I love starting each January with thinking about a few goals to guide the year. I don’t typically feel totally beholden to them but it’s a nice way for me to consider some long-term habits and things I’d like to accomplish over the year.
Here are a few of my goals for this coming year!
Take a Daily Family Selfie
Back when my dad passed away a few months ago, our family spent hours going through thousands of photos of and with him. Sadly, since we lived across the country from one another (and since Covid prevented us from getting together very often over the last few years), I realized that I didn’t have very many recent photos with him. In fact, though I found ones of him with my kids from my parents’ visit in February, and group ones of us from last November, I couldn’t find any with mainly just him and me together since about a whole year prior.
This is largely what inspired me to take a daily family selfie. I decided I didn’t care if I was in a bathrobe (see photo above from New Year’s Day after we’d spent 13 hours driving) or had just awoken or if everyone wasn’t smiling; I just wanted a photo with those I love most, every day. I think I’ll always be grateful to have at least one photo WITH (not just of) my people, each day of this year. I’m excited to see them altogether at the end of 2023.
23 New Hikes for 2023
About three years ago, we started getting much more into hiking as a family and explored a bunch in our area and further afield. So when someone on Instagram mentioned they were trying 23 new hikes in 2023, that seemed like a great goal for us, too.
23 new-to-us hikes in 2023 will mean we’ll have to find ways to incorporate hiking even more into our everyday life at home and not just while traveling. I’d like to push us to find a few new ones and get back in the habit of exploring locally on weekends and some afternoons!
Try to Hike Half Dome
With the above goal, I’d love to make one of those hikes a major bucket list one…and Dan and I would love to try to hike Half Dome. It’s been something in the backs of our minds since we moved to the Bay Area nearly 7 years ago, but the timing has never been quite right with being pregnant and having little babies and nursing. This year, I’ll definitely still be nursing a little baby, but we’d like to go for it anyway.
This goal is a bit dependent on getting a permit, campsite reservations, and other logistical considerations, so it’s not a guarantee. Plus, it’s a really challenging hike that can also be a bit nerve-wracking, especially if you’re scared of heights (like I tend to be). But we’re going to give it our best shot!
Make An Entremet
I always like incorporating a goal or two that are purely for fun, and this is one for this year. I saw entremets on an episode of British Bake Off a couple years ago and they’re fairly mesmerizing. An Instagram friend has made one a couple times and shared some tips, so I’d like to give one a try this year!
Write Something In My Journal Each Night
Speaking of recording memories, I’ve been a fairly terrible journaler the last few years, but I really love peeking back at old ones. I especially love to see little cute things my kids did and said at certain times that I’ll undoubtedly forget.
So I decided to just write one small thing in a journal each night. I won’t worry about perfection in capturing everything, but just one little thing will be better than nothing and not overwhelming. While I’ve loved the one-line-a-day journals in the past, in the past, I often got derailed when we went on a trip and I didn’t want to carry it, or because writing felt slow. I figure an online journal will mean I can access it just about anywhere, and I type much faster than I write.
It feels like time is often speeding by these days and I want to be sure to capture not just the big moments, but the small ones, too.
Learn to Drive Stick Shift
This is one of those life skills I’ve always wanted to learn and never have. Every time we’ve traveled to Europe, we’ve wished at least one of us knew how to drive a manual as it’s much easier to find a car rental. Now that we have a future of finding car rentals for 8 of us (hard enough as it is outside of the US), we figure it’ll make our lives easier (and cheaper) by learning this skill.
Visit Our 63rd US National Park
2022 was the year to visit our 50th US state and it was a thrill. After that trip, we only had one current US National Park left to visit and we’re hoping to make it happen this year!
5 Minute Photo Book Time
For the last several years, I’ve had a goal to make another family photo book for years past. And it…hasn’t happened. It just always feels so overwhelming! So many photos, so many years.
So while I’m sure it will still be overwhelming and still take a long time, I decided this year to break it waaaay down and try to spend 5 minutes each day working on this goal. I’ll either go through old photos (and try not to be to picky or spend time doing additional editing) or add them to a photo book (and not be overly picky about layout). I’m planning to do this when I need a mental break and might otherwise turn to scrolling on my phone. Hopefully this will mean we’ll have at least one printed photo book by the end of the year!
I’m also really hoping to publish my book with National Geographic on family road trips this year, but I have less control over the publishing process there. There’s also one other very major family goal we have, but I can’t quite share details yet. Stay tuned for a couple months from now when we have things firmed up!
Do you like to make goals at the start of the year? I’d love to hear any you’re working towards!
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