I first started sharing monthly goal check-ins on my Instagram account in 2019. Mostly just for personal accountability but also to hopefully inspire others to check-in with their own progress and celebrate each small win along the way. It turns out they’ve been a hit so this year I’m bringing them to the blog too!

First goal check-in of 2020! Say whattt! I don't know about you guys but Januarys are always a little weird. They kind of feel like I'm in a car going 60 MPH but at the same time not going anywhere. Does that make any sense? I don't know if you can relate, but I'm learning that sometimes you just have to accept things will be a little funky for a little while. It's not good.. not bad.. just a weird little transition and that's okay.

Despite feeling like things were in slow-mo at times, this month still marked a step forward. I picked the word reset for the month and I deffff embraced that whole-heartedly. So here's the breakdown!

Got my Life Organized Top to Bottom

Having an organized house is KEY to getting my head on straight and January was all about finishing up the final organization projects. Helloooo my closet is so fabulous now and I'm also oddly proud of how organized our garage is. Another thing I focused on was getting my personal and household routines/systems in order. I may be a little excessive about this stuff but I function so much better during the week when I know what I need to be doing when.

Finished our S-Corp Transition at Bold & Pop

This month we finished our S-Corp transition at Bold & Pop and ran our first payroll! Which totallyyyy felt like hitting a new level of being a biz owner.

Started a New Workout Routine

I've been looking to switch things up and decided to start using Kayla Itsines’s Sweat App which I'm so pumped about!

Finished 2 Books and Started my Third

I finished 2 books this month and got about halfway through my 3rd which is more than I planned for. One on habits and other two on investing and money management which is something I'm prioritizing learning more about this year.

Planned Blog Content for Q1 and Sorted out my Personal Content Strategy

This month I started a plan for my personal content to support my priorities. Which also includes sharing my goal updates on my blog too -- because it turns out you guys like to keep up with these!

Took an Extended Weekend Off

I took my first long weekend of the year to celebrate my Birthday on the Olympic peninsula (there will be a blog on that soon). Taking more time off is a priority for us this year so it felt good to already take a few days off this month.

Looking forward to sharing another year of updates and I hope it inspires you to check-in where you're at and celebrate your wins throughout the year too! 

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Why do I do goal check-ins?

I started doing goal check-ins publically as a personal accountability challenge. Working on my goals and strategies to accomplish them have always been really important and by sharing them I felt an extra weight of commitment. Plus, I wanted a way to try and encourage others to have their own check-ins and keep working on their own goals. Helping others reach their dreams has always felt like my purpose and by being vulnerable and sharing the journey of my own I hope to inspire others as well.

The last two years have been really monumental in getting clear on my priorities and goals and coming up with systems and strategies to actually help me reach them. I always say being a business owner is the toughest personal development challenge you can do and I whole-heartedly believe it. Want to learn your strengths and weaknesses really fast? Start a business. You learn really fast about both when you’re the only one responsible for getting things done. The experience is truly life-changing and I really credit it with also influencing how I’ve approached goal setting the last few years. Each year proves to be another trial and error experience that helps me streamline my process and systems a little better to continue to better my life.

Having a phrase has been something that has really motivated me in previous years, as well as bring my goals together and the phrase I picked for this year is “showing up”. I picked it because when I was working on my goals I realized a lot of them had to do with visibility as well as taking that next step. Showing up for my community, showing up visually in our business marketing and press efforts, and showing up for the next phase of some of my goals that need some extra dedication this year. When the wheels are already in motion, it can be easy to sit back and enjoy the ride a little and my phrase will remind me that I need to show up and give it my all each and every day if I really want to make the progress I’m after.

2019 set a lot of good bones for the lifestyle I want to live so you’ll notice there’s a lot of carryover in what I want to accomplish this year too. Here’s a look at how things breakdown.

Mulah Goals

Let’s jump right into a juicy one and talk moneyyyy! A lot of people like to keep their money private, especially when it comes to their goals and that’s totally fine… but not this girl. We didn’t have money growing up and it was always a sore subject, but as a woman in business, I think it actually needs to be talked about more. Not from a place of fear, greed or bragging, but from a standpoint of stability and using it as a vehicle of empowerment.

That being said, I have 3 main money goals when it comes to 2020:

1. Increase our business net income by an additional 33%

2. Build up my savings

3. Pay off my car loan

As I’m sure you know, buying a house isn’t cheap. so one of my big goals is getting my savings back at a comfortable level. When you’re self-employed your income is often unpredictable so it’s nice to have a healthy cushion so that finances aren’t a stress factor if we have a slower month here or there. On top of a pretty hefty savings goal, I also reallyyyyy want to pay off my car loan this year. I still have 3 years on my loan and a nice chunk of change but it’s my only other debt and biggest bill aside from my mortgage so I’d love to say bye bye to that. Plus, I’d like to free up that money monthly to reallocate for future real estate investments paying more towards my mortgage and investing more into my retirement. 2020 is all about building more stability and putting my money to work.

Prioritize Professional Development

Personal development work has been high on the agenda the last few years, and I want to continue that too, but I also want to focus more on professional development. Something we’re implementing this year at our business is one working day a month dedicated to learning new skills or diving into a current skill further. There are so many things each of us wanttt to learn more but up to this point we’ve been learning on the fly so I’m really excited about scheduling in a dedicated day.

Prioritize Health & Fitness

2020 will be another day of focusing on being a healthier and stronger version of myself. I was on a really great track and then threw in the towel when I jumped into the house-hunting process. For 2020, I want to get back into the healthy routines I started last year including:

• Averaging 3-4 workouts a week (starting with 3 in Q1 and working way up to 4 again)

• Daily walks during the weekdays to hit my 10k step goal — I need to find a new route now!

• Prioritizing drinking more water throughout the day

Hiking is definitely another part of my fitness goals this year.

• Mission to Mailbox Peak is getting carried over into 2020! My goal is to go on 10 training hikes leading up to Mailbox

• I also want to hike Mt. Peak at least once a month

Be More Visible and Personal in Business

This one is new and one that I know I need to push some boundaries. Last year, we had so much growth that I was definitely guilty of putting my head down in our work and wasn’t as visual in our business publically. So why does this matter to me..? Well, I know personally I connect more with business owners when they’re consistently showing up in their marketing and more visual. It’s easy for me to stay behind-the-scenes and this year it’s time to jump back in the spotlight both online and locally.

• Seek out more press and guest blogging opportunities highlighting professional expertise

• Show up on Instagram Stories intentionally for Bold & Pop

• Stretch my professional reach for speaking and networking opportunities

• Prioritize personal branding and blog content

Increase Local Footprint

Now that I’ve put roots down, I’ve noticed I really feel more grounded and am excited about making more connections locally. In 2020, I’d like to dig deeper into being involved in the community as well as expand my footprint professionally and personally. I’m in it for the long-haul in Washington so now it’s time to really spread my wings a little and put myself out there more.

• Continue to attend Tacoma Boss Ladies meet-ups and help out on the social media side

• Become more involved with community garden as social media chair

• Become more visible professionally as an expert in the area

• Explore more local events and businesses in Tacoma to support local

• Visit new places in Washington and the PNW I haven’t been before

• Create more local based content on blog and social media accounts

Lean in to Passion Projects

The last few years, my business has dominated most of my goals (and I love that) this year, I’m going to make another attempt to really lean in to my passion projects too — like this blog! I have so many ideas and things I want to share… but it’s been a goal that I continuously let slide when other things come up and I want to be more intentional about it this year. That includes getting clear on my purpose, creating an actual plan and prioritizing that time.

Read 12 Books Throughout the Year

I’ll be honest, for years while I read a TON at my job… reading a book in my spare time was just not on my radar. Like I hadn’t actually finished more than a few books a year for probably the last decade 😳. In 2019 I changed that by setting a reading goal and I’m setting that goal again in 2020. Another thing I changed was I started reading non-fiction books. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good fiction book too (well maybe not as much, since I wasn’t reading them either…) anyways, the point being non-fiction is my jam. I sought out reading books on topics I was interested in or curious about. I didn’t always love every book, but having this goal helped me push through the giving up part and I pushed through them.

Prioritize Relationships and Being Thoughtful with Time

Being intentional with my time in 2020 is going to be important and I look forward to implementing some of the systems I worked out last year. Having systems that work when you use them is SO key and I think that’s why a lot of my goals are continuations because I finallyyyy found some things that worked for me. This year I want to prioritize:

• Monthly date nights

• Monthly girl time

• Time with my family

• Intentional with travel and trips

Try 5 New Things this Year

This has been one of my favorite goals each year! It might be something you already do naturally but having a minimum number I want to hit has helped me pay attention to making time for new things. It’s also led to finding things I really enjoy like hiking and kayaking. I have a few ideas in mind but we shall see where 2020 takes me!

Embrace Rest

I’m starting to wonder if rest is going to be a thing in 2020 after writing out all of these goals! Ha… While I’m most successful with things when I have structure I’m working on listening to when I just need some rest and the most important part of that — not feeling guilty for it. That’s the big one! I know I’m most successful when I’ve built-in good structure and systems so here are some things I’m doing this year:

• Taking a minimum of 20 days off from work this year — We’re taking a reverse approach to time off at Bold & Pop this year. I know 20 days isn’t even that crazy but it turns out we take a lot less time off than we thought we do so setting a minimum is forcing us to actually plan ahead and take time off. It turns out our business doesn’t totally burn down when one of us steps away and instead we could really benefit from that time

• Actually take lunch breaks — Clearly we’re really tough bosses 🙈I never got lunch breaks when I worked at an agency and that bad habit just compounded when we started our business now going on 5 years ago. This year, we’re going to work on actually taking lunch breaks and shutting our computers down during that time.

• Summer Fridays, year-round — Summer Fridays are really big on the east coast and this year we decided we wanted to extend them year-round as much as possible. It’s only a few extra hours (we close up shop at 2pm EST on Fridays) but it’s been SUCH a nice treat and something we’re going to try to keep going with.

• Self-care days — I started having “Anna Days” last year which are planned alone time each month and it’s been such a good thing for my mental health and something I’ll be continuing

Whew, okay that’s a lot but I have a big vision for my life and I’m not slowing down anytime soon!

In a lot of ways since moving back to Washington, I’ve had to rediscover who I am. There are a lot of things about me that are pretty concrete at this point, but where you live definitely has an impact on your day-to-day realities. Especially when you go from living in a concrete jungle to a small town (followed by a little bigger city) in Washington. Can you say culture shock?! As you’d expect, I experienced some pretty big lifestyle changes and with that, I’ve taken every opportunity to try a lot of new things — especially ones that weren’t options in NYC. While admittedly, I haven’t read Shonda Rhimes’ book, “Year of Yes” yet, I like to think I embraced her concept and have spent the year saying yes to more things. Saying yes to fun things, saying yes to new things and, frankly, saying yes to things that scare crap out of me.

I’m definitely not done with my mission yet, but want to know what I’ve learned so far? It turns out that a lot of things my inner voice had always said “weren’t my thing” or that “I couldn’t do” were often just self-limiting beliefs. I’ve learned that you are exactly what you tell yourself you are and if you’re not pushing those boundaries, you might be missing out on a hell of a lot in life.

I wasn’t a public speaker.

I wasn’t an outdoorsy person.

I wasn’t someone who does podcast interviews.

I wasn’t a girl who ran 5Ks.

I wasn’t someone who liked networking.

I wasn’t a girl who liked working out.

I wasn’t someone who could keep a houseplant alive to save my life.

I wasn’t someone who talks about feelings or talked about tough stuff publicly.

These were all things I told myself at some point and I made it a point this year to work on rewriting my inner narrative. I decided to stop playing it small and instead really put my all out there and try new things even if I ended up falling down or failing miserably.

So this year I…

Spoke on a panel about being an entrepreneur at a University of Oregon student and alumni event.

Bought all of the park permits, have hiked more miles than I can count and bought kayaks to explore the outdoors more.

Recorded my first podcast interview for Bold & Pop with my business partner.

Ran my first 5K race.

Joined several new networking groups and have gone to 3 local in-person events so far and (surprisingly loved each of them)

Finallyyyy figured out a workout plan I didn’t hate and starting hiking weekly and doing strength workouts.

Bought a ton of houseplants and joined a community garden. Take that brown thumb.

Decided to open up about my journey and be really transparent about personal development and the behind the scenes of being a business owner.

Proof of doing me doing some of those scary out of my comfort zone things

Now I’m not saying all of it has been easy or that I’ve loved everything I’ve tried to do but, regardless of the outcome, I made a decision to go for it. Am I going to start signing up for a bunch of 5Ks? Meh, probably not, that wasn’t one of my favorite things, but you know what? I did something I never thought I’d do and that’s what matters.

When it comes to growth, change or trying new things, we are often our biggest roadblocks. We get comfortable with life and hide behind our fears or our rationalizations that we’ll get to it one day. We tell ourselves that some things are just out of reach, we just don’t have what it takes or that we’ll have those opportunities in another phase of life, but I’m here to tell you you’re wrong. And if you wait too long, there’s a chance that day will never come.

So how about today you decide to stop playing a supporting role in your own life and just decide to go for it? What’s the worst thing that can happen? Will you get to do everythingggg all at once? Of course not, but if you have a big ol’ goal, now is the time to start working on the little goals that will get you there. Now is the time to create opportunities for yourself. Now is the time to make plans. Now is the time to put yourself out there and get some practice being uncomfortable. Because it’s usually that uncomfortable stuff, the stuff that scares the crap out of you, that you come out on the other side feeling exhilarated saying, “I’m so glad I did that”. You might not crush every single thing but I promise you’ll learn a whole lot of lessons along the way and that my friend is pure gold.

We are who we say we are and I don’t know about you but I want to be all all-around go-getting bold badass and I want you to live up to your full potential too.