On Holiday

Ideally more than one, but I don’t want to be greedy! The holiday we took to Jersey this year, really had the most amazing effect on us all as a family. It was the refresh that we all needed and left me hungry for more adventures with my little tribe. I’d love to go abroad but would equally be happy with a holiday in the UK. I really want to make the most of this bit of time before Darcie starts school and we become restricted by term times, it’s all going by so fast and I just know I’ll blink and she’ll be off for her first day and this beautiful chapter of our lives will be over.

Save For A Mortgage

I’ve decided that 2020 is the year we will buy a house, so that makes 2019 the year that we put the groundwork in for that. We’ve been saving away for years and are so close to our goal but we also need to have two strong incomes in order to get the mortgage we are hoping for. That means me maintaining a consistent income from my blog, which is quite a lot of pressure but a challenge I’m ready to rise to. I really hope I can make enough of a success of all of this to not need to go back to conventional employment!

Spend More Quality Time Together

Towards the end of this year I have felt like we spend less time enjoying each others company and more time watching telly or desperately trying to keep on top of the housework. I’m sure it’s a result of the adjustment to becoming a family of four but I want us to get back in the swing of doing more fun stuff together. Family day trips and one on one time for each of us with the kids. As the kids get older there are more and more fun things that we can all do and day trips we can enjoy together and I want to soak it all in this year. Last year was a blur of pregnancy and looking after a newborn and it was wonderful but this year is the year of really enjoying this family we have created!

I have a hundred other goals (and sub goals – is that a thing?) which I could list for hours but then I really would be setting my aspirations too high. I think I’ve got a good mix in here of big goals and smaller ones too and I really hope I can look back at the end of the year and say I did them all.

What are your goals for 2019?

Whatever they are, we can all do this – together!