My Goals for 2016

It’s 2016!  Another year has gone by and for many, a lot of resolutions were broken or left unrealized.  Now it’s time to make new or repeat old resolutions for the new year.  I know there are many schools of thought against making new year’s resolutions, so to quiet the rabble rousers, I am going to just call them goals.  Not only that, but I am going to publicly proclaim my goals for 2016 so that I can be held accountable.  I feel by posting them for the world to see and not just on a poster in my bedroom or office, I will have a little more motivation to accomplish them.

I’ve also decided that instead of making a long list of things I resolve to do in 2016, I’m going to limit my list to 3 items.  3 items to go full throttle on and execute for the new year.  So without further ado, I present to you…

My Goals for 2016

Create an additional revenue stream.  I have a running Evernote notebook full of ideas to create additional revenue sources.  Some of them are new business concepts and some of them are additional services I can offer through my existing business.  The goal for 2016 is to take those ideas and act on them.  My friend Vanessa wrote a guest blog for me a few weeks back that talked about having hopeful ideas and not acting on them.  I’m going to take some of her suggestions in that post and do just that–act on them.  By the end of 2016, I want to have successfully executed this goal.  Even if it’s just $5.00 a month in additional revenue, I will feel accomplished because it’s no longer an idea just sitting in a notebook.

Fix my eyes.  This one is more of a personal goal, but a goal that will have an affect on my quality of life and my pocketbook.  I am very, very, very nearsighted.  I have been wearing glasses since the second grade and contacts since college.  I have always hated not being able to see and when I was young it was a hinderance as an active tomboy.  I can’t tell you how many times I broke my frames and put them back together by bending staples where screws should go and using wood glue from my father’s garage.  This is primarily because tape would have made me look even more like a nerd and I was inspired by the television show, McGuyver.  I have already started doing my research and reaching out to friends that have had LASIK to gain insight on the procedure.  My uncle had LASIK done back in the late 80’s and I used to tell my parents that when I grew up, I was going to get my eyes fixed.  It’s time to act on that.  By getting my eyesight corrected, I will be able to do more activities and save the money I spend each year on contacts, contact solution and glasses.

Find more balance in my life.  Keeping a healthy work/life balance has always been something I have struggled with since working for myself full-time.  At times I feel I am doing a great job and at other times, not so much.  Towards the end of 2015 I was able to identify a couple of things that I had done that seemed to be helping.  One was getting regular massages.  I found an awesome massage therapist not far from home.  Shout out to Peace of Mind Therapy by Christine!  I now get a massage every 2 weeks and it has been an awesome stress reliever.  The second was to take vacations…and not work.  Before 2015, I was traveling for weeks at a time, but bringing work with me.  I was trying to adopt a bit of a digital nomad-like lifestyle in order to travel, see the world and still earn an income.  Now that I have added contract work into the mix, I don’t have the same need to work while I am traveling.  Last year, I took one week vacations, on three separate occasions throughout the year…and didn’t bring my laptop with me.  I was truly on vacation.  What it did was give me a break and it also allowed me to return back to work refreshed and renewed.  I want to continue both of those things in 2016 and find more ways to find balance between work and life.

To keep myself on track, I have set a mini-goal for this month.  I am going to take these 3 goals for 2016 and find a creative way to display them in my office.  The year I decided to make a vision board, I posted it in my bedroom where I could see it everyday.  I was successful with every goal on that board that year.  Since then, I have set goals, but haven’t reached all of them.  I think having a visual reminder everyday may be key to my successful completion of these goals for 2016!