New Year - New Goals

I'm always pumped to start a New Year.  There is something exciting about the prospect of focus, clarity and priority that comes with a January-1 fresh calendar.  I'm not the sappy-resolution type, but I am someone who likes to focus, make a few goals and then stick to them.

I declared 2010 the Year of Fitness.  As I started my year in January, I took a look in the mirror and realize I sorta looked like a swollen version of myself.  (I'll spare you the "before" photos).  It was clear - I just needed to prioritize my fitness and get back to a better version of me.  With the help of Weight Watchers and a gym, I lost 30 pounds in 2010.

So what's up next?  What process can we all go through to set us up for success as we approach a new year?  Here are a couple of resources I've been looking through to set up my 2011 plans:

• What It Takes to Form A Good Habit: This article is a great primer to clearly think about what is achievable and how to generally accomplish resolutions.
• Key Take Away - It takes 21 days to form a habit and accountability is key.
• Planning and Orderly Week: A great review of how to generally make your life more organized (to fit in your new goals).  Love everything about this!
• Key Take Away - I already have a day I use to prep my week (Monday) and plan my meals in advance (Sunday) but I hadn't thought about scanning my paper documents into an electronic format before, so will check that out.  (Won't be planning my outfits in advance though, I can tell you that!)
• Virtual Finance Bootcamps: There are several to choose from but I like the daily-email approach to get in financial shape!
• Key Take Away - The Personal Finance Basics got me on the phone with our financial advisor to get a new IRA set up already!
• Keep Your Workout Schedule: They call it excuse-proofing your workout plan.
• Key Take Away - I plan to draw up a schedule and of course, attach a treat to my results!

Time to make some commitments (they say accountability is important so here it goes).  In 2011, I hope to create my BEST SELF in the following ways:

1. Get in good financial shape.  We've been focused on clearing off all of our bad debt and now want to start aggressively saving, and paying off ALL of our debt.  It will take us longer than one year (helloooo mortgage), but we'd like to do make a big dent in 2011.  This will mean sticking to our budget, prioritizing big projects and expenditures and trying to maximize our earning potential.
2. Train for a half marathon.  Okay, this sounds a little crazy coming from someone who HATES running.  But that makes me almost want to do it more.  Lori has got us on a training plan and I am going to at least attempt to run more than 3 miles at a time.  (Cripes, it hurts already)
3. Consistently use my organization system. I have this problem with planners - I have never found a great system that works well for me, so I constantly switch between methods.  I intend to stick with the system that has worked best for me and use it each Monday for my weekly planning session.
4. Entertain more.  I love it - why limit myself to one party once and a while?  We love to have friends over for movies in the backyard and would like to start more regular get-togethers for poker, dinner parties and more! 
5. Rock at my job.  There is nothing better than doing something you love and doing it really, really well.  I have big plans for JeffreyM Consulting as I move into my second year there and can't wait to have the business impact I desire.  This will be a year of growth for the firm and for me as we figure it all out.
6. Sleep more.  This may sound counter-intuitive after the last post (since I work late all the time)... but seriously, all is better when I get more sleep.  When I asked the doctor why I was tired all the time and she replied, "because you don't get enough sleep", it became clear.
7. Focus on my relationships.  Making all of this fit in a 24-hour day (while trying to get 8 hours of sleep) is tough.  But I intend to whole-heartedly focus more on my relationships.  I want to spend great, quality time with the people I love (especially my husband).  No compromise.

Oh goodness, well his can't be a complete list, but it's a start.  I certainly have lots more things that I will do (like finally get good at gardening and paint the house), but as I learned - it's about focus and priorities.  I really do believe that saying:

If you do the same thing you have always done, you will get the same result you have always gotten. 

What will you take on to be your best self in 2011?