I have always anticipated a New Year with a certain nervous excitement. I am energized by the idea of a new year and a fresh start, even though I know there is nothing magical about January 1st. Having the chance to sit and reflect on the past year and see the things I have accomplished and experienced is something I relish.
Growing up, my family would gather on New Year’s Eve and go over the year, celebrating each individual’s accomplishments and reflecting on everything that had happened. We would write these things down, then we would spend some time alone and write down goals for the New Year. My dad taught us the power of goal setting and I was always surprised, year after year, at how many things I had “unintentionally” accomplished by the following year, just because I wrote it down. It didn’t seem to matter that I often never once re-looked at my New Year’s Eve list throughout the year.
Goals were always something more substantial than resolutions, hopes or wishes for the New Year. They were SMART goals, which if you haven’t heard this phrase already, stands for
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-based
They are very intentional plans that are specific and realistic. We often wrote in more detail about what specific steps we needed to take to achieve those goals. However, they were also never something that were a marker of success or failure. They were a framework to give direction and intentionality for the year.
This practice is something I have continued to do on my own over the years. I feel mentally unprepared if I have not had time to reflect and gather my thoughts before the New Year.
This year we went to Georgia to spend Christmas with one of my husband’s brother’s and his family; then New Year with my bestfriend and her hubs. I knew it would be hard to find time when I was there, so I spent an hour on the flight jotting things down in my phone.
2018 was such a good year for me. I:
- Got my massage therapy license
- Started my own massage therapy business: www.enciwellness.com
- Won a scholarship from Performance Health to the American Massage Therapy Association’s National Convention in Washington DC
- Got my certification in prenatal massage therapy
- Started this Fruit Pray Love blog and started writing again
- Began being intentional about living a low waste/plastic free lifestyle
- Paid off a personal loan
- Got a new part time job in the field I love
- The hubs and I repainted our kitchen
- And we traveled to Washington DC, New York, Philadelphia, LA for a sister-friend’s wedding, rode horses along the beach in Mexico, rode bikes along the beach in New Jersey and rode scooters through Atlanta, GA.
Washington DC 
New York 
Fancy in LA 
Rosarito, Mexica 
Tijuana, Mexico 
Atlanta, GA
It was a great year in so many ways, but it also came with a number of difficulties and losses of people that were very dear to my heart. My parents moved from Arizona back to the UK too, which felt like a loss in a different sort of way.
It’s things like those that have cause me to re-evaluate the important things in life and the practices I want to develop more:
things like
- not taking anyone or any time for granted – time and people are infinitely precious.
- letting those you care about know how you feel about them while you can
- realizing that joy is choice
- and remembering that even during the times He feels farthest away, and I feel most distant, God is still involved in the details of my life and He fills my life with good things.
As I said above, my goal setting for 2019 are not markers of success or failure. They are a direction, an intentional marker to aim for. They bring a flexible focus and a framework on which other things can be built.
Personal goals I have for 2019:
- Continue to make more sustainable swaps for a low waste/plastic free home
- Become more consistent at writing (using this blog as my platform)
- Be more disciplined with my time and manage it more effectively
- Start reading again (can I read five books this year?!) Less netflix, more page flips (NOOOOOOOOOO moving on quickly from my terrible joke) Really though, I used to read all the time but in the last number of years have somehow lost the motivation and practice! I would like to bring it back.
- Continue to grow my business and gain certifications in a few more modalities (wait and see!)
- I also have a few tentative plans for some super cool travel trips
So there we go.
I hope you enjoyed reading and felt inspired in some way with your own goals for the new year and can take the time to really celebrate the year you just had. Whether you accomplished the things you thought you would or not, it’s so important to celebrate and reflect on the things that did happen. I also hope that if you have negative feelings around resolutions, etc, that this idea of a flexible framework can be a breath of fresh air and perhaps an inspiration for creating your own.
What is a goal or intention you have for 2019? Let me know below and let’s encourage and support each other!
