Every year since I started Inspiralized, I’ve set goals, resolutions, intentions, and even challenges for the New Year. It’s great to look back for two reasons. One, it shows you how quickly time flies! And two, it shows how much you’ve grown. My resolutions have evolved so much, and although I set intentions and goals all year long, I really love the cathartic process of starting “fresh” in the New Year.
So this year, I have some practices that I want to do more of in the New Year, and parts of my life that I want to improve upon. Here they are…
Last Year’s Resolutions
So, I never made any! I was knee deep in baby poop, diapers, and spit up! My resolution to myself (although I never articulated it in a post) was to just be a good mother and be kind to myself. And I think I succeeded! I’ve loved motherhood (not every single second of it, but most of it!) and I thank my lucky stars everyday that I have Luca in my life.
If you’re curious, you can check out my goals for year 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017.
My New Year’s Intentions and Goals
This year, I’m dividing my intentions and goals up between personal and professional.
Professional
- New, better website. I am already working on this and I can’t wait to see this project from start to finish. I want my content to be more discoverable, in a beautiful way!
- Make more of Mondays. I used to be really great with Mondays. I’d set myself up on a Friday so that Mondays would start off focused and productive. As a mother, that all changed, because the nanny leaves early on Fridays, I spent a lot of it meal planning for the following week and trying to cram a lot into the day, that I don’t make my game plan and then Monday comes and half the day is wasted on building a to do list and organizing the week. So, 2019 is going to be the year to seize (back) my Mondays!
- Be more organized. I actually have a professional organizer (the same one I’ve used for other areas of my home, Horderly) to come back and organize my office in the second week of January so I can truly stick to this goal and start the year off right. I find myself constantly cluttered, and it affects my day to day work efficiency. I was given the great advice that if you aren’t organized, hire help who are, so that’s my plan! 2019 is going to be the year of ORGANIZED ALI. I want to time block a lot more.
- Post more new recipes. I want to post THREE new recipes a week instead of two in 2019. It’s a countable goal and I’m going for it!
- Grow Inspiralized Kids. I am so passionate about helping others make healthy meals for their families, and I have so many ideas for IK. Hopefully, by being more organized in general, I will be able to make more room for growing this part of my brand.
- Say yes to more events. 2018 was the year of the hermit for me. I’ll talk about it more later and on Inspiralized Ali, but I really flaked on a lot of work events. It was hard with nursing Luca, being attached to him, and struggling to find a balance. And being exhausted come event time, haha. But in 2019, I want to get myself out more – my best partnerships, best work memories, and most valuable work moments have been at events!
Personal
So, if you missed the announcement, we’re expecting our second baby in June 2019! You can read all about my first trimester here and follow along to this journey on @inspiralizedali, if you’re interested. I have a lot of goals related to my second pregnancy and second baby which I’ll be posting all about over there! There are a few things I’d like to do differently, and those will be part of my 2019 goals!
- Take more time for myself. I did a really bad job of this in 2018. I think I was so worried about being a good wife and mother, that I forgot about myself. I literally did not take one day off for myself all year. Any day that I took off was for the baby. And if I did take time off for me, it wasn’t necessarily stuff FOR me, it was like grocery shopping, errands, and necessary to-dos. In 2019, I want to focus on giving myself more time. This doesn’t mean it has to be a whole day, but maybe even just start shutting the door to the bedroom and reading in bed or getting a late massage after dinner (the massage place is open until 9pm!) And I need to be really better about this on the weekends. If I do take time away from Lu and Luca, it’s for time with friends, but never myself. Like, I have not been clothes shopping on my own since before the baby was born. I’d like to do that! You get the point.
- Get out of the house more. It’s a common issue with those who work from home, to get stuck in your bubble. I was really, really bad about this in 2018. I felt like the whole summer went by and I barely left the apartment. It’s partially because I have a lot of work, I was still nursing, and I just became a total hermit homebody. I think this is very normal as a new mother, but I want to improve on this in 2019, especially before Baby Girl comes!
- Make monthly dates with friends. I just went out with a friend who I haven’t seen in almost a year. We communicate mostly via text and social media. And then (almost) a year went by and we never saw each other. We got together and I had so much fun, I missed her so much, and I said to her, “That’s it! We are making a monthly date. Each time we hang out, bring your calendar, and we’ll set a date for the next hang out!”
- Start using babysitters. I did not use ONE babysitter for the past 15 months. My parents or my sister babysat. Luca is now at the age where he goes to bed at 7pm and doesn’t wake up until 7am, so I can confidently go on a date with Lu or out with friends and not worry. He used to wake up here and there from 7pm-11pm and then of course, in the middle of the night, he would wake up and we’d co-sleep. Now, he’s 7pm to 7am and I am ready to start using babysitters to take advantage of this before the second baby arrives!
- Read more. I think this goes along with “taking more time for myself.” I’m just happy with an hour to read to myself in a room different than my apartment! I have been reading about a book a month (give or take a week or so) and I am very proud of that! I need to find Lu some good books so he can read with me – any suggestions?
And those are my intentions and goals for the New Year! What are some of yours? Leave a comment on this post and we can check back in with each other and keep motivated all year long!
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