Stephany Writes

Categories: Goals

Quarterly Goals | Q1 of 2021

I’m doing something different with my goals in 2021—or at least, for the first quarter. I reserve the right to return to monthly goals if I want, ha. I felt an urge to start setting quarterly, rather than monthly, goals this year, allowing myself a chance to set bigger, more ambitious goals since I have a longer timeframe to complete them. I chose five categories: finances, health, personal development, home, and nagging tasks, which may change from quarter to quarter. In Q1, these are the ones that are most important to me.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into my Q1 goals!

FINANCES

  • Set up sinking funds for the cats, Christmas, and my car insurance. I’ve always loved the idea of sinking funds but have never actually implemented them myself! My goal is to set up a sinking fund for cat expenses ($50 per month), Christmas ($50 per month), and my bi-yearly car insurance payment ($115 per month).
  • Follow my budget. I finally set up a budget! Now I need to follow it.
  • Save $400 per month in my emergency fund and car down payment fund. My big savings goals for 2021 are to get to $3,000 saved in my emergency fund and $2,000 saved toward a car down payment. I’m hoping to set aside $400 per month split between the two accounts to make this happen.

HEALTH

  • Keep a tumbler of water at my desk at all times. One of my main goals this year is to make drinking water a habit, so I’m going to use my quarterly goals to implement small changes to my lifestyle to do that. In Q1, my goal is to always have a tumbler of water at my desk at all times. This should be a no-brainer, and it is for most people, but it’s not a habit for me right now.
  • Schedule my annual woman’s appointment and a dentist appointment. I meant to schedule these appointments at the end of last year but just didn’t get around to them.
  • Cut out dairy from my diet for 30 days. This will be my first of two elimination diets. (I’m starting with the easier one since gluten will be HAAAARD.) After 30 days, I’ll start slowly reintroducing dairy products to see how my body reacts.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

  • Develop a morning routine. I fell into a habit last year of waking up right before I needed to log into work. And it has been really nice to do that! Not having to wake up until 7:45 every day has been amazing. But now that working from home is my long-term plan, I need to cultivate an actual morning routine that starts with exercise, making a hot breakfast for myself, and doing my skincare routine before logging into work.
  • Become Google Analytics certified. This is one of my quarterly goals for work, and it seemed like a good one to add to my personal goals list, too. I tried getting Google Analytics certified a few years ago, but the training sessions made my head spin so I gave up. But I know it is something I need to do for my job!
  • Stick to my 30-minute Instagram time limit. I have a 30-minute time limit set on Instagram, but whenever I get the pop-up notification that I’ve hit my limit, I just ignore it and keep scrolling. I want to be better at adhering to the limit and stepping away from the app when my 30 minutes are up.

HOME

  • Frame my Etsy prints and hang them around my apartment. A few months ago, I purchased a handful of Etsy prints but I need to have them printed at Fed-Ex/UPS/Staples/wherever and then framed. A nice home goal for Q1!
  • Sell my couch. I bought a sectional! It should arrive in the next few weeks (god willing) and I’d like to sell my couch before that happens.
  • Buy a coffee table. I have my eye on a few cute coffee table options on Wayfair and I’ll likely push purchase on one of them in the next few weeks.

NAGGING TASKS

  • Wash and vacuum my car. My car needs a little self-care in Q1!
  • Cancel checking plus. If anyone is following my blog super closely, you’ll know that this is a goal I had for early 2020. And I never got it done. That means I’ve spent more than $100 on a banking feature I don’t even need since I first made this a goal. Eeks.
  • Cancel my gym membership. I haven’t been to the gym since the pandemic began and I don’t know when I’ll feel comfortable to do so! I just need to cancel my membership and reassess what I want to do about belonging to a gym once this whole pandemic is behind us.

What’s something you’d like to accomplish in Q1?

Categories: Goals

My 2021 Goals

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?

Categories: Best Of, Goals

Best of 2020 | Reviewing My 2020 Goals

Happy 2021! I hope all of you had a lovely New Year’s Eve and rang in 2021 in a safe, happy manner.

I’m continuing my “Best of 2020” series with a review of the goals I set at the end of 2019. Many of these goals were hard to achieve with the raging pandemic, but I did the best I could and that’s all I ever ask for myself. Let’s review!

1) Move to a new apartment. Complete! My biggest goal for 2020, and I am so glad to be in a new space.

2) Pay off my credit card – and keep it paid off. Complete! I paid off the balance early in 2020, and have been keeping it paid off all year. Go, me!

3) Complete 12 monthly health challenges. Not complete. Once the pandemic hit, healthy living went out the window.

4) Do one new thing every month. Not complete. See above.

5) Go on 24 first dates. Not complete.

6) Make at least three “green” changes to my living environment. Complete!

  • I eliminated one-use makeup wipes and now use micellar water and a reusable cloth to take off my makeup.
  • I got rid of the disposable cotton pads I would use to apply toner and now use reusable cotton pads.
  • I changed my mop from a Swiffer that uses disposable cleaning pads to this brand that has a reusable cleaning pad that I can throw in the washer.

7) Work out 150 times. Not complete. I only logged 87 workouts in 2020. Eeeeeks.

8) Finish my novel and get through one round of revisions. Not complete. I thought perhaps this would be the year I finally finished that dang novel, but my priorities shifted dramatically this year.

9) Complete the 2020 Unread Shelf Challenge. Complete! I had so much fun with this goal, and I’m definitely going to attempt the 2021 challenge.

  • January: any book on your unread shelf (Nasty Women, DNF)
  • February: a book that’s been gifted to you (The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, ★★★★☆)
  • March: the book that’s been on your unread shelf the longest (Every Wild Heart by Meg Donohue, ★★★☆☆)
  • April: most recently acquired (Long Bright River by Liz Moore, ★★★★☆)
  • May: a backlist title (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, ★★★★★)
  • June: from a series (March: Book 1 by John Lewis, ★★★★★)
  • July: voted for you by bookstagram (Circe by Madeleine Miller, DNF)
  • August: a buddy read (The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, ★★★★★)
  • September: forgot where or why you got it (All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda, DNF)
  • October: a book that scares or intimidates you (The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell, ★★★☆☆)
  • November: a book from your favorite genre (Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, ★★★★★)
  • December: the shortest book on your shelf (I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron, ★★★★☆)

10) Get my third tattoo. Not complete. I just didn’t feel comfortable visiting a tattoo shop this year.

***

Four goals completed out of 10. That’s not the best average, but in a year as messy and crazy as 2020 was, I’m choosing to be pleased with it. Moving to a new apartment, keeping my credit card paid off, making some green living changes to my environment, and completing the Unread Shelf Project are all great goals to have achieved this year.

And while I am not sure what 2021 is going to look like (I can’t see normal life resuming in any sort of fashion until late fall at the earliest), I am still planning on setting some goals because what can I say? I’m a sucker for yearly goals. 🙂

How did you do with your 2020 goals (if you set any)? What’s one thing you’re proud you achieved this year?

Categories: Goals

November Goals

With two days left of October, I’m here to recap the goals I set this month. I was mostly successful (3/5) and the goals I didn’t complete, didn’t get done for good reason. Let’s review!

1) Go on a spending freeze. Complete! (Mostly.) While I wasn’t 100% successful, I did spend a whole lot less this month and consciously chose not to buy things, even if I wanted them. And I consider that a win!

2) Order Warby Parker sunglasses try-ons. Complete! And I ordered myself a new pair of prescription sunglasses yesterday. I can’t wait for them to get here! I have a little over $400 left in my FSA for this year that I need to “use or lose” and these sunglasses took out a large chunk of that money. Which is good! (I don’t really want to buy ibuprofen and contact solution in bulk just to spend the money, lol.)

3) Limit my sugar intake. Complete-ish. I did two great things this month to help with my sugar intake: I started having a smoothie every day and switched out my normally sugary cereal breakfast for eggs and sausage. (I do want to switch from sausage to a big serving of fruit, but baby steps!) I definitely notice that I’m eating a lot less chocolate and sugar as a whole. I could still work on my soda intake, though.

4) Schedule a slew of doctor’s appointments. Not complete. I was hemming and hawing about this goal, and then everything changed with my company in mid-October, giving me a whole new health insurance plan starting in November. So I decided to wait until November to take care of these visits.

5) Prepare myself for NaNoWriMo 2020. Not complete. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about novel writing and whether or not this is even a dream I want to attempt anymore. The thought of not forcing myself to sit at a computer and bang out a novel feels… freeing. But it also makes me sad. So maybe there’s still some desire there? I don’t know. I’ve been talking this over with my writing partner who has given me a lot of great advice (mainly: you don’t have to do NaNoWriMo, you know. You could write, like, 100 words a week if that’s all you want to do.) and spending a lot of time thinking about what I really want from my creative life. Is it to write a novel? Or is there something else brewing inside that I can’t give space to grow because I’m so focused on this goal of writing a novel? I will probably write a more coherent blog post about this once I’ve done more thinking and journaling about this, but that’s where I’m at right now. I will not be doing NaNoWriMo 2020, and that feels like a weight off my shoulders.

November should be an interesting month. For one, it’s my birthday month! While I’m less than jazzed about my birthday this year, I’m going to take the time to enjoy the day as much as I can. My birthday falls on the Saturday after Thanksgiving this year, so at least I don’t have to share it with a holiday! I’m also working my first election and that will be a very interesting experience (if only I didn’t have to deal with all this anticipatory anxiety beforehand—I am not sleeping well because of it, argh). And November, god willing, will involve a Biden/Harris election win and we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Please, please, please, please, please. Here are the goals I’m setting this month!

1) Schedule a dentist appointment and my annual well woman’s visit. Both of these visits will be free with my new insurance plan that kicks in on Sunday, so it makes sense to get them done this year since it’s been almost 10 months since my last dental cleaning (!) and over a year since my last well-women’s exam.

2) Work the polls! I’m excited/nervous about the opportunity to be a poll worker in this election. It’s going to be a long day, but I’m looking forward to being able to help out my community and experience this most important part of the voting process. Poll workers are so important, even more so in this election!

3) Make a new dessert for Thanksgiving. I thought this might be a fun goal to pursue this month! I tend to stick to my tried-and-true favorites when it comes to cooking and baking, but it’s fun to experiment from time to time. Hopefully, I’ll discover a new favorite recipe!

4) Go for a walk outside every day. I feel so much better when I get outside for a midday walk, even if it’s 100 degrees outside. I need the vitamin D! There have been days where I don’t go outside at all, and that’s just not good for my physical or mental health. I hope that by challenging myself for a daily walk (even if it’s just 10-15 minutes!), I can develop a new habit for myself.

5) Start my Christmas shopping. Ideally, I’d love to start and finish my Christmas shopping in November, but we’ll see if I have the willpower to not continue to buy things off my family’s wish lists in December. But I definitely need to get things started, and I think I could have at least the bulk of it completed this month.

Do you have any November goals?

Categories: Goals

2020 Goals | Q3 Update

It’s Q4 of 2020! What a year we’ve lived through. It’s crazy to think about what life was like when I set these goals. Remember life before COVID-19? Ahh. My yearly goals never go as planned, but it’s truer than ever this year. Here’s my Q3 update:

1) Move to a new apartment. Complete! I moved last month and I am so happy at my new place.

2) Pay off my credit card – and keep it paid off. I’m doing so well with this goal. Even though I’ve been using my credit card like crazy over these past three months, I’ve still paid off the balance every month. Yay, me!

3) Complete 12 monthly health challenge. Lol, no. I did well in Q1 with my monthly health challenges, fell off in Q2 and Q3 with the pandemic craziness, and I’m hoping to get back on the horse in Q4.

4) Do one new thing every month. Another goal that went by the wayside when the pandemic hit. Not beating myself up for this one, as living through a global pandemic is enough of a “new thing” to deal with.

5) Go on 24 first dates. NOPE.

6) Make at least three “green” changes to my living environment. Yep! I completed this goal in Q1:

  • I eliminated one-use makeup wipes and now use micellar water and a reusable cloth to take off my makeup.
  • I got rid of the disposable cotton pads I would use to apply toner and now use reusable cotton pads.
  • I changed my mop from a Swiffer that uses disposable cleaning pads to this brand that has a reusable cleaning pad that I can throw in the washer.

7) Work out 150 times. Oy vey. While I know I am not going to mark this goal complete, my goal is to log more workouts in 2020 than I did in 2019 (which was 121). I’m sitting at just 87 workouts so far (I got reeeeal lazy in Q3), so it’s time to kick it into high gear for the last quarter of 2020.

8) Finish my novel and get through one round of revisions. Not happening. Womp.

9) Complete the 2020 Unread Shelf Challenge. This goal is going so well!

  • January: read any book on your unread shelf (Nasty Women, DNF)
  • February: read a book that’s been gifted to you (The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, ★★★★☆)
  • March: read the book that’s been on your unread shelf the longest (Every Wild Heart by Meg Donohue, ★★★☆☆)
  • April: most recently acquired (Long Bright River by Liz Moore, ★★★★☆)
  • May: a backlist title (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid ★★★★★)
  • June: from a series (March: Book 1 by John Lewis ★★★★★)
  • July: voted for you by bookstagram (Circe by Madeleine Miller, DNF)
  • August: a buddy read (The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett ★★★★★)
  • September: forgot where or why you got it (All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda, DNF)

10) Get my third tattoo. Another goal felled by the pandemic.