Looking Ahead: 2017 Plans & Goals

I don’t know about you, but I am never ready to make plans for the new year on January 1st. December is usually the absolute craziest time with so much going on. How does anyone find time to reflect on the past year and decide what they would like to change during all the hooplah? It takes a few weeks into January for some productive thoughts to come out of this jumbled mind. Finally, I am ready to start reflecting on the past year and making a few plans for 2017.

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Looking Back at 2016

Before looking ahead and deciding what I want 2017 to look like, it was important to me to look back at 2016. What were the pivotal events and decisions that worked and didn’t work? Here are things that came to mind:

Unemployed myself. After 14 years of working for the same non-profit organization, I finally left in May. It was time. As you can imagine, it was hard to leave security, benefits and easy work. That’s why it took me two years to build up the courage to do it. So I did. And guess what? It was still scary, but I was eerily calm about the choice. When you listen to your intuition, you can feel peace despite the anxiety of the unknown. It’s weird. Depending on how you are wired, a decision like this may seem like not a big deal. As an over thinker, I will be forever proud of myself for having the courage to take the leap. If I could go back, the only thing I would change is that I would have done it sooner.

Did nothing for a while. Once I stopped working, it took me a few months to get adjusted to the idea of not having a job. Or an income. One thing I knew for sure was that I needed time to figure out what was next. Summer came and I kept busy keeping the boys busy. As school started back up, I started thinking very hard about what I wanted to commit to and not commit to moving forward. Thankfully, I recognized that jumping into a bunch of new projects would be a perfect way to procrastinate figuring out what my new chapter would look like. Instead, I focused on paring down commitments to a bare minimum.

Dipped my toe into some freelance and contract work. Once I adjusted to the fact that I no longer had a job, it was time to start figuring out what I did want to do. I’m envious of people that have that one singular thing they love. That would make deciding so much easier! But I have so many passions and interests, it was a little intimidating to think I had to choose the one thing I was going to do next. I came to the conclusion that I could explore and maybe try a few different things. How would I know what I would like unless I try? So I gave myself permission to go down more than one path.

I started doing freelance interiors and architectural photography. I make that sound so easy. It took me about 4 months to actually announce it publicly. I also reached out to a creative design agency who was doing work I admired and have recently started doing special project work for them. I am really loving the challenge plus the flexibility to work from home on these projects. In 2017 I want to explore a few new paths and see where they lead!

Idenitified some non-negotiables. One of the other productive outcomes of last year was experimentation. Experimenting with different freelance lines of work, different schedules and different approaches to tackling the day have helped me to identify some habits I need to drop and keep in 2017. For me, those non-negotiable are: my health (which includes sleep, exercise and nutrition), time with my family, and time to create.

I guess the best way to describe 2016 for me was transitional. The year was filled with so much change. I would say the approach I took was one of careful observation and not that much action. Part of me wishes I could be more impulsive with my decisions so I can move faster. But that’s just not me.

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Now that 2017 is upon us, my hope is that I can build upon the experiences I had in 2016. Here’s what I hope to accomplish in the coming year.

Plans for 2017

Continue experimenting. I know myself well enough that I will continue to experiment and change. Learning and growing is my jam! I will continue to expose myself to new thoughts and ideas. Try them on for size. Keep what fits and discard the rest.

Continue to be me. I will continue to find ways to share my gifts in service of others. I will not be keeping up with the Joneses. I will relish in the simple things that make me happy – mainly reading, exploring new ideas, creating and being with my family.

Push my boundaries a little more. With that being said, there are a few areas that I have been studying and preparing for a while that I should be able to jump into in 2017. It may require a lot of inner pep talks, but my intention is to continue making courageous choices. Not taking the safe road every time. In my career, this might look like expanding my freelance services beyond interiors photography. In my personal life, that might be agreeing to getting a dog (we’ll see). I want to take some online classes that will push me in new areas of growth.

Fine tune my daily schedule. There are several things I want to do every day before my kids are finished with school. With 6-7 hours from the time they leave to the time they return, I should be able to get everything in without rushing. The only way to do this is to set my schedule up so that I can. I am acutely aware that uncompleted tasks take away from my joy when the boys come home. From 3pm on, I want to be 100% there for them. In 2017, I hope to be able to get this down better.

Dive back into more home decor projects. Last year I kicked off the year with a resolution I had around home projects. This post explains the details, but basically it involved focusing my attention to one room per month and doing what I could for that month before moving on. Home design is a creative outlet for me that I truly enjoy. The plan worked really well. Up until April. As soon as I had no job, it just was not in the budget to work on projects like these. Plus, my attention was just not there any more. This year, I want to get back on the horse and try again. There are so many rooms I am itching to work on. I will post the new game plan on the blog soon.

Bump up the blogging a notch. In 2016, I celebrated 2 years of blogging. Similar to the job change thing, it took me about 2 years of saying I wanted to start a blog to actually do it. Once I started, it took me over a year to make it public and start sharing posts. Are you starting to spot a pattern? Blogging is something that fills my cup and I want to keep doing it. It’s time to step it up a notch. I want to go from posting once a week to twice a week. Consistently. That is totally doable as long as I figure out that daily schedule thing I talked about.

Explore some tools to help me be a better parent. My kids are not babies anymore. They are not little kids either. As they are turning the corner into “tweenhood”, I feel like I need some guidance about how to be a good parent to this age. I can already see how much more challenging the years ahead are going to get. Instead of dragging my feet and hoping they stop growing (which is what I have been doing), I think a better bet will be to more equipped. I recently enrolled in THIS course to help open my mind to some new approaches. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!

Protect the white space. I know I just made it sound like I want to conquer the world this year. But not at the expense of time with my kids and white space. White space is a graphic design reference to the amount of space left around a graphic or image. The more white space something has, the more impact that the design element has. Because nothing is competing. And that is what I want for myself. I value white space so much. When I don’t have it, I get real cranky. I need time to read. Time to do nothing. Time to be spontaneous. The thing about being scheduled, is that you can schedule white space into it. In 2017, I want to continue making white space a priority.

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So those are the thoughts I’ve had about the new year. Who knows what curveballs or opportunities 2017 may have up its sleeve? I certainly don’t, but I will pivot as needed when those times come. In the meantime, off I go!

I wish you all the best in the coming year. What are you making happen this year?

Posted by Ale & filed under Life. This post has 4 comments.