2022 Life Goals
Setting Goals for Your Life
In the first post of our Goal Setting Series, How to Set Goals for Your Life & Business, we talked all about how to set goals and the why behind setting them. In the second post of the series, 2021 Goals Review, I did a quick rundown of my year and went through my 2021 business goals to see which of them I was able to accomplish and which ones I’ll be revisiting this year. Check it out to see how to review your own year and how I fared amidst a bit of a roller coaster year.
So now that we’ve got all the background behind us, let's talk about how to set goals for the coming year.
2022 Goals Overview
I start thinking of goals in December and start a note in my Notes App on my phone. You just need to have a go-to place that is handy and available when an idea strikes. Next year, I hope to spend the 1st week of the month reviewing the current year's goals. I evaluate what worked well and what did not. I also consider if the goals I didn’t get to at all will stay on the list or I will let them go and move on. I also want to set aside a few brainstorming sessions to bring together all the dreaming and review.
After mulling over my goals for a week, I sit down at my computer and open up Asana. Asana is a Project Management (PM) platform I currently use to keep everything on track in my business. I’m using the Teams function as departments for my business. Under my Executive Team, I have a project for each year's Goals. To start, I will copy the prior year’s Goals and save them as a new project. Next, I will update the goals to reflect all of my reviews and brainstorming.
Once I have all my goals documented, I go through them to make sure there is no overlap or if I can combine or streamline anything. Next, I will prioritize them and guestimate how long each will take and what steps are involved to accomplish them. Finally, I break them down into actionable items for each quarter. This year, I will take that a few steps further by delineating our monthly and weekly goals as well.
One of the reasons for honing in on goals is, in my business so far I tend to spend more time on tasks that are not profit-driven and are rooted in my perfectionist tendencies. I rework graphics over and over or tweak little things on my website, rather than on marketing efforts.
Last year, I started tracking my time for each task using Toggl, which I will continue doing. I also will be reviewing weekly goals at the beginning of each week. My hope is these two changes will ensure my work is more balanced and my time is spent doing the things I determined I wanted to do at the beginning of the year and week. More on business goals next time.
This post is all about my life goals for 2022. I considered just writing out my business goals like last year, but as that is only a small aspect of my overall life, I really wanted to put them in their proper perspective.
To begin, you need to define what areas of your life you are setting goals for. For myself, I narrowed in on the following areas: Spiritual, Physical, Mental, Relationships, Adventure, Homeschool, Declutter, Home, Finances, Purchases, and Business. Again, I’ll go over the business goals details next time. So let's dive into the rest of my life goals, in order of importance—mostly—for 2022.
Word of the Year:
MOVE
I don’t always have a word for the year, but this year I do. MOVE. I want to move more (not in the moving houses or states sense—I don’t think I need any more practice here). Rather, in the sense of moving my body more and moving the needle in my business. I want to move quickly, make bold decisions, and take action quickly rather than just constantly weighing and reviewing my options. Other words that will anchor my year are change, strength, purpose, and gratitude.
Spiritual:
Read Lincoln Devotional
Memorize Galatians
With COVID still rearing its pandemic strength, we are still trying to limit our activities a great deal, but allow our kids to participate in a few things and become complete hermits. With both myself and my husband exposed to a fair amount of travelers while working at the restaurant, we haven’t gone to church except for a few visits last summer. I’m continuing to read through the Lincoln Devotional and am currently reading through Exodus and Luke as a part of our homeschool. Additionally, I’d like to memorize Galatians this year.
The Lincoln Devotional takes only a minute to read each day, so I have it in a little basket on my work desk. I used to keep it on my bed stand but moved it up to the office because I also want to meditate on the readings a bit more. To help with this, I plan to rewrite at least one entry a week on the whiteboard in our office/homeschool room.
To achieve the goal of memorizing Galatians, I need to break it down. Galatians has 6 chapters. Now, I’ll note how many verses are in each chapter: Chapter 1-24 verses, Ch 2-21 verses, Ch 3-31 verses, Ch 5-26 verses, Ch 6-18 verses. There are a total of 120 verses. If I divide that out by the year I’ll need to memorize a verse every three days (365/120=3). Since I’m just starting now, a few weeks into the year I’ll need to increase that to memorize a verse every 2-3 days. This will also give me some wiggle room later in the year.
Next, I need to brainstorm what tools I need and actions I need to take to commit these verses to memory. Here’s what I came up with to start:
Download a bible app to my phone. (I’ve had the bible.is app for years and use this for homeschooling on my computer as well.)
Read the verse out loud 3x per 3x day. I’m going to piggyback this habit with meal times. By adding it to something I already do three times a day, I’m more likely to remember to do it.
Write down the verse and read it out loud. I’m not sure yet how many times I’ll need to do this so I will test it until I know what it takes. I’ll start with 1x per day.
Say from memory all the verses I know 1x day. Again I’ll need to test this to see if it is enough.
All together I estimate this will take about 10 min a day to accomplish. As I start to do these tasks, I’ll time myself to see if my estimate is accurate and if I need to do more or less to accomplish this goal.
Physical:
Move Daily
Increase exercise intensity and duration from 10m moderate to 40m moderate-intense by the end of the year
52 walks
Eating cleaner. More whole foods. More vegetables.
Sorting out new doctors again and going to see them
In its simplest form: I’d like to move daily. I’m trying to increase my flexibility and stamina and I’m starting to understand the feeling of not getting any younger. When I work at the restaurant I will average anywhere from 8000-18000 steps per shift. I think that counts!! I also enjoy an almost daily yoga practice. I love Yoga with Adrienne and found it fitting that her 30-day new year journey theme this year was also MOVE.
I am working to include HITT workouts and rowing when time and energy allow. Since COVID, I’ve found that my energy level greatly varies from day to day, so just trying to push myself a little bit, but without so much as it puts me on the couch for a few days. It’s been hard to find the right balance, but I’m determined to figure that out this year.
Since starting back to work, I’ve let taking my kids on daily walks slide. I want to get back into the habit at least weekly if not more often.
Eating clean has been more of a struggle the last few years since our youngest arrived. We’ve moved to several places that require a 30-45 minute drive to get organic produce, so just acquiring good-for-us food is a bit more of a chore and takes some planning.
I have struggled of late to feel good about my body and remember to be grateful for the miracles my body has helped make. I need to especially remember the gift of our four incredibly healthy children that my body has grown, birthed, and nourished. I’m trying to take this mindset into moving and nourishing myself daily.
Every time we move it is a time-consuming task to figure out our new insurance (this time we have three different plans) and research and get set up with new doctors.
So let's take one of these goals to see my plan and detailed steps I’m taking to accomplish it.To meet my goal of going from 10m moderate to 40m moderate-intense by the end of the year I need to increase my exercise by 3-4m every month as well as bump up the intensity just a little bit.
I’ve tried several apps over the years to track my weight and exercise but always come back to using Google Keep. I like that I can pin my list to the top, it's simple to use and always on the front page of my apps. I simply add my weight plus my morning exercise I’ve done to my note at breakfast. For everything else, I take a moment before bed to add in any time spent on a walk, additional exercise, or steps while at work.
At the end of the month, I take body measurements and add up the total minutes of exercise. This will allow me to quickly see if I’m increasing my duration as hoped.
Mental:
52 Paintings
Cook something new 2x/ week
Read 24 books
I only managed to paint a couple of times this fall as I added working outside of the house to my schedule. Painting is something I really enjoy and my kids love it too.
The hangup for me is the stress of having a toddler at the table. As he’s a bit older this year, he’s able to do more by himself and less likely to spill the brush cleaning water, I hope the stress will just inherently be less going forward. Also by making this a weekly habit, I hope that we can make the setup and clean up more routine as well.
Right now I’m especially enjoying making small paintings of things around the house. It is a practice of gratitude in seeing the beauty of ordinary and everyday things.
Cooking a new vegetable-forward meal at least twice a week is a goal I’m setting to change up the drudgery I’ve let food and eating become. I hope a few new library books and beautiful magazines will jump-start the process.
Reading is a part of my daily life as a homeschooling mom. The majority of my time is spent reading about or preparing for homeschooling and reading countless blogs and articles about starting a business.
This last year I also started reading books my 2 older children especially enjoyed having this shared experience. There is no way I can read them all, but this gives me insight into what external influences are shaping their personalities. I love this and will continue this year. It’s also been such a nice break to read some fantasy fiction.
I also am on the home stretch of my 2 year Charlotte Mason Idyll Challenge journey and am halfway through book 5 of 6. It’s been more of a struggle keeping up with the reading the last few months though. I also will continue to work on the habit of reading 3-4 pages a day rather than playing catchup once a week.
My general guideline for the year will be:
6 books on education or specific topics in preparation for school
6 books about business
6 books to read aloud to my kids
6 books my children recommend
In order to accomplish this reading goal, I need to create a routine of times to read and figure out how long I need to read each day. To start with, I’ll try to link reading to the different aspects of my day.
I’ll start my homeschool day with 10m of educational reading, while the kids do handwriting or copy work. I’ll set aside the first 10 min of my workday to read a business book. At lunch or in the evening I’ll read 1-2 chapters aloud to my kids. And at bedtime, I’ll read a chapter of the books my children recommend. After a few months, I’ll be able to see if I’ve allotted enough time for reading.
Relationship:
12 dates with Ben
4 solo dates with each kid
Visit my parents 2x
Our marriage relationship, although strong, has been strained by the responsibilities of raising 4 kids, working in the hospitality industry, living and navigating the COVID pandemic, and moving nearly every year of our marriage. I would like to spend at least 1 time per month dreaming and having fun with Ben and taking a tiny break from the daily grind. To accomplish this goal, we need to actually put it on the calendar and make it a priority. On the first “date” we will brainstorm the other 11 things we’d like to do.
I’ve also rarely done anything with just one of my kids at a time. I think this will be a very special time and will create a habit I hope to continue long after they are out on their own. I’m looking forward to getting to really know them and what they think about outside of our school narrations and projects. It will also be a way to purposely bless them and reward them for their efforts in school, activities, caring for our home, and stepping up when I’m at work.
Since we are now closer to my home state I plan to go at least twice to Idaho to visit mine and Ben’s family. In the past, I’ve taken longer trips and am considering a shorter duration so as to leave a bit more room for adventuring with our immediate family.
Adventure:
Visit 12 places in Montana I haven’t been before
Summer Road Trip—Ohio, DC, Florida, Texas, New Mexico, or Calgary
Extended family camping trip in Idaho
I found this suggestion when looking for goal inspiration earlier this month. We often visit places but I’d like to plan to have one week free a month from our regular provisioning trips to have time to explore. I’d like to go on a few more canoe adventures. Last year we made it once. I got to hear about all the hotel guests’ experiences on the Missouri this fall. It would be awesome to get to experience it ourselves.
We will see how the pandemic plays out and how successful potty training is. So far it’s going pretty well! The pandemic—not so much. Road tripping with toddlers is always an adventure. We will see how far I attempt to go!
I really enjoyed the camping trip we took last summer. It was nice to get away and explore a part of Idaho I’d never been to. We went to Castle Rock State Park. I would not consider camping with toddlers relaxing but it is enjoyable and a great way to unplug. My kids all agreed though they’d prefer to go camping in a pine forest with a stream or lake rather than a 100-degree juniper desert.
Homeschool:
Create a Notion Database to plan and track our CM inspired homeschool
Continue to refine, simplify, enhance our homeschool experience
Sign up for and start using All in One Homeschool’s (AIO) membership for certain subjects
I’m loving using Notion for my business and can see all sorts of ways to use this in our homeschool. The beauty of following Charlotte Mason methods exposes our kids to so many wonderful subjects, but the downside is trying to plan for, be able to find, and execute 17+ subjects a week for three different levels of students. I think Notion will really allow me to organize and track everything the way I’d like!
Managing my own expectations, staying calm, providing a loving atmosphere, and having the resources at my fingertips are the areas I’d like to focus on this year. I’m still trying to find the right balance of part-time work at the restaurant, work on my business, homeschooling, extracurricular activities, and free time. I think this will always be a thing as each year and season are different.
This fall when I went back to working outside the home part-time, I added back a few subjects online. AIO has a few subjects I know the kids can do fully independently now as well as some supplemental math practice to what we do one on one. They have a great computer class as well as critical thinking. The kids will also continue with typing and Xtra math for math facts mastery. I’m looking forward to reviewing their courses and how their membership option works as it's been a few years since I really looked at it.
Declutter:
Declutter one room and one digital area each month
Sort, organized, and create a system for storing old homeschool information
Sort kids clothes and toys and take donations 1x/Quarter
We’ve moved so many times, it’s hard to imagine we have any belongings left. Fortunately/unfortunately, we do. After a full summer and fall hosting lots of guests, things got shoved in closets and under the rug. I am determined to allot time for sorting and decluttering our home and computers. I’m still weighing whether this will be a longer once a month project or in small increments several times a week.
For our homeschool records and keepsakes, I will be reworking my system to allow for easier filling and purging going forward. I also need to label and rebox many of the boxes that have become ragged after our many moves. Finally, I have several miscellaneous boxes that need to be sorted. I hope to have these tasks accomplished in Q1 & Q2 so I have the summer to plan for the year ahead.
My kids are all tall and continually outgrowing their clothing. My youngest two have no one to hand down things to, so I need to create a donation bin to store things and add a “take to town donation” task on my calendar or befriend someone with little one but no older siblings or cousins.
Garden:
Determine the extent of and plan gardens in Q1, plant Q2, harvest Q3
I love to garden and want to pass on this skill to my kids. The challenges with gardening this year are learning how to do so with our resident deer population and figuring out how much to take on given our other work commitments.
Home:
Finish building or hanging shelves in house and garage
Clean weekly, deep clean 1x/Quarter
We are in housing provided by Ben’s position so there are not many projects on the list for our home beyond building or hanging up a few shelves and hooks and sorting out how best to store our outdoor gear.
Finances:
Pay off Credit Card Debt
Save for upgraded computer
Save for down payment on a rental property
Save toward a trailer or sailboat
This year we plan to stay put and hope to put all of my income toward paying off debt resulting from several unexpected moves over the last several years. I’d also like to reinvest some of my income into an upgraded computer by the end of the year or sooner if needed.
Our longest-term financial goal is to start investing in rental properties. I have a significant background in this industry and hope to be able to apply it in a few short years from now. Our first major purchase will be a trailer or sail boat depending on where we live by the time we have our account fully funded.
Purchases:
Purchase Snowboard Passes for the upcoming year on their sale Mar 1
Lawnmower
Swim Team expenses including travel
Patio Table and Chair
Office Chairs
Ben has been able to take the bigger kids up to the mountain for the first time this year. Snowboarding was something he loved doing growing up and is excited to have the opportunity to teach our kids. The mountain close by has a 1-day sale this spring where annual passes are discounted nearly 50%.
Our oldest two are big enough this year to wield a lawnmower so that’s on the list for this year. They are still deciding if they want to make the investment themselves and start their own small business. I’d also love to find a used table and chairs set to make eating and schooling outdoors easily possible once the weather allows!
Our three oldest kids hope to participate in the swim team this summer. The cost for the team is very reasonable but it involves overnight travel 8-9 times during the summer for meets in neighboring towns. Montana not only has big skies but also long and winding highways so neighboring towns can be 2-4 hours away.
Finally, I hope to buy a stylish and comfortable office chair as a reward for selling my Squarespace templates.
I hope you’ve found my 2022 life goals helpful as you look at creating your own life goals list. Once you have your list finalized you need to make it visible. It doesn’t do any good to spend the effort to come up with goals that you never look at again. You really need to be looking at them every week and evaluating your progress every month in order to keep making forward progress.
Life goals don’t necessarily warrant a project in Asana as most of my life goals I’m not doing while sitting behind the computer. Rather I’m going to make a few posters to hang up in the places around the house where I’m likely to be working on those goals.
We’ve talked all about how to create categories for your life goals. Once you have the categories defined, you can start to outline the goals you have in each one. I gave several examples throughout the post of how to break down your goals further into the steps and activities you need to take daily, weekly and monthly in order to reach your goal by the end of the year. In the final post of the Setting Goals series, I’ll be talking all about my 2022 Business Goals.
Setting Goals Series Posts:
How to Set Goals for Your Life & Business
2021 Goals Review
2022 Life Goals
2022 Business Goals
Book Review + Personal Development Reading List Series Posts:
Book Review | Sing Down the Moon by Scott O’Dell
The Book Stack ~ March 2021
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