Happy Monday, friends! I’m back at work after more than a week off so I anticipate being on the struggle bus this week. It’s always hard to get back in the swing of things!
I spent a lot of time last week thinking about my goals for 2021. Did I even want to set goals? What were the appropriate ones to set, knowing most of this year would be similar to 2020? In the end, of course I came up with a handful of goals for this year! Duh—what do you take me for? I came up with 15 goals, comprising reading goals, money goals, home goals, and fun goals. Take a look!
1) Buy a new sectional, coffee table, and area rug. Now that I have a bigger living room, the couch that fit so perfectly in my smaller living room looks miniscule. One of my goals for 2021 is to spruce up my living room with a new sectional, coffee table, and rug.
2) Work out three times a week. For the past two years, I’ve set a goal of working out 150 times, which amounts to three workouts a week. But it’s easy to get off track and fall so far behind that I have to start working out every day to catch up. That just doesn’t work for me. This year, I’m just making a goal of three workouts a week. I know I won’t hit that goal every week, but I’m going to try my best!
3) Start the process of becoming vegetarian by cutting out red meat and pork and having one meatless day once a week. I want to work toward a vegetarian lifestyle for ethical reasons, but eating meat is such a big part of my diet that it’s going to be quite a change for me. Baby steps are key here, so after doing some research, I decided that these two changes would get me on the right path without it feeling like I was missing out on all my faves.
4) Become a regular water drinker. It’s embarrassing how little water I drink on a daily basis. I’ve always wanted to be someone who reaches for water over any other beverage, but it’s just not a habit for me. YET. 2021 is the year that changes.
5) Experiment with an elimination diet. Interestingly enough, my food sensitivity results came back with no foods in the moderate or high reactivity zones! But I guess that makes sense because even if I have digestive issues from time to time, it’s never enough to impact my life. But there were a good number of foods that came back with mild reactivity: eggs, yogurt, cow’s milk, chicken, several types of fish (lobster, tuna, crab), and some versions of gluten (mainly rye and wheat). Based on these results, I’d like to do an elimination diet for dairy and gluten to see how it makes me feel.
6) Set a budget and be diligent about it. Budgets have always felt restricting for me and hard to follow. That’s why I spent a full year documenting every little thing I bought. Now I have a greater understanding of how I spend my money so I can accurately set budgeting categories and start following a system that doesn’t feel restrictive and allows me to meet my money goals.
7) Save 20% of my income. This is a lofty goal for me, but it’s one I want to strive for. In the first half of 2020, I did a great job with my savings but stopped contributing regularly to my savings accounts after my move. By the end of the year, I’d like to have at least $3,000 in my emergency savings and at least $2,000 saved toward a down payment on a car.
8) Complete the 2021 Unread Shelf Project. I loved completing this reading challenge in 2020, so it was an easy decision to do it again in 2021. It’s such a low-stakes reading challenge!
9) Read The Count of Monte Cristo. I love tackling one huge classic every year (last year was Anna Karenina). This year, I’m setting my sights on The Count of Monte Cristo. I’ll use the Serial Reader app to read this novel, which sends me short daily snippets to read that take 10-15 minutes. This app worked wonderfully for reading Anna Karenina, and I imagine the same will hold true for this novel.
10) Finish the year with 35% of my books being by or about BIPOC or the LGBT community. In 2020, 29% of my books were by or about BIPOC or the LGBT community, which is a number I’m pleased with (considering this category only comprised 18% of my reading in 2019!). But I’d like to continually work on reading more diversely, so hopefully this goal will get me there.
11) Reach out to one friend a week. I want to be better at reaching out and staying in touch with friends. I hate that I need to make this a goal, but I also accept that this is who I am as a person. The only way I’m going to get better at something is to practice it regularly!
12) Start dating again. Will 2021 be the year I get into a good dating groove? Time will tell! I’m not putting any sort of measurable goal here—I just want to be open to the possibilities and more active on dating apps.
13) Work through one Bible study this year. I’ve slowly started the process of coming back to my faith after a few years of total deconstruction (which it needed). I still have a ton of questions and I’m not yet ready to return to a church setting, but I think I would like to seek out a Bible study and complete it. I just need to find the right one.
14) Get my third tattoo. I want to get a tattoo to commemorate my grandma and while I wasn’t comfortable visiting a tattoo shop in 2020, I think this is something I can complete this year.
15) Stop drinking alcohol. I’ve developed an alcohol intolerance in the past few years, meaning that my body doesn’t know how to process the enzymes in alcohol. It’s extremely unpleasant, as it can cause me to break out in hives, feel incredibly dizzy and fatigued after just a few sips, and get flushed and overheated easily. But since this doesn’t happen EVERY time I drink—and I haven’t figured out what settings/types of alcohol make it happen—I haven’t ever fully quit drinking. Because I like it! I mean, when it doesn’t make me break out in hives. And I like the identity of being A Person Who Drinks, which is something to discuss in therapy, I guess. But it feels like playing Russian Roulette with my body. Every time I have a reaction, I tell myself I have got to stop pretending I can be A Person Who Drinks. It’s time.
Do you have any goals for 2021?
That is a great set of goals. I hope 2021 is a better year for goals than 2020! 2020 was just such a weird year for all of us!
I am not setting goals for 2021 as I know it’s a tough transitional year as we adjust to life as a family of 4. I do want to get back to consistently working out so would like to workout 3x/week. I need to return gradually since I wasn’t able to workout besides walking during pregnancy. So in jan my goal is walk 3x/day. I need the weather to be mild for this to happen as I will have Will in a carrier. But it’s mild at the start of this month. Hope it stays like this!!
Those all look like awesome goals! One of mine is simply “Leave the Southeast for vacation” LOL. I don’t care WHERE or WHEN (but probably autumn at least ugh).
Check out my recipes section, I have a lot of (mostly tbh) meat-free recipes! I was exclusively veg since I was 11 but the past few years I’ll try meat here and there, but still rarely cook it because I don’t really know much about how. But I’ll take bites of my husband’s meats or samples at places just to try it out sometimes. I feel like growing up vegetarian (by choice, my parents were appalled lol) opened my eyes to more cooking techniques and ingredients than I’d ever have been exposed to if I just ate conventionally. Good luck with it, it’s pretty fun!
Love your goals! I will be interested to hear what you think of Count of Monte Cristo — when I read it, a decade or so ago, it was one of my all-time favorite books. I am a little afraid to re-read it, because I’m not sure it will hold up. But it was SO GOOD.
This is a great list!!! I can’t wait to see what you get for your place. Let me know if you need any help with the vegetarian stuff. 😉
What does a Bible Study entail? Is it a virtual group or like a workbook?
I cannot wait to see what tat you get! I love the two you have now!
What will help you workout 3 times a week and drink more water? Once you build the habit it will be second nature, but how do you plan to get there?
I don’t have a set list of goals but I am thinking about being more open in communication with what I want, and not talking smack about people so much. LOL. I also want to get the dishes put away faster!
Wasn’t Meredith on Currently Reading saying she reads The Count of Monte Cristo each year? I hope you love it!
I love the ambitiousness (yet do-ability) of this list! Go, you!
I did an elimination diet a few years back to see if it would get my autoimmune disease back into remission, and it worked amazingly well. I will say though, it was challenging. My biggest advice (not that you asked for it, but I’m giving it anyway!) is to make sure you have your pantry and several meals and snacks planned out BEFORE you make the jump in. I just kind of went into it thinking I’d figure it out as I went along, and it made the first week and a half or so pretty miserable.
Also, I love The Count of Monte Cristo! Are you doing the unabridged version? I will say, I didn’t like the ending of the book as much as I liked the ending of the movie, but I still really enjoyed it. I’ll have to check out that app—that sounds genius.
I think a lot of people felt that way about not being sure re: setting 2021 goals. I know I certainty hesitated — after the gongshow that was 2020, there was definitely a part of me that wondered if it was even worth doing (since who knows what 2021 is going to look like). I ended up coming up with a few financial goals, but I’m going into this holding all these things with an open hand. If 2020 taught me anything, it’s that it’s good to be flexible.
Love the baby steps re: vegetarianism. Technically, I’d be considered a pescatarian right now, since I do eat fish once a week or so, but I’ve eaten a primarily vegetarian diet for…man, like 10 years? I did find the longer I ate that way, the easier it got (and the more I found my food interests changing). Those look like good first steps to me! And on the water front – I was the same way for a LONG time so if it helps…it’s totally possible to get to that water-is-the-beverage-of-choice place 🙂
Bible study — I mentioned it before, but I really enjoyed doing the Bible recap last year. Read through the entire Bible in a year, doing like 20 or so minutes a day, and it came with a podcast element, too, which I found helpful. Highly recommend checking it out!
I love how your goals are framed so positively – adding things, or seeking new experiences, or reaching out to people. Not “losing weight”, or “removing friends I don’t like anymore” or anything like that. It seems like you have a really positive and growth-directed mindset. Which is a good – and scarce! – thing in this world.
Thanks for the Serial Reader app recommendation. I signed up for Leaves of Grass and hope i can keep up with it! Something other than the news would be good… And, I also looked at the Unread Shelf Project but it’s just a bit too much for me right now. I’m not a very structured reader, so…
I am interested to know more about your food sensitivity test and your plans for the elimination diet. As previously mentioned, I’ve had issues with acid reflux (which actually I think I have figured out stems from low, not high stomach acid) and I’ve been thinking that I should also look into eliminating potential offenders…. I’ve never had food sensitivities before and don’t know if they’re the cause of my problems. Would love to hear more about your journey!
You have a great list of goals. I haven’t written mine out yet, but will probably do that soon. I love how you’re focusing on a lot of health and finance goals.
These all sound like great goals. I love how thoughtful you are about your goals! I haven’t set any, but this post makes me want to…