The Saving Journey

Gretchen Rubin is one of my favourite non-fiction writers. She writes about mainly about happiness and how all facets of life can impact on our overall wellbeing and how we can improve that. I loved The Happiness Project and Better than Before and I’m looking forward to her new book release Outer Order Inner Calm which, as you’ll soon see, will be useful for at least one of my goals this year.

Gretchen Rubin also hosts the Happier podcast with her sister Elizabeth and at the beginning of each year they set themselves a number of goals to achieve related to the year so 19 goals for 2019, 18 goals for 2018 etc, and they encourage listeners to do the same. This might seem like a large number but it’s ok to have some small goals or quick wins to get you going, I perhaps didn’t take this part seriously enough! This is my first year trying this so we’ll see how it goes.

My 19 for 2019

Health & Fitness

1. Reach target weight of 9 st 7 lbs.
2. Complete a marathon

Neither of these outcomes based rather than process based, which is generally understood to be the best type of goal, and to some extent they are not within my control but I wanted to include them because there will be many actions that I will take to help me achieve them and I didn’t want those to take up all of my list! My key actions are planning and tracking my marathon training and keeping a food diary. I’ve kept up both of these actions so far and the marathon is coming up in May so I’m satisfied I’ve made a good start.

Home Improvements

3. Declutter

4. Pick blinds for downstairs rooms

5. Pick hooks for bedroom door

6. Grow vegetables in the trough

7. Pick some houseplants

We’re coming the the end of our home renovation, thank goodness, and window sills are being fitted as I type, which is one of the final big jobs to do. I want this year to focus on making it more of a home with some personal touches and some of these should be quick wins if my boyfriend and I can agree on style.

Financial

8. Pay off car loan

9. Reach savings target of £9,000 which will equate to 6 months expenses

These are pretty self explanatory and I’ve already made an extra payment on my car loan so that is well on its way to completion.

Creativity

10. Get a new bridge for my violin and then practice twice per week

11. Sew a top or dress

12. Take part in National Novel Writing Month in November

13. Take more photos and organise into books and frames

I don’t consider myself to be very creative but I’d like to explore that side more. Having said that, these goals might be a bit ambitious! I’ve not even managed to sort the violin bridge out yet!

Personal Development

14. Successfully complete leadership course

15. Read 50 books

16. Post on blog once per fortnight

17. Take a free SEO course

18. Use the bullet journal for the whole year

I’m doing ok with these goals so far although I’m a little behind on the reading goal as I’ve only finished 3 so far. I’m tracking this and my blogging schedule (plus many other things) in my bullet journal which has proven fun so far!

Relationships

19. Plan a date once per month

We spend so much time at work and then working on the house improvements when we get home I wanted to make sure we still make time for fun for just the two of us. I’ve also started keeping a note of what we do in my bullet journal and it was nice to look back at the end of the month to see what we did. In January, we went out for dinner three times and also went swimming together which was fun. In February, we have a short break in Italy planned so it’s so far so good!

Anyone else made 19 goals for 2019?! Or maybe just one or two resolutions?