2017 Goals and Plans

I’m conscious that more than a week of January has already passed, but this post is thinking about my goals for the year as well as the month, so it’s taken some thinking through. Let me also say that this is an evolution, and I fully intend to revisit these at least monthly to make tweaks and ensure I’m on track.

It’s a long one, so you might need a cuppa and a comfy chair…

Family

2016 was a challenging time for the family one way and another, but this is one area where you have to roll with it and take the rough with the smooth. My goals here are really just to spend as much quality time as possible with my family this year, be there when they need me (whoever in my immediate or extended family that might be) and celebrate the hell out of the special occasions that we have.

Money

We’re hoping to move house this year, so that is likely to involve a rejig of our finances and an opportunity to review our existing arrangements for things like mortgages and bills. As this one is the big kahuna – the forever home – it’ll also enable us to take a look at our finances knowing what our situation is in the medium to long term from an outgoings perspective. Specifics will include seeing an IFA to get some advice on reaching our financial goals and getting a handle on my investments

Home

As above, we hope to move this year, so setting specific home goals is a bit difficult currently. However, there are a few things that need doing anyway and will help ease the transition as and when we get to that point – having a good clear out (again!) will be the main one in the short term (see below).

Health

Unsurprisingly I have a lot of goals in this area!

Walk 5 million steps – I already have a commitment to walking at least 10k steps a day and I managed this every day in 2016. My total for the year was just over 4.6 million, so I’m joining some friends in going for the full 5 thus year. Doing some longer runs training for the half marathon will help, as will the treadmill desk they’ve just installed at work.
Run a sub 1.50 half marathon – my pre children PB was 1 hr 50 mins and53 seconds and I’d really like to get under the1.50. Structuring my run training has really helped with improved my speed over the last3 months, so intend to carry on with that
Reduce my body fat% to 23% – My current body fat % is still around the 28% mark and I’d like to reduce this for general health reasons as I think it’s quite high given my height and weight.

Career

The last six months at work have been something of a whirlwind! The acquisition activity I’ve been involved in (not to mention taking on another region) has been a steep learning curve, but always good to add another string to my bow. If I’m honest, I’m hoping for a bit less on the M&A front in 2017! That, plus some additional resource in our team will hopefully free me up to work on some more strategic and value added work which is where I really get my job satisfaction. I’m not going to go into lots of specifics here, but I do of course have Company objectives I want to achieve/exceed for this year.

Social Life

I think this can be summarised by making time for a social life! I don’t expect (and nor would I want) to be out raging every weekend, but having a good catch up with friends is important and a good distraction from every-day life! This year I will:

Be proactive about getting together with some of the friends I’ve not seen for a while
Set up dates for the next meet up at the last one to make organising things easier (doesn’t matter if that’s not going to be for another 6 months!)
Make every effort to attend the big events – birthdays, reunions etc

Personal Growth

This year I’ll be completing year 2 of my Nutritional Therapy Diploma and start my third and final year. Marks for my assignments start counting in semester 2 (which begins in Feb) so I really want to ensure that I’m giving it as much focus as I can this year. I’m excited to be observing in the teaching clinic this year and preparing to see clients of my own in year 3 (eek!). I’ve kept this under personal growth for 2017, but I will also start thinking about the transition to career as I move towards the end of the year. My goals here are:

Deliver all my assignments on time and to a good standard
Start thinking about how I want to use my qualification to generate income once I qualify (there are a number of options!)

Obviously many of these goals are ongoing throughout the year, but there’s no time like the present to crack on! Having a specific monthly focus last year was helpful for me in terms of getting some shit done, so I’m going to take that approach again for 2017.

The focus for January will be the house, and I’m going to do another chuck out challenge. I usually do this in Feb as it’s a shorter month, but the clutter of Christmas has been doing my head in, so I’m keen to get started. As a reminder, this means that I have get rid (by which I mean bin/recycle/sell/give away) 1 item of the 1st of January, 2 on the second and so on. Not only will I have a more streamlined house by the end, it will also save some time when we eventually move as there’ll be less crap to sort through.

January is going to be a busy month at work with a couple of major projects due for delivery and a fair bit of travel, as well as my Dad’s 70th, a couple of nights out and my next college assignment due. It’s feeling like a lot again, so I need to be careful to maintain some balance and not to do too much (she says, with a slightly manic laugh).

So January will look like this: