19 for 2019

I’ve never been a huge New Year’s resolution person, but I love Gretchen Rubin’s approach.

Last year, she started an 18 for 2018 list, which is just what it sounds like – a list of 18 things she wanted to get done in 2018.

I think I like this approach better than traditional resolutions for 2 reasons.

First, it lends itself to very actionable and specific goals, ones that you can actually check off of a list, which I find very satisfying.

Second, it makes it easy to incorporate a mix a fun and practical goals, big and small goals, even serious and whimsical goals into your plans for the year.

So I’ve decided to give it a try this year and wanted to post about it so that I can keep myself accountable through updates, and to share in case anyone else wants to try it out too!

Now given that my life is about to majorly change (baby is due in two days as I write this!), I have no idea how many of these things I’ll actually get done. I had fun making the list though and at least thinking through things I would like to do this year, so that’s something.

Here’s my list!

1. Learn to use our DSLR (pretty sure this has been a New Year’s goal of mine for at least 3 years….)
2. Visit the mountains
3. Complete a fiction writing project I’ve been working on
4. Get professional family photos taken
5. Bake 5 different kinds of (non quick) bread
6. Read 12 books (I realize this number is not very lofty, but would love to finish one a month as a minimum)
7. Make a detailed outline for a non-fiction book I’m thinking of attempting
8. Start college funds for our kids (we have money saved for them, but need to start an official account – recommendations?)
9. Write / submit some kind of children’s literature (probably to a magazine)
10. Find a babysitter and go on dates!
11. Limit my Amazon orders to one per month
12. See 4 movies in the theater
13. Send holiday cards
14. Celebrate small holidays (another Gretchen Rubin thing I’d love to try!)
15. Limit grocery budget to $X per week
16. Visit my family in Houston 3 times (I usually go more than this, but I know it will be trickier to travel with the new baby)
17. Run a fall race (likely just a 5K or 10K)
18. Visit our family’s ranch 3 times
19. Try Burn Boot Camp, which just opened an Austin location!

So this is a pretty random list, but there it is! I suppose if there were a theme, it would be that I want to write more. I really hope that I can make that happen this year.

Do you have New Year’s goals? Please share some in the comments!