I debated a lot about goals for 2017. Not because I didn’t want to set them, but because I have such a driven personality that I knew that I could easily set goals that would throw me off from my plan to make 2017 a year of truth.

I had to ask myself and my husband, “How do I pair having a year of truth with goal-setting for my blog, business, and home life?” And then I had to really let myself mull over the answer for a few weeks. Several in fact. Then I finally decided that I would pick only a few small obtainable goals that would inspire, refresh, and renew me.

If you’ve known me longer than a few minutes you’ll know that I’m the master at picking goals that will challenge me as a person. In fact, I generally love nothing more than regularly having a big challenge to tackle. But this year, I’m just tired of difficulty and strife. Call it a result of our nation’s current political climate or just my angst at the end of my first true fiscal year as a working blogger, I’m a little over a great many things. And any goal that involves a challenge to my sensibilities and true self will likely exhaust me.

So I chose goals that sounded inspiring and motivating to only little ole me — while at the same time peppering my annual goal list with a few tasks that would encourage me to be more exacting and intentional in my priorities.

Now, let me be crystal clear: Sometimes it’s really good to choose goals that will challenge us to work really, really, really hard. Sometimes we need to be reminded to be in a season of hustle. Some will need to set those kinds of goals this year, and that’s always going to be fistbump worthy.

So if you need to get out of debt, or to start that business, or to tackle that huge dream board project, do that first!

But there are also some of us who need to choose much simpler and smaller goals. Tailored goals. Goals that aren’t going to make us feel like we need to work, plot, execute, and delegate from dusk to dawn when we’re already tired and worn out from the minute our feet hit the floor each day.

So if you’re in one of those seasons of fatigue, I challenge you to choose goals that will enrich and refresh you. That’s what I kept in mind when I chose these following goals.

My Goals for 2017:

Motherhood – Continue with TTC and expanding our family, naturally.

Marriage – Have a 3-hour date night with Daniel at home each week.

Myself – End my workdays by 3pm each workday, continue working on my novel, read for 1 hour daily, workout 3 days each week, and drink two quarts of water per day.

My home – Consistency. In meal planning, cultivating a recipe collection, morning and evening routines, zero-waste living, cash envelope usage when shopping, and 1-hour daily cleaning schedule. 

My blog, TheLadyPrefers2Save.com — Create and publish 1 e-book on savings, create an effective media schedule each week, time block 3 hours each weekday to blogging and business activities, and double my live streaming and video production, exposure, and presence online. 

And that’s it! I carefully chose each of these goals considering what would be best for our family, for this current season of life, and that would encourage me to keep my commitment to make this a year of truth.

How & Why I Chose These Goals:

People often ask me how to figure out what goals to set, and how I know exactly how to decide on priorities is often by just walking around my home and taking a temperature of how my life is working, what needs addressing, and how these changes will affect my family, and myself, in the months to come. I then base my goals based upon those priorities. 

My current priorities are mothering, my marriage, myself, my home, and the business. With these priorities in mind, I chose an area in each of those categories that I really want to improve in and around my current routines in those same categories. Then, I polished up my goal list by turning my list into a very specific and measurable goal. Things that could clearly define my year to come.

Motherhood Goal: Continue with TTC and expanding our family, naturally. This goal is very personal to me for obvious reasons. While my husband and I both have a heart for adoption, we have decided to take some time and see where things can develop naturally on their own. With several setbacks, including two miscarriages this year, we are looking to enjoy our time together and not focus on deadlines and sorrow. I’m just not ready to give up this dream. While not wanting to not lift up and enrich the lives of those who we love in our lives now, kiddos and fuzzies alike, my husband and I are hopeful that the Lord and Mother Nature will be good to use in 2017.

Marriage Goal: Have a 3-hour date night with Daniel at home each week. My husband and I talked about this and asked each other, “What goal would inspire us each week? What would be a goal that would be good for me as an introvert who often feels that the world is simply too peoply out there? What change could really impact our marriage?”

After some discussion, we came up with the goal of having Have a 3-hour date night at home each week. This could be for a simple movie night. Or it could be a hey look, I’m cooking for you tonight kind of thing. It doesn’t matter what it is, what matters is that it’s at least 3 hours per week, sans kiddos, fuzzies, friends, and the internet, and it’s just the two of us.

After three years of not having a lot of purposed us time, we recently started dedicating time to spend together and it’s really been great for the health of our marriage. Yes, it required effort to make it happen, but it was so worth the effort. 

We got to get away from all of the usual responsibilities of life and just have fun together, hang out together, experience new things together, and just talk. It was so good. It’s been refreshing. Even if it’s just me hearing about my husband’s favorite new podcast or me rattling on about a new way to remove plastic from our zero-waste home. 

Goals for Myself: End my workdays by 3pm each workday, continue working on my novel, read for 1 hour daily, workout 3 days each week, and drink two quarts of water per day. While I know this is sort of an interesting goal, or rather goals, and you may be wondering why I would choose them. Some of you might even be thinking, “Why on earth would she pick such odd goals?”

Truth be told, at first, I felt almost a little bit embarrassed to put it out there that I had set a personal goal to end my workday at 3pm every day. But when I was thinking about goals, I realized this was something that would not only give me the opportunity to set the temperature of my home each day before my family returns home each afternoon at 4:30 but also to give me the downtime and self-care I desperately needed.

This goal is something I could use in many different ways as I cannot tell you home many times I have ended my blogging sessions only to find myself right back on my computer scheduling this or that only to turn around at it was 11pm! For me, 12-hour blogging days need to come to an end! I’m going to intentionally devote a lot of time this year to time blocking and the old adage of working smarter, and not harder in 2017.

While I am a small blogger, someone who will always have to create meaningful content, pertinent social media coverage, and hustle to get pitch letters to wherever and whomever they need to be sent to, I still need to have a life. After all, do any of you really believe in bloggers who aren’t living lives of truth and intentionality? I know I sure don’t. 

Most importantly, are the three other goals in this subsection, my true gifts to myself: To continue working on my novel, read for 1 hour daily, workout 3 days each week, and drink two quarts of water per day.

For those who may not know, I have been toying with the idea of writing about my experiences of growing up in an LGBTQ home and the aftermath of losing one of my guardians in a highly publicized hate crime at the age of seventeen. Events that shaped my early 20’s. Events that need to be written and shared with others. And this is the year that I’m holding my own feet to the fire and sharing that part of my story. My truth.

While as a Christian I have long feared the backlash that may come with recanting my life, however at the end of the day I just don’t care what others feel about this matter. And it’s none of my business what others think of me as well.

More importantly, I’m tired of feeling numb. I’m exhausted by the suppression. The fear of losing readers, influence, and income. The fear of offending women of a conservative nature, women who might continue to read my blog but judge me for my upbringing, for embracing my family of choice. But I’ve also learned a valuable lesson in 2016: Those women are not my base, they are not my tribe. Their opinions do not define me or my blog. 

In all honestly, I’ve put a lot of thought and prayer into my decision to write this story. So for those who likely will not stick around to see how the details of this book will unfold, I lovingly acknowledge your position. But do note: I am my story and my story is my blog. 

It’s also worth noting that my personal truths mean more to me than this blog. And if you don’t care for my story and my family, including my family of choice, I encourage you can unsubscribe to this blog, opt to not purchase my future book (because the book will be written), and frankly, kiss my ass. I’m a little tired of self-suppression, and that’s where I will leave this sentiment for now. So yeah, starting my novel, that’s one of my personal goals for 2017.

I am also setting the goals of reading for pleasure for 1 hour daily. It goes without saying that as a blogger you receive a lot of books to review for work, many unsolicited. This often leaves you with little time for pleasure reading. In 2017, I’m going to be uber-selective in titles I publically review and devote 1 hour daily to reading selections from my local public library (for which I’ve created a new to-read memo on my online library account this very week) and to clean out my must-read list on my OverDrive App. This also included reading at least two titles from the 2017 banned books list when it comes out in late September of 2017.

Finally, I will be working on physical self-care and improvement by way of creating a workout schedule for 3 days each week and drinking two quarts of water per day. While many days this might be catching up on Youtube subscriptions or podcasts while treadmilling, it will get done. And when it comes to water, pray for me friends, I mean… water over Diet Dr. Pepper. Sigh. It’s got to happen this year. Finally.

By the way, I’m going to be posting on my Instagram account daily in 2017, sharing some of my daily events to keep myself accountable and hopefully to inspire someone else, who may need help in the same areas as well. 

My home: This year I’m seeking just one thing, consistency. Consistency in meal planning and cultivating a recipe collection, for staying power when it comes to sticking with a working morning and evening routine and pushing forward with zero-waste and minimalist living, with saving for a rental property and remembering to use and bring a cash envelope system when shopping, and mandating a personal 1-hour daily cleaning schedule each weekday. This is one category I’m going to have to work at each and every day. 

My blog: In terms of blogging, my goal setting this year was once again multi-tiered. First, I want to create and publish 1 e-book on savings by summer. My second goal is to create an effective media schedule each week. This will allow me to time to accomplish my next goal, time blocking 3 hours each weekday to blogging and business activities. Something I desperately need to do. Again working smarter and not harder.

Finally, I will be amping up my live streaming and video production, exposure, and presence online. 

Since I’ve cleared my schedule of a lot of clutter, I’ll have the time to devote to creating, filming, and creating more content for my Youtube account. I’m not going to push myself to have to get it out at a certain time but I’m going to aim to consistently edit and finish a single video of 10 minutes or more one weekly on the site. We’ll see how things pan out! 

You see, for a long time I’ve dreaded being seen online by others. I’m very self-conscious about my weight. Having gone from being 115 lbs. to becoming over double this weight, has been deflating my ego. But those are my issues, my insecurities, and as much as I would love for the world to understand what PCOS, two ankle surgeries, a sedentary work schedule, depression, self-loathing, and apathy will do to one’s waistline, those are my issues.

While I’m still losing weight I can’t let the age of live streaming, blogging business streams, and chances for connection and engagement to slip out of my reach because of childish reasons. Besides, most of the people I’ve encountered online are some of the most encouraging, uplifting people on the planet. So, trolls be damned, right?  

So that’s it, friends. My 5 Goals for my Year of Truth! So now I have to ask, what are YOUR goals for 2017? I’d love to hear! Leave a comment and let me know all about them!