new years goals

MY NEW YEAR’S GOALS

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There is something so satisfying about a fresh start. The new year is a great time to think about fresh starts. The new year is an organic fresh start. It seems silly that one day to the next could mark the beginning of something new or different, but the calendar changes to mark a new year, which can be a great time for new beginnings. That is why so many people make new year’s resolutions.

The last few years I have incorporated new habits and really pushed myself outside of my comfort zone.  Two years ago in 2024 I decided to focus on travel and that year I took several trips. Including a solo road trip! Last year I ended up taking several trips as well, and moving into 2026 I already have 4 trips in the works! At the end of 2024 I started a new habit of lifting weights at the gym, and now nearly a year and half later it has become part of my weekly routine. In 2025 I wanted to focus on reading and walking more. Both of these habits I have successfully incorporated into my routines. If you have been around, you know I also did a no buy year in 2025. I was not fully successful, but I made huge strides with my spending habits and I know this will carry over into my future.

I wanted to talk about what I want to do now that my no buy year is over. I definitely want to be more intentional with my spending. The one practical rule that I decided to make for myself is that I can’t purchase more than 3 items each month. This will include items for events or trips. I really wanted to put some boundaries on myself so I don’t slip back into old habits. Something else I am thinking about doing is getting coffee out less often and choosing local coffee spots if I do get coffee out. I honestly don’t get coffee out that often. I only allow myself once a week unless I am traveling. But I definitely want to start trying out more local coffee places instead of getting Starbucks.

In 2026 the main thing I want to focus on is less entertainment. Throughout this year I have been working on “mono-tasking” more often. Not always listening to music, podcasts, YouTube videos, or Marco Polos while I’m doing other simple tasks. I’ve been working on focusing on one task at a time in order to be more present in each thing I am doing. In my paper planner there was space to plan out my year – my goals, values, and priorities. I actually purchased the exact same planner for 2026 because it helped me to stay on track. In this planner there is a space to write a word for the year. I decided my word would be “focus.” I feel like at this time of my life it is easy to lose focus. Not only am I dealing with the effects of perimenopause, including struggling to stay focused mentally, but I also have more margin in my life and it can be easy to fill up the margin with things that don’t make a difference ultimately. I don’t want to keep feeling like I’m wasting my life.

Recently I watched a really great video from Ryan Holiday. I really love his content. It is very inspiring. He does a great job of sharing ideas that come from the Stoics in a really relatable and digestible way. He talked about this idea, which came from the Stoics – Memento mori. This is a Latin phrase which means “remember you must die.” I know, I know, this is rather morbid. But it also is so true, and something I think most of us don’t really want to think about. But the idea is if we do “remember that we must die,” we may be more intentional with our time. I feel like I am a work in progress with regards to truly living intentionally, but hearing this phrase ignited in me a new resolve to truly pay attention to everything that I am doing with my time. I know I won’t be perfect and there will surely be times when I don’t feel well – either physically or emotionally making it more difficult to do meaningful things. But my point is that I can more regularly focus on doing meaningful things. Things that are in line with my values and priorities, like spirituality, physical health, relationships, and personal growth.

I’m going to kick off the new year with this goal in mind to focus on less entertainment by doing a challenge of course! I love putting myself up to a challenge! And this time my husband is joining me in this challenge. I asked him a few years ago if we could do a challenge of removing the tv from our bedroom. Back then he was not keen on the idea, but we decided to do this together as a form of fasting. Our church does a 21 day fast at the beginning of every year and it can be anything you choose to abstain from. We are going to quit watching tv at night, which has become a very ingrained routine for us! I’m looking forward to seeing the difference it makes for us as individuals, but also for our marriage!

With New Year’s resolutions, a switch can’t necessarily be flipped and all things are new. But if you keep making small changes, year after year. These things will become part of your everyday routines and life.

Here is the YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this blog post.

MY 2025 YEAR END REVIEW

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Hey friends, for today’s Thoughtful Thursday I wanted to review my 2025 year with you. The end of the year is a great time to reflect and celebrate your successes, evaluate what you could do differently, and think about some habits you want to continue on into the new year. I always love using paper planners and this year my planner had a spot for keeping track of routines, values, and goals. So it was easy to evaluate how this year went for me. I loved this planner so much that I ended up purchasing the exact same planner for 2026.

One of the first pages in this planner is a spot to write out your values. There was also a list of common values you could circle to guide you for the year. In this section there was a “more” column and a “less” column. Under more I wrote: quietness, walking, reading, whole foods, and creativity. I was actually shocked at how effective it is to write down your values heading into a new year. I have been wanting to add the habit of reading into my routines for years and it wasn’t until this year that I was truly successful! At the end of the summer I added the routine of reading almost every evening, and that routine has continued! I also wanted to walk more this year and I started the habit of walking in the mornings this year. I have also generally been taking more walks throughout this year! I do feel like I could do a better job at quietness. As I mentioned last week, I am taking some time away from Instagram over the next couple of weeks to give myself more margin for quietness. I have been getting on every few days to answer DMs and I’m also working with a brand to create a Reel, but otherwise not scrolling or staying on for hours. 

The last two things were whole foods – which I decided to create a mostly ingredient pantry at the beginning of the year to achieve this. I would say I did okay in this regard. I definitely still purchase crackers and other packaged foods, but I do think creating the ingredient pantry has helped and moving into the new year I would like to continue to focus on this goal. Lastly was creativity, and I truly believe that doing the no buy year helped with making space for creativity. I did several home projects with DIYs and I also had to get creative at times to make what I had on hand work instead of purchasing something new.

In my “less” column I had sugar, social media, and shopping. I definitely was successful with less shopping! Doing the no buy year really curbed my shopping throughout the year. I feel like I could still work on the less sugar goal. I don’t eat a lot of refined sugar, but I do make desserts regularly for my family. I make them homemade and sweeten them with maple syrup or dates, but I want to cut back on eating desserts generally. And with social media I am off of Facebook and TikTok completely and even after just a few days off of Instagram I would like to implement strict rules for myself with regards to how long I can be on the app daily.

Another spot in the planner that was insightful to me is to look at was my top 5 goals for the year. Mine were: 1. Fix issues with the house, 2. Regular walking, 3. Continue daily Bible reading, 4. Continue workout routine, and 5. Read more! I would say I did an amazing job hitting these goals this year! I will say, we still have some issues we need to deal with regarding our home. I did get a new front door, which was on the list, but I still have a long list to get through which will have to roll over into next year. I would like to come up with a plan to get these things accomplished because it’s definitely something that I keep putting off! I really dislike research, which fixing home issues requires. Everything else on this list I feel very proud to say I achieved these goals! I look forward to filling out my plans for 2026 over the next week!

I would love to hear from you in the comments! Did you write down your goals for this year? Do you make resolutions? A vision board? A word for the year? How did you do on accomplishing your goals for this year? What goals or ideas do you have for the upcoming new year?

Here is the YouTube video I shared in conjunction with this blog post.

How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

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We are just a few weeks into the new year. This is usually the time people begin to drop off on their New Year’s resolutions. It can be challenging to make life-long changes overnight. People often set goals at the new year: to lose weight, to eat healthy, to get organized, to name a few. Often, people use the new year as an incentive to muster up enough willpower to make the changes they want to make. But somewhere mid January or early February, the willpower isn’t enough and slowly the goals that had been set begin to go by the wayside.

To make lasting changes, I propose that instead of setting goals or making resolutions, you should focus on your habits. When we practice small, repetitive actions day in and day out, this can more effectively lead us to our goals. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against goal setting or making resolutions. That process is fun and exciting because we get to imagine and dream what life could be like. Resolutions are future oriented – making it easier for us to come up with lofty goals, because it is our future self that will have to have the follow through! One of my favorite sayings from the tv show, How I Met Your Mother, that I like to use when I’m procrastinating is “I’ll let future Joy worry about that.” And that’s exactly what we are doing – creating perhaps unattainable goals, and hoping our future selves will have follow through. This is often why year after year nothing actually changes.

I would like to share with you 6 things you can do in order to actually attain your goals.

{ONE} Put it on your to-do list. Habits happen by making something a part of your routine. Whatever you want to achieve, put it on your to-do list and then don’t make excuses and just do it! You want to exercise three times a week? Schedule it in. You want to spend more time with friends? Plan a standing weekly or monthly get together and have it on your calendar. You want to drink more water? Put timers on your phone to remind you to fill up. Want to get organized? Put it on your calendar each week to spend time purging and organizing a space in your home. Over time, these practices just become part of who you are.

{TWO} Choose the “basic solution” over the “quick fix.” Often times, along with resolutions, people buy in to “quick fix” solutions. Whether it’s a special herbal tea, a protein shake, or vitamins and supplements, these things can’t replace what will truly make a lasting change. Making it worse, marketers play into this desire we have to find a quick fix. These quick fix solutions nor our will power can replace making changes in our habits. If we focus on basic solutions and make those a part of our habits, we are more likely to succeed. A basic solution to the goal to “get healthy” might be to get 7-8 hours of sleep at night, to drink 8 glasses of water a day, to exercise a certain number of times per week, instead of taking pills or drinking teas or shakes.. We all know, there are really no shortcuts. People want some magical or secret solution, but the truth is that change happens through small, repetitive actions everyday. 

{THREE} Let your habit connect to a priority in your life. If we want change, we must make these stepping stones to our goal a priority. If you value exercise, friendships, health, organization, then your habits must follow. The good thing about a priority leading your habit and not a goal leading it, is that you can change the habit if it’s not working for you. With a goal, if you “fail” once you feel like you have to start all over and this can be daunting. Say you make it a goal to exercise three times per week. Well, in February you get sick, and it derails this goal. At this point it could be easy to just give up. Habits are easier to “start over.” If exercise is a habit, then when you miss a week of it because of illness, you start over next week! You don’t have this feeling of guilt when you “failed.” Goals are great platforms to make changes in your life, but priorities ultimately dictate our behavior.

{FOUR} Reward yourself. It’s important to have small rewards along the way. This reinforces the behavior. Whether it’s external rewards – like having a soda or beer on Friday night after drinking your 8 glasses of water each day that week, or internal rewards – acknowledging how good you feel after a workout to remind yourself that it’s worth it!

{FIVE} Create an environment or systems to help you succeed. Often times we fail because we don’t have the needed systems in place to foster success. In the example of wanting to drink more water – buy a new water bottle, or have a water bottle out and ready to fill up in the morning, or set timers throughout the day to remind you. Visual cues will remind you to do what you set out to do.

{SIX} Don’t expect perfection. As I mentioned previously, it can be hard to keep chugging along after failure. If you miss a day of exercise, or eat a cheeseburger instead of a salad one day, THAT’S OKAY… start over the next day. It’s difficult to perfectly stick to good habits. Illness, travel, and special celebrations can get in the way of keeping our routines. It’s important to just keep moving forward with your habit.

I hope this encourages you that you CAN succeed in your resolutions this year. Focus on habits instead of goals. Habits are DAILY DECISIONS that can help you achieve your goals!