Goals 2013 – Year of the Snake, and Me

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I was reading another blog recently and I noticed that she had her yearly goals posted as part of her regular posting. She included the goals and then posted updates on her progress quarterly. I thought it was a great idea so I thought I’d give it a try over here at Cents.

This year was a bit different from previous years for me. The latter half of 2011 and 2012 were busy for me: I started a career with an agency that I had been trying to get recruited too for a while; I got married to a great guy; and we bought a house. There was a lot of excitement and change over those fifteen months, that’s for sure. Thankfully, things started to settled down but I still wanted to come into 2013 with a plan for my year.

Goals for 2013

• Spend more time with family and friends, I tend to get sidetracked with things like the latest TV episode of Elementary achieving world peace at home and I now want to make a conscious effort to pick up the phone and make plans with my people.
• Put together a plan to increase my earning potential this year – I’m starting to hit the top end of what my credentials can offer me.
• Get control of my finances again, my spending habits have started to slide…down a cliff, into a raging river, and it’s about to go over a 100 foot cliff in a waterfall. And then there are man-eating sharks at the bottom. (You get the idea)
• Be open to opportunity and find new ways to bring good things into my life. I tend to get stuck in my routine and don’t often venture off my very beaten path. This is an effort to broaden my horizons, so to speak.

Goals 2013 on the Ground

I wanted to find a way to make all this doable. There’s enough here to be crazy-making but I think I can do it if I plan right and then stick to said plan (this will be the fun part which I’m not awesome at). So here goes with what I want to accomplish, in detail:

1. I want to spend more time with family and friends:

• I will make plans and go out with a friend(s) at least once a week.
• I will email/Facebook/phone at least one friend at least once a month that I don’t speak to regularly. These are the people that are on my Facebook friends list that I really enjoy but “never really have the time” to get together with because I’m “so busy”.

2. I want to put together a plan to increase my earning potential:

• I will decide on the route I want to take to further my education (Psychology or Social Work?).
• I will put together the applications for school and ensure that whatever work obligations I take on will not interfere with school.

3. Get control of my finances again:

• I will start tracking my finances again to find out where everything is going
• I will review my spending patterns and make a conscious choice about whether these patterns are in line with my values and goals (that last bit is a little Tony Robbins).

4. Be open to new opportunities/bring good things into my life:

• I will start contesting for 45 minutes a day – you win a lot of things that you wouldn’t otherwise experience or buy.
• I’m not sure how else to do this one, I’ll keep everyone posted though.

So this is my list for 2013. I realize I’m posting it about three months late but I figured if I could put it out there on my blog, then I have it out there in public, where everyone can read it and then I can remind myself in more than one way. This way is called public shaming. 😉

I will post a follow up shortly with my progress towards my goals that I have made so far.

How about you, fair Cents’ers? What are your New Year’s Resolutions? And how do you plan on keeping them?