In an ideal world I would have gotten my new year goals post up here before the end of 2013, but that’s not just how my world works. 2013 was a bit of a crazy year and it continued right up until the end of the year with work deadlines, visitors, illness and general life stuff. Anyway I wanted to take a few days to really think over what I want to focus on this year and what worked and didn’t work last year.
Looking back on last year’s goal post I see there is a fair amount of stuff I didn’t achieve (cooking? ahem!) but also some significant things that i did. This year has been a great year workwise and I achieved my goal of making 20jt a month pretty consistently since April. My Indonesian has also come along a lot despite not doing all the podcasts and learning 5 words a day that I was going to (I did this for a while and then got caught up in other stuff). I speak Indonesian with Made nearly all the time now, which is the important thing. I still want to improve my fluency but I’m getting there slowly.
My theme for 2013 was balance and this year I mulled over a few different words to focus on but decided on grow. I almost feel like we’ve been stuck for the last few years – not making enough money, just scraping by, constrained by having to focus all my time and energy on two small children. We moved to a new house at the end of 2013 and i feel like that was the start of many great things. I want to grow my business, grow our income, grow my relationship with my children and husband, grow my independence and confidence, even grow my blog! The foundation is complete and now it’s time to blossom.
I also want to focus more on myself this year – it’s the first time in nearly 4 years that I won’t be pregnant or have a baby to look after. Maya is so grown up now and I’m really seeing the light at the end of the tunnel (we can sit in a restaurant with her without her causing chaos!). She’ll be starting nursery soon too. Kiran will be mired in the terrible twos for a while yet but he’s not as attached to me as he was – I can leave him with someone else for a full day no problem. The next step is to finally finish breastfeeding and maybe attempt a night away from them both.
My health suffered in 2013 and while it was mostly bad luck I’m sure focusing too much on work and the children rather than myself had a lot to do with it too. I had dengue fever, bronchitis, flu and a whole load of other coughs, colds and stomach upsets. I’m already working on improving my health (taking vitamins, drinking more water, cooking healthier meals etc) and getting more exercise and more “me time” are going to be priorities too. It’s helped a lot moving – before I never really had any time alone and as an introvert it’s something I really need to recharge my batteries. now Made takes the kids and I’m alone in the house for a whole glorious afternoon! I’ve mostly been using this time to work but I want to take more time for just doing stuff for me like reading a book, having a bath and going for a walk. I can also now walk into Ubud through the rice fields which is amazing and opens up a whole new world for me.
So those are the overarching themes. I want to focus mainly on health and wealth and grow in both of these areas. I also want to work on my parenting skills (as i try to do continuously), be more patient and focus on creating happy memories with my children as they are growing up so fast. As for specifics, I saw a nice idea here – 14 things for 2014. So here are my 14 with no commentary on how achievable or not they may be:
- Make $5,000 a month consistently
- Make at least half my income from my own businesses (not client work)
- Pay off my “small” debt (which is not that small but separate from my “big” debt of student loans and bank of mum and dad mortgages)
- Launch 2 new websites
- Write an e-book
- Learn to drive a motorbike
- Create a beautiful learning/playing space in our home
- Cook 12 new meals (one a month and hopefully more!)
- Have 12 family fun days out (and hopefully more)
- Make 12 videos of the kids and our life (a la documenting delight)
- Go on 12 date nights with my husband (carrying this one over from last year – we managed a few!)
- Visit family and friends in the UK
- Fill a sketchbook with drawings
- Get up early and develop a morning routine
That’s all! Better get on with it 🙂
p.s. I’m also thinking about a new design for this place. What do you think?
Linking up with ohdeardrea and lots of other lovely ladies here 🙂
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