Happy New Year and welcome to 2017! I am so excited that we are in a new year. Did you do anything special to celebrate?
I always find the start of the year as an opportunity to hit the reset button. I like to start fresh with a clean slate. No regrets, right? 😉
But seriously, this is a great time of year to check in on your goals and think about your goals moving forward. Whether you’re training for your first marathon or just trying to perfect that work-life balance, I find that it’s extremely helpful to write down your goals for the year and be as specific as possible. Then you can regularly check in and monitor your progress!
Like many people, I am glad that 2016 is over! I had quite a few successes but some failures as well. I thought I would do a quick highlight of last year’s resolutions and what areas were hits and misses.
Successes
All of my running and fitness goals were achieved in 2016. I had a great experience being a race ambassador, I did a lot of cross-training, put my FitBit to work, and ran my first marathon!
I have definitely reduced my alcohol consumption, even giving up drinking for Lent last year.
We bought a house! And I absolutely love it, it’s the perfect place for us.
I played another year of softball and we won the championship! I still get anxiety when I’m up to bat, but I did enjoy myself.
Work has been going really well! I feel that I’ve built a good reputation in my company and I really enjoy what I do. I’m looking forward to things really picking up this year with my project.
What I’m really happy about is that 2016 turned out to be pretty drama-free! I didn’t want to deal with any nonsense, and I succeeded!
Missing a few team members, but so happy we won this year!
Failures
Meal planning continues to be a failure, but I am working on it slowly and surely!
Keeping away from sweets is another area that needs work! Why did I get a bag of Twizzlers in my Christmas stocking?! Of course, I ate them all in one sitting, smh!
I did not make much progress on completing my NCEES Record for my Professional Engineering license. Sadly, 2 of my references passed away in 2016, but it’s no excuse…I need to add this to the top of my list.
I wanted to read 4 books this year and I only read one…it was a leadership/self-improvement book and I liked it, but I should have done more!
I’ve been more engaged in my engineering organizations, but not as much as I wanted.
There were a lot of accomplishments with the blog last year, but I fell into the traps that I wanted to avoid…I wasn’t focused and my time management suffered. Fortunately, I plan to change things in a big way in 2017!
My Goals for 2017
This year is a little different than most years because I don’t have any hugely specific goals or milestones I plan to reach in 2017. But I’m always looking to improve and challenge myself, so here are my goals!
Running/Fitness
Stay injury-free! I’m feeling a little bit paranoid that this could be the year that I get injured. I have a niggle in my right shin and my right inner hip area is still sensitive since running the marathon. I plan to stay hyper-aware of any new pains and to foam roll and stretch as often as possible!
Run a sub-2:15 half marathon. I hate writing this out because I hate putting pressure on myself to finish a race in a certain time, but I’d really like to hit this goal. I’ve been in the 2:17-2:18 range for awhile and I’d really like to gain some speed this winter. We’ll see…I’m already signed up for 3 half marathons this spring!
Continue taking yoga, barre, and spin classes as part of my cross-training. I’ve fallen in love with all three in 2016 and I plan to keep it going!
Starting out too fast at Annapolis in 2015 caused me to miss an opportunity to PR
Nutrition
Create a meal planning routine and stick with it! I will keep making this a goal until it actually happens, LOL! When I finally figure out how to do this successfully, you can bet there’ll be a long blog post all about it!
Build my brand and confidence at work. It’s time for me to let go of my “imposter syndrome” from 2016 and carry myself with the swag and confidence that I deserve! I’m looking forward to “stepping it up” in the workplace and building my reputation as a competent and valuable employee.
Strengthen my professional connections in work and in the industry. It is all too easy to stay stuck behind your desk and keep to yourself, but I know that it’s important to connect with others and realize all of the resources available to me. Even going out to happy hour with coworkers can be a great way to network, so I plan to get back to that in 2017!
Stepping up my clothing game at work is part of the rebrand!
Personal Life
Make our house a home. We love our house so much, so this year I want to work on a few things to make the house more “homey”. I really want to build a patio in our backyard, so I’m looking forward to that. Bret has the green thumb so he’s already strategizing what types of food we’ll be growing this year!
Read 4 books in 2017. Since I failed this goal in 2016, I’m bringing it back! I’m thinking of joining a local book club, but to start I will be joining Wendy for her monthly Book Club. Any recommendations on books worth checking out?
Build and maintain friendships and family relationships. Believe it or not, I’m an extrovert! I get energy from other people and having real, quality relationships with people is important to me, but I can also be pretty shy. This is an area I strive to improve in over the year. I’m hoping that hosting more holidays and throwing parties in our home will help my social life, haha!
Run With No Regrets
Create and keep “office hours” for blogging activities. I’m very excited because I’m finally getting an iMac to use in my brand new home office! I’ll be able to be SO much more productive since I won’t have the limitations of my Samsung Chromebook. This new system will save me so much time!
Overhaul the Run With No Regrets Newsletter. This is such a big project but it’s been long overdue. After becoming a bit overwhelming to update each week, I went back to a weekly RSS over the summer and it’s just not engaging at all. This will change before the end of January!
Create a Facebook Group for runners. This has been on the radar for so long and I keep holding back/putting it off. No more. I really want to connect with people who follow Run With No Regrets and this seems like the perfect way to do it, so please stay tuned!
What are your biggest goals for 2017? Let’s support each other and help keep each other accountable this year!
