Finally getting around to sharing my 2023 goals for the upcoming year! This is one of my favorite posts to write because it gives me a chance to reflect on the previous year.. what went well, what I could work on and how I can improve for the new year!
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I know I say this every January, but the start of the new year always gets me so excited! I love that feeling of a fresh start. A time to form new habits, set new intentions and goals and re-focus your mind on what’s really important. Plus I love all the new planners, workout sets and organizing bins that always launch this time of year!
If you want to read some of my other goals posts from previous years I’ll link a few here: 2022 Goals for the Year, 2020 Goals + Resolutions and 2019 in Review. It’s always fun to look back at these!
Reflecting on 2022
Before I get into my 2023 goals, I want to reflect on this past year and share some of my favorite accomplishments and memorable moments of the year!
For one, 2022 was my first full year working for myself! To me, this is still so crazy to think about. When I look back at old journals and notepads where I’ve written out my big dreams/goals, almost all of them say “quit my job so I can work for myself.” Right now, I can’t help but smile!
Leaving a stable job to pursue blogging and social media, definitely isn’t for everyone. Income is not guaranteed and that can be scary! But, as someone who’s extremely goal and money-driven I knew that no matter what I would make it work. And here we are!
Also, as most of you may know, Vilas and I are engaged! He proposed while we were on vacation in Traverse City, MI this past August and it was PERFECT. I had no idea he was going to do it! Well, maybe it crossed my mind once, but I honestly didn’t even know he had a ring! And although wedding planning is definitely challenging and somewhat stressful, there’s no one else I’d rather do it with!
This year, we also celebrated Elsa’s first birthday, my brother married the love of his life and we gained another sister, I attended my first Indian wedding, I celebrated my 26th birthday with a Coastal Grandmother styled brunch (and by signing up for my own insurance LOL), I stood up in two weddings, got back into reading for fun, had weekly date nights with Vilas, took part in a Summer Styled Photoshoot for The Corners, and got to spend so much time with our families – celebrating, hiking, kayaking, playing games, doing puzzles, watching movies and playing tennis.
2022 was truly an incredible and unforgettable year! I am so blessed and thankful for everything I’ve gotten to experience and I can only hope that 2023 is just as good!
Books I read:
I wanted to share some of the books I read this year! Four were investing/finance books and the other four were thrillers/suspense books. So, if you’re looking for any new reads, I really enjoyed these!
- Learn How Investing Works, Grow your Money
- Miss Independent: A Simple 12-Step Plan to Start Investing and Grow Your Own Wealth
- Girls that Invest
- I will Teach You to Be Rich
- The House Across the Lake
- The Couple at Number 9
- The Family Game
- Then She Was Gone
Reviewing My 2022 Goals
Now, I wanted to take some time to reflect on the goals I set for myself last year and share how I did! If you’ve been following me for a while now, you know that I like to break up my goals into three categories: Personal, Financial and Business. I’ll go through each category and briefly share the goals and whether or not I achieved them!
Personal Goals:
- Stick to my Morning Routine
- Wake up at 6am on weekdays and start work at 7:15am
- Have weekly date nights with Vilas
- Be slow to anger. Have more of a go with the flow attitude
- Listen to more music and dance!
- Be willing to try new things and do things in different ways
Starting with my personal goals! One of my favorite things Vilas and I did this year was plan weekly date nights. We got to try new restaurants, play tennis, have board game nights, see new movies, make homemade pizzas, and just talk and hang out with each other! We plan on continuing this in 2023 because it gives us something fun to look forward to each week!
I also think I did well at sticking to my morning routine! Other than that, I feel like my other personal goals need some work. I really want to work on my patience and not getting upset so quickly, whether that’s with Elsa or with wedding planning, etc. I know in 2023 we’re going to have to start making a lot more decisions with our wedding, and I just want to focus on the things that I can control and just letting go of some of the other things.
Financial Goals:
- Contribute $X/month to my Roth
- Save $20,000
- Make 10% more in income
- Learn new investing strategies and how I can grow my wealth
I can happily say that I’ve checked off all of my personal finance goals this year! I definitely prioritize these goals the most. Having financial freedom and being able to afford the things I want in life is very important to me, so I always make saving, investing and educating myself on financial topics my number one focus each year.
Since I’m self-employed and no longer have an employer-sponsored 401k plan, I opened a Roth IRA in 2021 to save for retirement. I set a goal of how much I wanted to contribute to it, which this year will be increasing. But, since 2022 was the first year working for myself, I prioritized saving more money in my HYSA for taxes, emergencies and other random expenses versus my Roth.
In terms of savings, I am so excited I met my goal! This money will be going toward our goal of buying land in 2023/24 to build a home! For income, I won’t touch on specifics, but I exceeded my original goal!
And lastly, I wanted to focus on expanding my investing/finance knowledge. I definitely think I have done that over the last year. I read four investing books, listened to multiple finance podcasts and continued to ask questions to my fiancรฉ who is so knowledgeable when it comes to all things investing! ๐
Blogging Goals:
- Hit 1,000 ranking keywords on Keysearch
- Send out biweekly emails to my email list
- Add more digital products to my Etsy shop
- Post 3 reels/photos a week
- Get accepted into She Media network by end of year
- Spend 20 min a day engaging with other accounts on IG
- Make $X/month in brand collaborations
So, I definitely did not meet all of these goals, so I’ll be adding a few of them to my 2023 blogging goals list! One of my top blogging priorities in 2022 was to have more blog posts rank on Google. This was and still is extremely important to me because my website is the one platform I have control over (unlike Instagram or Tik Tok)! Most of you will have no idea what the platform Keysearch is, or what it means to have 1,000 ranking keywords. But I started the year with about 250 ranking keywords and ended it with 950 – which I am very, very happy about!
This year I sent out a total of 16 newsletters to the Sunday Mimosas email fam! I didn’t meet my goal of sending bi-weekly emails, but I’m really proud of how many I was able to send out. In 2023, I am making it a priority to grow my email list and send out weekly newsletters every Sunday! If you’re not signed up yet, you can do so here!
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to add any new digital products to my Etsy shop this year – I just didn’t have the time. I also decided not to apply to an ad network this year either. I didn’t feel like I had enough monthly pageviews to be accepted yet, so I plan on continuing to work toward this goal in the new year!
In terms of posting 3 times a week, overall, I think I met this goal! For brand collaborations, I ended up making more than I anticipated, so although I didn’t hit all of my goals, I’m extremely happy with what I was able to accomplish!
My 2023 Goals
Okay let’s get into my 2023 goals now! I’m really excited about this year! We have a lot of fun things happening and I’m looking forward to working towards accomplishing more of my goals, continuing weekly date nights, shopping for a wedding dress, getting outside, playing tennis more and spending more time with family and friends!
I also wanted to share my vision board for 2023, which I made on Canva! It’s free and there are so many vision board templates to choose from! I started by making a Pinterest board and saving tons of images that I liked and that represented the goals I want to achieve this year. Then, I downloaded them to my laptop and uploaded them to Canva! On Canva, you can completely customize your vision board as much as you want, or you can use one of their templates to make it easier!
If you need help finding aesthetic images, when searching on Pinterest, add “aesthetic” to the end of your search phrase (ex. healthy lifestyle aesthetic, pilates aesthetic..)
Here’s how mine turned out!
2023 Personal Goals
- Put others before myself, donate, give back, and be someone that always lifts others up
- Enjoy the entire wedding planning process!
- Teach Elsa to not jump
- Stay in touch with friends and go out of my comfort zone to make new ones too!
- Have FUN working for myself + being my own boss/business owner!
- Slow down – focus on not rushing through my daily tasks or trying to do too many things at once
A lot of the personal goals I set for myself aren’t SMART goals. I can’t measure most of these, but at the end of 2023 I’ll definitely be able to tell if I achieved them. In 2022, I felt like a lot of my time was spent focusing on myself and my job. In 2023, I want to focus on putting others before myself. Give back to local charities and my church, volunteer more, and be someone that always encourages and lifts others up.
I also want to fully enjoy the entire wedding planning process. We haven’t made many decisions yet, but it already stresses me out LOL. I know the next year and a half will fly by, especially as we get closer to the date, so I really just want to enjoy every step of the process and not sweat the small stuff.
Okay another goal I want to prioritize is staying in touch with friends! Whether it’s texting just to catch up, Facetiming, taking a workout class together, meeting up for dinner, having game nights.. I really want to be better at prioritizing friendships and also going out of my comfort zone to make new friends too!
In 2023, I also really want to focus on slowing down and enjoying where I’m at in life. As I reflected on 2022, I felt like most of my days were spent rushing around from thing to thing, task to task, and I just felt like I never got a break. I am making it a goal to slow down, make time for the things that truly matter, and add less to my to-do list.
I think one of my biggest problems is that I add more tasks to my to-do list than I can reasonably accomplish, so I feel like I have to rush to get things done. Then, I’m rushing from work, the gym, back home to walk Elsa, and the cycle repeats. This year, I’m going to change that!
2023 Health + Wellness Goals
- Fruit/Veggie with at least 2 meals a day
- Take a women’s multi-vitamin every day
- High Intensity Workout 3x a week
- Wear my Apple Watch daily!
- Make a smoothie 2x per week
- More outdoor activities! (tennis, pickle ball, softball, outdoor runs, swimming, hiking)
In 2023, I really want to focus on my health and wellness. Last year, I felt like I didn’t prioritize my health as as much as I should have. I wasn’t working out a ton, I was eating a lot of processed foods and I just had no energy. This year, my health is my top priority!
I want to get back into working out, running on the treadmill and doing workouts that I actually enjoy. I also want to start eating healthier, which you guys know is such a struggle for me! But, I’m starting slow and I’m making it a goal to eat at least one fruit or vegetable with at least two meals a day. So far, it’s going really, really well. This is the reason I want to start making smoothies in the morning. I’m trying to sneak in more fruit and veggies into my diet!
I also wasn’t consistent with taking my vitamins or wearing my Apple Watch, so I’m making it a goal to do these daily. And, once it gets warmer out, I want to get back into playing tennis, pickle ball, playing catch with Vilas, and exploring some of the parks here!
2023 Financial Goals
- Save $25,000
- Contribute $6,000 to my Roth IRA
- Continue to educate myself by reading finance books and online articles
- Start the conversation + look for lots/new homes in 2023/24
My financial goals are pretty straight forward and somewhat similar to last year. Save $25,000, contribute $6,000 to my Roth, continue to learn and educate myself on investing and growing wealth, and start the process of buying land.
We’ve been casually looking at available lots and new homes in our area, just to get an idea of what’s out there and what current pricing looks like. But, it’s so crazy how much we didn’t know about the process until we started talking to a few builders. We’re not necessarily looking to buy or build this year, we just want to have all the information we need so that when we do want to, we’re more prepared.
Looking to Save More Money?
For those of you looking to save more money this year, I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend opening a high yield savings account (HYSA), if you don’t have one already. It’s basically a type of savings account that offers much higher interest rates than your traditional savings account. I personally use Marcus by Goldman Sachs and Ally, which both have APYs of 3.3% right now (January 20, 2023).
Marcus by Goldman Sachs is currently offering an extra 1% APY for 3 months when you sign up through a referral. That means you would get 4.3% APY and there is no minimum deposit! Now, to put this into perspective, U.S. Bank’s standard savings rate is 0.01%. When you start seeing how much interest you earn each month from your HYSA, you’ll wish you created the account sooner.
In terms of other financial resources, you can check out the finance section of my blog here. I touch on topics like paying off debt, investing for beginners, smart money habits, doing a no-spend challenge and more!
2023 Business Goals
- Publish 1 blog post every week
- More vlog-style + voice over videos
- Send out weekly newsletters to my subscribers
- Form meaningful connections with others in the local community
- Batch all my LTK collages for the week in one day
I’m only going to list a few of my current goals for the business! There are so many more that I want to accomplish this year, but here are five of them. I want to get back into publishing weekly blog posts and sending out weekly newsletters – starting this week haha!
I also want to film more vlog-style, day in my life videos, voice over videos! Those are my favorite videos to watch, and I definitely want to incorporate more of that into my content. As well as more lifestyle, routines and organizing videos. If there is specific content that you want to see here on the blog, or on IG or Tik Tok, let me know! It’s always SO helpful to hear what you guys want to see from me!
Tracking + Organizing Your Goals
This year, to help myself stay organized and on track, I signed up for Notion, which I basically use as my second brain! I use it to organize my annual and monthly goals, track my habits, write down recipes, gift ideas, plan my week, organize my content calendar and so much more! If you haven’t seen any Tik Tok videos on how people use Notion to organize their lives, go watch some right now! It’s so cool and it’ll make you want to utilize Notion yourself (it’s free)!
I’m planning to share a post talking about how I organize my Notion soon! Right now I’m just working on finalizing everything!
Wrapping it Up
So those are my goals for 2023! I hope you enjoyed reading about some of the things I’m hoping to achieve this year! If you haven’t sat down to think about your 2023 goals or new yearโs resolutions, I encourage you to do so! And if you need some ideas, here’s a list of over 100 goal ideas to get you started! I hope you all have been having a wonderful start to the new year! Cheers to 2023!
Other posts you may like:
- My Monthly Planning Routine for a Productive and Organized Month
- Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting – How to Achieve All Your Goals
- 50 Simple Habits to Improve Your Life Immediately
This post shared all of my 2023 goals, resolutions and intentions for the new year!