2023 Goals

If you know me, then it is no surprise I’m setting some goals for 2023. Goals help me focus forward, have direction, and make positive changes toward what I want to see in my life. At the same time, I know I need to adjust and adapt the goals to be relevant to my changing seasons of life. 2022 was a testament to that! I am grateful for what I learned over the past year and I’m looking forward to how I will grow during 2023.

For this year, I decided to shift my goal setting strategy a bit. I’m only setting 5 goals this year. I’m being deeply impacted by the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality work of Pete Scazzero. He talks about 5 areas of being human: physical, emotional, social, intellectual, and spiritual. I am setting one goal in each of these areas. I’ve thought about what is most important to me in each area and where I need to grow and challenge myself. As I’ve thought about these areas over the last few months, the goals have shaped and shifted. I believe I’ve landed in a good place. These goals will be easy to break down into smaller action steps and they will be easy to track. I believe these goals will have a deep, holistic impact on my life.

So, here are my 2023 goals!

1. Close the activity rings on my fitness app/tracker four times a week.
2. Practice journaling five times a week, using a guided journal or The Examen.
3. Host friends in our home twice a month.
4. Complete requirements to be an Associate Certified Coach through ICF.
5. Keep Sabbath one hour a day, one day a week, one weekend a quarter, and one week a year.

What I like about these goals, is that they reflect what I have learned about myself in the past AND they challenge me to healthier habits. For example, for the physical goal, I have learned that I need flexibility in the ways I am physically active. I might be able to walk while a kid is at practice. I might be able to take a class at the gym. I might be able to walk the dog a couple times during the day. What I’ve learned is that the true goal is about overall movement, not reaching a certain number of classes or hikes, or minutes of walking. This type of goal works in my life right now.

One of these goals is going to be particularly challenging. Can you guess which one? Sabbath. It will be difficult for me to stop doing and just BE for one hour a day, one day a week, one weekend a quarter, and one week a year. And yet this is the goal that I know will impact my life the most. I genuinely can’t wait to see how God shows up in the midst of these moments. And because I feel such a sense of expectant hope, I also know that keeping Sabbath in this way will be challenged in many ways.

I hope to keep you updated monthly on my goal progress. And if you know me in person, feel free to ask me how things are going!

So my friends, what do you think? What questions do you have about goal setting? What goals do you have for 2023? I’d love to hear from you! And if you need help thinking through and setting goals for 2023, let me know. We can talk about 1-1 goal coaching and action planning! I get excited helping other people reach their goals too!