19 Goals for 2019

It’s that time of year again! Time to make a plan and set fire to your goals for 2019! Ready? Need some inspiration? Read on to check out my goals for 2019!

Have you designed your planner yet? Mine is complete and I’ve been working hard on jotting down my 19 Goals for 2019.

As I sat down to write this post, I took a look back at my 18 goals for 2018 and honestly, I’m pretty proud of how much I completed this past year.

Too Many Goals…

But, I have to say, I think coming up with 19 Goals for 2019 was a little bit harder…in the future, I might narrow it down.

I mean, seriously, can you imagine coming up with (and completing) 29 goals for 1 year in 2029?

That seems a little excessive, I think.

When you add more and more goals to accomplish each year, it becomes overwhelming to try and keep up with them all. And that, my friend, is where we fail.

Our little human brains can only take so much!

As you’ll see below, even 18 was a little more than I could complete in a year. We’ll see how 19 goes!

So, let’s take a ride down memory lane for a second, shall we? Below is the list of goals I had for 2018…let’s see how I did!

18 Goals for 2018

Food Goals

Do more freezer cooking – PASS –

Believe it or not, I actually did quite a bit of freezer cooking this past year! I froze Pumpkin Puree, Potatoes, Green Beans, Biscuits, Bread, Chicken Nuggets and Patties, plus tons of Homemade Pizza. 

Grow a better garden (and actually keep it alive) – PASS –

I DID IT! I built and grew a spectacular garden…with a little help from the husband. Either way – my little garden produced a great deal of delicious veggies and fruits throughout the season (and beyond!). 

Can and freeze more of the garden harvest – PASS –

I canned A LOT this past summer/fall. Throughout the harvest season, I canned hundreds of jars of various pickles, Zucchini relish, Crushed Tomatoes, Homemade Ro-Tel, Cranberry Sauce (ingredients NOT from garden), Grape Jelly (ingredients NOT from garden), Strawberry Preserves (ingredients NOT from garden) and Sweet and Spicy Apple Jelly. Plus, I had some strawberry preserves that didn’t set, so I ended up with a dozen jars of “Strawberry Sauce”, too!  

Reduce the grocery bill – NEUTRAL –

Despite all the canning and gardening I did, I just can’t seem to bring down the ever-growing grocery bill by very much. But, I did reduce my grocery shopping trips this year, which in turn helped to reduce my bill…a little bit.

Make more things from scratch (like homemade mixes for cakes, brownies, etc.) – FAIL –

I don’t wanna talk about it. 

Stick to the menu plan – NEUTRAL – 

Sometimes…I fall off the menu plan train and sometimes I stay on for a whole week, but I can’t ever seem to follow it to the letter. EVERY.SINGLE.DAY.

Maybe this year…

Life Goals

Reduce stress and stop worrying about things I can’t control – FAIL –

Hahahaha…is this even possible? 

Follow my planner everyday – NEUTRAL –

Just like with meal planning, I follow along for days and weeks at a time. But, occasionally… 

Reduce unnecessary spending – NEUTRAL –

Living in a rural location makes it easy to save money on a day to day basis…there isn’t much to buy. But, if I’m out and about shopping…well, you know. A sale is a sale after all! 

Go on vacation with my family – PASS –

We took a couple of day trips to random places (including a Rodeo!) and a couple of trips to NY to visit family. Not really my idea of a relaxing vacation…but time away from home nonetheless.  

Stop trying to do everything – FAIL –

See results of #1 – Hahahaha… 

Spend more time creating memories with my family – PASS –

While it’s always important to me to spend time with all of my family, my oldest daughter is leaving for college this coming fall, so it’s been crucial this past year to spend extra time with her. I can only hope that she’ll look back and think I passed. 

Design (Business) Goals

Focus more on branding – PASS –

My daughters can instantly pick out my pins from the sea of pins on Pinterest. Enough said…they’re teenagers, seriously.

Increase the selection of personalized stationery, along with more grocery and to do list notepads  – PASS –

VLHamlinDesign has more than 400 items in the shop and I’m adding more monthly. 

Launch 1 -2 new products throughout the year – PASS –

I launched several new products in 2018.

Increase marketing efforts – PASS –

I’ve used primarily SEO and Pinterest for marketing this past year and honestly, I find them to produce the best results. 

My average monthly Pinterest viewers in January 2018 was 347,000…today’s monthly average is 1,669,564!

That’s made a HUGE difference in the traffic coming to my blog.

Expand newsletter – FAIL –

Okay, so I suck at the newsletter thing. Maybe this year! 

Blog daily – NEUTRAL –

When I said I wanted to blog daily, I meant 5 days a week. Monday through Friday.

Unfortunately, I failed at this one. Blogging 5 days a week would have meant 260 posts for the year and I landed at 127.

HOWEVER, despite the fact that I don’t have the full 260 posts, I did work on the blog almost all of those 260 days. In fact, I didn’t take a full week off all year.

There’s lots of blog work going on in the background that you don’t always see on the front end…like promoting and marketing, design work for free printables and downloads, updating old posts, photography and imaging, not to mention all the little nuts and bolts of running a business.

So, while I don’t get a full PASS on this one, it certainly wasn’t a FAIL either!

Whew! That’s a lot. I think I did pretty okay!

• 9 Pass
• 5 Neutral
• 4 Fail

Of course, I would have preferred to reach all of my goals for the year. But, I’m satisfied with 50%.

It’s not perfect…but it’s better than failing at everything!

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Image via Marco Verch on Flickr

19 Goals for 2019

So, now that we’ve reviewed my goals for last year, let’s talk about what’s coming up in 2019!

You’ll notice that I included the things that I failed at last year…I’m a persistent person…I don’t know what else to say.

I will succeed at whatever I set my mind to!

But, I’ve also included a few of the same things that I passed, too…because I love doing them and I want to continue to grow those skills each year.

So, here we go…

Food Goals

1. Reduce the grocery bill
2. Grow and expand the garden
3. Can, freeze and otherwise preserve the garden harvest
4. Make more food from scratch
5. Eat healthier…including breakfast. I have a real problem with not eating breakfast at all and then I’m starving come lunch time.

Life Goals

1. Reduce stress and stop worrying about things I can’t control
2. Stop trying to do everything
3. Go on vacation with my family
4. Spend more time creating memories with my family
5. Follow my planner everyday
6. Reduce unnecessary spending
7. Plan and execute a graduation party for my oldest daughter (and also learn to accept the fact that she is going away to college in the fall…tears!) – Good thing I wrote this post on 400+ Graduation Party Ideas and this one with 33+ Graduation Food Ideas!
8. Plan and execute a sweet sixteen party for my youngest daughter

Design (Business) Goals

1. Blog 3X weekly – 156 posts for the year
2. Expand the Food Life Design shop to include more printable planners, wall art and greeting cards, plus, a few secret surprises!
3. Write an e-book (topic to be announced in the near future)
4. Create a step by step course based on above e-book
5. Expand newsletter
6. Increase marketing and promoting efforts

Well, it looks like I have another busy year ahead! Time to get started on those 19 Goals for 2019!

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Have a Spectacular Day!