My 2019 Goals (or Another Year Of Planning Some Big Things)

Happy New Year! I hope that you all had an amazing New Year’s Eve (and got home safely) and are already getting your 2019 off to a good start! It’s so crazy to think that the new year is already here because 2018 felt like it flew by. There were a few months that felt like they took years, but overall the year was over in a flash!

Over the next few posts I’ll be sharing my 2019 goals and plans. There’s a lot that I have in mind and I didn’t want to overwhelm everyone with writing a novel on here. So I’m breaking it up into the posts throughout the week. But today’s post is one of the bigger ones because I am covering my 2019 goals!

I like having goals instead of resolutions because it feels like they are more achievable. Goals make me think of steps to complete them whereas resolutions feel like you have to be all or nothing from the beginning. Some of my goals could be seen as all or nothing, but I feel like they all have the opportunity to be something I work on throughout the year.

My first goal is one for Orangetheory. I actually will be doing a separate post about my OTF goals, but since I’ve written about my goal number of workouts in my regular goals post before I wanted to include that. I want to do at least 200 Orangetheory workouts in 2019. I feel like this should be very achievable for me. In 2018 I did 206 workouts. I work out 4 days a week almost every week. The only times I didn’t do that were when I was out-of-town or was sick, but even then I usually got in 3 workouts in a week. I don’t want to try to do more than 206 since I want to give myself some leeway with travel and anything else that might come up. But if I strive to do 4 workouts a week every week, then I can miss a few weeks and still hit this goal.

My next goal is something that I’m hoping will be accomplished soon. I need to find a new job. This could mean another part-time job that fits in with the job I already have, or it could be a new job that makes me have to leave my current job. This goal is not just something to try for, I need it. I cannot survive on the money I make at the one job I have left and I need to do something to change the circumstances that I am in. I’ve become much less picky as the job hunt has been going on but it’s been rough. I’ve been trying to dedicate at least 3 hours a day for job hunting and I’ve applied for hundreds of jobs. But nothing has happened yet. But this will change eventually and I will be so happy when I can say that this goal has been checked off my list!

Next is something that was inspired by my reduced employment. I want to reduce and eliminate as much recurring spending as I can. I see recurring spending as things that charge me monthly or annually and I might not need them. There are a few that I know I will be keeping like Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Netflix; but there are other recurring costs in my life that I can get rid of. And I’ve been working on this for the past few months but I know I can get it down even more. The easiest recurring spending to eliminate has been magazine subscriptions. I have been cancelling them as I get them in the mail so I don’t forget. I believe that I’ve cancelled all of them by now and the ones that are coming to my house are just finishing out the subscription. I’m also looking at things that I purchase on a regular basis but am not necessarily automatically charged for. Things like toiletries and cleaning supplies could probably be much cheaper than what I spend now. I’m trying to be much better about coupons and looking at sales to make sure I get things when they are the cheapest. Even when I am making more money, it is always good to spend less so I can save more toward things I want to use the money for.

Along with reducing recurring spending, I want to work toward living a more minimalistic life. I know that this can be taken to the extreme, but for me I have a much more basic idea of how I want to live more minimalistic. I live in a small house so I don’t have a ton of stuff, but I know I have more than I really need. I don’t need to keep adding to my house necessarily, but sometimes there are things that I love and want to get. But I want to be much more mindful of this and really decide if I need something. I might also see if I can try to do the “one thing in, one thing out” idea so I don’t accumulate a lot of stuff. I’ve been working on doing this with my clothing and it’s gotten my clothing spending down a lot. I also have been doing this with shoes as this past year I only got shoes to replace ones I had but were worn out. There’s so much stuff I’d love to get, but I don’t necessarily need. So by looking at living with a sense of minimalism, hopefully I don’t buy things that won’t get enough use or that will just clutter up my house.

Moving away from money, my next goal is one that I thought I had been doing but I’ve realized that I need more work on it. I want to spend my free or down time in a better way. Everyone has their lazy moments where they spend a day on the couch reading or watching tv. And that’s fine to do every once in a while. But I have a lot of down time with my current job (that will hopefully change when I get a new job) and I know that I am not being smart with my time. I’ve watched a lot of random things on YouTube or read too many articles on Buzzfeed lately. I am devoting some free time to job hunting, but I have had to limit it to about 3 hours a day because I was getting really burnt out. But there are other good ways to use my free time. I’m looking at some free online classes through the public library that could be fun and help my job search. I’ve also downloaded the New York Times crossword puzzle app and have been working on those. And I can also just read during that time since that is still a better way to spend my time. I also want to look at my time outside of my working hours. I’m pretty good about only watching tv that I have recorded or watching something on a streaming channel so I’m not just mindlessly flipping through the guide or a bunch of channels. But I want to work on finding a way to make that time more productive and less scrolling through the options to find something to watch.

My last goal for 2019 is a bit harder for me to explain. I want to get my blog to the next level and also possibly my social media. I know there are some people on social media who only post photos that look perfect and professional. I don’t necessarily want to do that, but I also can step up what I post. I’ve been using Instagram Stories more often now for the silly stuff and trying to limit what I post on the regular feed. I want to do more of that and possibly step it up a bit more. And for my blog, I’m not exactly sure what it means to take it to the next level. I am going to look at having a new layout and look, but I also want the posts to be better. I know that by posting 5 days a week that every post can’t be amazing, but I want the amazing posts to outweigh the random not great posts. I also want to look into working with more affiliate organizations. I won’t turn this blog into just a place for sponsored posts, but I would like to have more opportunities offered to me. I just don’t know how to do that just yet.

I really thought I was going to make this post a shorter one since I was only posting about my goals for this year, but clearly I had a lot to say! These goals are achievable and I hope that I can get a majority of them done by December 31st! Here’s to what I hope will be an amazing and incredible year for everyone!

One response to “My 2019 Goals (or Another Year Of Planning Some Big Things)

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