We’ve reached another year, so it’s time to start making some goals. As you know, I don’t do resolutions. I think they’re unhealthy and unrealistic. That doesn’t mean that I don’t take the new year as an opportunity to make some goals.
Goals are important for everyone, either big or small. And if you’ll recall, in August I committed myself to make better art. This made choosing my word of the year easy.
My word for 2022 is care.
I want to care more for myself. I want to care more for my husband and my family of fur babies. I want to care more about my art. I want to care more about my fellow man.
Step one of goal-making is to choose your word of the year.
Choosing a word of the year helps to guide everything else. That’s what the word care is doing for me. If I’m to care more about things, I have to lower the things on my plate. We just cannot commit ourselves to everything. I kept this strongly in mind as I made my goals. When I make too many goals, I become too frantic to get anything done. Or, I get things done but not done as well as they could be.
So step two of goal making is to be realistic about what you can do, not idealistic.
Next, I make a huge list of all the things I’d like to do. That list is stupidly long and unrealistic. But that’s okay, I’m just brainstorming.
After that, I separate my goals into personal, family, and professional. I tell myself I can only have three goals for each of those categories, nine goals total. This means I’ve got to decide what I care about most. What matters most. After a lot of crossing out, considering, and soul searching, here are my goals for 2022.
Personal
Read the entire Bible.
Reach my Goodreads goal of 42 books.
Take 24 Masterclasses.
Family
Build our emergency fund.
Plan a Covid safe vacation.
Get the darling husband’s health back on track
Professional
Join SFWA.
Make plans to attend a writing con.
Make progress on the two novels I’m working on.
Now, I have a bunch of other projects I’m going to be working on this year. I want to get out new seasons of Off The Bone and AA. I want to start two brand new podcasts. I want to practice mindful eating, join a proper coven, and about a thousand other things.
But so long as I get those top nine goals accomplished, this year has been a total win. Everything else is just icing. Though I will say, I love icing.
So what are your goals for 2022? Let us know in the comments so we can cheer each other on.
Paper Beats World 
I like specific goal setting, and have recently learned about SMART goals. They’ve definitely helped me, especially since I tend to set very vague goals. Wishing you all the best with your top nine goals!
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