2023 Goals

Happy 2023 friends🌼

I hope the new year is treating you well and you feel inspired and rejuvenated in this new season of life. I want to kick off the year by sharing my personal 2023 goals and give you a free PDF of my goals sheet for the year.

I first want to give you a bit of a back story for why I’m choosing to work on myself in these specific areas. I used to be like every other person at the beginning of the new year. I would start with hope and inspiration and a grocery list of things I hated about myself that I wanted to change. As life went on through the year, I would lose sight of the vision I had in January and would just fall into my old habits. By the time the end of the year would roll around, I would feel so discouraged because I didn’t get done any of the things that I said I wanted to.

This year I wanted to be different. I wanted to inspire change within myself without putting these impossible standards on me that I would feel so bad for breaking at the end of the year. This is when I decided to choose one word for the theme of my new year and look at what that means in every aspect of my life. Then it can act as a sort of litmus test throughout the year. Does this action/person/hobby align with my word? If it does, great – let’s do it! If it doesn’t, then it has no place in my life.

2022 was a very hard year for me. I think 2022 was the culmination of a lot of trauma and not taking care of myself. 2022 was full of lows, some of which I’ve talked about here and my YouTube channel. I had to come to terms with a lot of things this past year. It was the lowest I’ve ever felt mentally. As much as I struggled in 2022, I am also oddly grateful for it. 2022 was so low that I hit rock bottom. Hitting rock bottom motivated me to start therapy. Starting therapy was the best decision I made last year. My therapist encouraged me to start taking care of myself not only mentally but physically too. I found a doctor here in Orlando and was diagnosed with depression and started medication to help balance my mood. I was also tested for various allergies after complaining about my unexplained weight gain and hormonal/gut issues. After we got everything squared away with that, I went to the OBGYN and orthodontist. It’s amazing how low I had sunk and didn’t even realize it. I took care of nothing in my life. I was skating by at best. The worst part is I knew how to put on a face that would fool everyone. On the outside and on social media I looked happy and content, but in reality, I rarely got out of bed.

All of this leads me to my word of 2023. This year I’m focusing on peace. I’m cultivating it, protecting it, and valuing it in my life. I have divided my goal sheet into four sections: personal, health, career, and relationships. Here are some of the ways that I’m going to let peace inspire my life.

P E R S O N A L:

1. Read 36 books.
   • Last year I made the goal of reading 12 books. One for each month. I’m so happy to say that I read 36 books last year! I completely fell in love with reading again. I also started noticing positive changes in my life because of it. I scrolled social media way less, so I was no longer comparing myself to others as much as I used to. I also started sleeping better because I was giving my body rest from blue light. I no longer watch tv before bed and my phone sleeps outside of my room now. It has truly been liberating. I chose 36 books because I did it last year so I know I can do it again, but who knows? Maybe I’ll surpass my goal again this year!

2. Play an instrument weekly.
   • I know this may seem underwhelming but let me explain. I grew up playing music. As I got older this hobby fell away and I miss it desperately. I’m hoping to buy a keyboard this year, but until then I have my guitar and a new ukulele that I can focus on. I know once a week seems like not enough, but I wanted to start this goal off small so I can accomplish it easier. Maybe next year we can bump up this goal or I’ll surprise myself again like I did with my reading goal last year.

3. Practice French daily.
   • I feel like I make this goal every year, but I’m hoping this is the year that I stick with it. I’m turning on Duolingo notifications and writing in a time on my schedule each day to practice so hopefully this will keep me on track. I’m 80% French with family still living in the country and I think it’s a shame that I’m not fluent.

H E A L T H:

1. Eat less of what makes me feel bad.
   • I mentioned a couple paragraphs ago that I discovered some food allergies in 2022. I guess I should call them intolerances because none of them are life threatening (thank God), but I notice a difference when I avoid them. I found out that I am lactose, gluten, and red meat intolerant. Honestly, I think I have been maybe my whole life because I remember feeling terrible after eating these certain things and just shrugging it off and thinking that everyone felt that way after eating those foods. So, in 2023, I want to eat less of these. Now my goal is to avoid them at all costs, but I’m using this verbiage so I can ease myself into this goal and I won’t be disappointed in myself if I have something that contains these foods.
   • (As you can see, I have a tendency to be an all or nothing person and I’m really trying to avoid that this year.)
2. Move every day.
   • I want to prioritize movement this year. Again, I’m using very strategic wording. I know that I won’t be able to “work out” every single day. I love to travel, I work a very abnormal job, and I’m human. So, if I tell myself I want to move every single day that makes everything seem so much more attainable.

3. Leave the house every day.
   • Last year I had a bad habit of staying in the house for days at a time. I want to get out at least once a day. It doesn’t have to be anything too crazy, even if it’s just to check the mail or take a walk.

C A R E E R:

1. Be disciplined.
   • I’m really trying to work on creating a schedule for me to follow and to work in advance instead of in the moment. I went through my planner before 2023 even began and scheduled out brainstorming, filming, relaxation, etc. days for myself so I could be ahead of my work. Last year I would start prepping and planning an idea a couple of weeks before I needed the finished product and that lead to half-assed work. This year I’m getting ahead of myself… in a good way.

2. Create beautiful things.
   • Let’s bounce off the point above. If I stick to my schedule and work ahead of time this gives me even time to create beautiful things. I want my art and content creation to be something that people enjoy reading, watching, listening to, and seeing. I want to make beautiful things.

3. Be proud of my work.
   • For so long I have hesitated to truly share the things I make. I let imposter syndrome get the best of me. I think people will make fun of me or think that I am trying to be something that I’m not. I must stop this in 2023. This way of thinking has gotten the best of me for too long. I want to be proud of the things that I create even if no one else likes it.

R E L A T I O N S H I P S:

1. Cut out toxicity.
   • I have ALWAYS been a people pleaser. It honestly has been a core personality trait of mine for as long as I can remember. I have always struggled with cutting out toxic (for me) people in my life, and I feel like in 2021-22 that got the best of me. I went through a hard friendship breakup and have been speaking about it in therapy lately. My therapist told me something interesting the other day. There are no truly toxic people. Everyone has a story and a life, but there can be toxic (for you) people. Just because someone is the supporting character in your story doesn’t mean that they aren’t the main character of theirs. People are in your life for a reason, season, or lifetime and that’s okay. It’s okay if friendships don’t last forever, but you need to take care of yourself and cut out the toxicity.

2. Establish boundaries (and stick to them).
   • This is something that is going to be extremely challenging for me. It will probably be the hardest thing that I try to accomplish in 2023 honestly. However, it is extremely necessary for my further growth and my overall happiness. Boundaries are good. They protect us, and mine have been seriously neglected.

3. See friends at least twice a week.
   • You know that line in Anti-Hero: “when my depression works the graveyard shift all of the people I’ve ghosted stand there in the room”? Yeah, no line in a song has ever hit me as hard as this one. It’s like T-Swift saw me and was like, “yikes she’s got issues, but it’ll make a banger song.” In all seriousness though, I have a bad habit of ghosting people. It never has malicious intentions. It’s mostly a combination of out of sight out of mind, low self-esteem, or lack of motivation. So, my way of taking control of this area of my life is prioritizing spending quality time with my friends at least twice a week. This includes Orlando friends and long-distance friends. I don’t need to go out twice a week, but I do need to see and have contact with them. Maybe next year we can get crazy. 😉

So there you have it. These are the ways that I’m bringing peace into my life in 2023. If you want to hear me talk everything through, I have a video linked here and up on my channel and I also included a blank copy of my goals sheet for you to fill out and get inspired for the new year. I’m so grateful for you taking the time to read this.

Warmest wishes,

Katie