Last year, I didn’t set monthly goals for the majority of the year, opting for quarterly goals instead. This year, I want to bring back monthly goals because I really love setting small intentions for the month. It’s just fun for me. Some of these goals are related to my bigger yearly goals while others are just little tasks I need to take care of or habits I want to cultivate.
Here’s what I’m hoping to accomplish in January!
Write 2,000 words weekly in my fiction novel. In order to write an 80,000-word novel by the end of the year, I need to write 1,538 words weekly. I rounded up to 2,000 to make things simpler (and to give myself a week or so of leeway, should I need it). Writing 2,000 words a week is nothing and something I can usually accomplish during my weekly writing date with my friend M., so I’m pretty sure I can get this done.
Walk 5,000 steps daily. I got a FitBit for Christmas! Yay! And it helped me realize how little walking I do on a daily basis. Like, my average is under 4,000 steps. Uh, whoops. Can I blame my sedentary office job for that? I know that I’m “supposed” to walk 10,000 steps a day, but that sounds like an impossible daily feat, so I’m setting the bar low at 5,000 and I’ll work my way up from there.
Update my “Work With Me” page on my blog. I’ve finished some cool freelance projects in the past few months (and was recently published on Thought Catalog – WHAT!), but I haven’t updated my “Work With Me” page since before I started hustling after freelance work. I need to make sure this page reflects the work I’ve done, so I just need to spend a few hours one weekend updating it. (And if I put it as a goal, I am much more likely to do this!)
Submit one personal essay. As mentioned above, I was recently published on Thought Catalog. They reached out to me to republish one of my blog posts and it was such an exciting moment for me. I really want to make 2017 the year where I publish more of my writing in different places, to truly take a big step outside my comfort zone and let my writing out into the world. I’ll start by trying to submit a personal essay to a publication in January.
Work out three times a week. I’m slowly working my way through Couch to 5k for the 4,959th time. It’s the easiest way for me to work out right now since I can do it easily before work and it gives me a good challenge. I’m still not a fan of running, but maybe the 4,959th time is the charm?
What’s one thing – big or small – that you want to accomplish in January?
I’m terrible at FitBit steps, too. My daily average is also about 4k, though sometimes it’s barely 2k – embarrassing! I need to charge mine up, & then let’s be friends on there. Good luck this month!
If I don’t make a point to walk or jog, with my sedentary office job I get terrible steps too. I’ve been jogging and walking quite a bit and although I’ve had a fitbit for years now, it is still exciting to see my numbers rise. Good luck!
i worked out three times in january! i was only aiming for two. haha. sugarface observed that i only work out 5 times a year.
This is the first year that I will set a monthly focus. It’s not quite a goal but to carry out the focus I have to set and complete goals so it’s kind of a goal’ish thing. 🙂 This month it’s organization. I am traveling a lot this month and have a lot of wedding related things to do so I am trying not to tackle too much. But I would like to clean out/organize all of the cupboards in our kitchen, clean our fridge, and go through my closet and get rid of any summer/fall clothes that I didn’t wear this past year.
Lovely! I love monthly goals too but haven’t been in the habit of doing them lately either. I still might write out my monthly goals even though it’s January 10th 😉 It’s just been hard to get with it this year!
As for the steps thing, I don’t know who decided that it’s ideal to get 10,000 steps a day. That sounds like a lot! I think 5000 is a great place to start! I’ve always wanted a FitBit. You’ll have to give more info on how you like it after a while.
Things I want to accomplish this month are read two books (go ahead and LOL at this one, but I gotta start somewhere!), track all my expenses, purchase new gear for my photography business, workout 4 times a week, and create a cleaning schedule.
Woo, these are excellent goals! Good luck!
Two of my goals – find an apartment and make a preliminary wedding guest list – were time-sensitive so they’re done already. The ones I haven’t touched yet are to read one book a month and fill in my planner with everything I have scheduled so far. I also should probably finalize a budget for the wedding (ugh) but I haven’t really outline that, either.