emsessentials: Goals for 2018

I can't believe that a couple weeks of 2018 have already gone by. I hope that you all have a happy and healthy year! A new year brings about the chance for a fresh start and presents us with the opportunity to reinvent our lives, make any changes we want, and hopefully allow us to do more of what we love. And of course this can all be done at any point, on any given day of any given month, however to me ( and I know I'm definitely not alone on this lol) there is always something so freeing and refreshing about January and the start of a new year.

Although I always have goals that I am working towards or would like to work towards, I like compiling some at the beginning of the year. I find it so helpful to have them written down and hopefully a year from now I'll be able to look back and see that a decent amount of progress has been made in accomplishing them! I prefer setting goals that I can break down to be manageable. As in, instead of saying my goal is to drink more water this year, I find it more beneficial to say I will drink # glasses or bottles of water a day this month (and then increase that # the next month). This makes it easier to keep track of whether or not you are achieving that goal as the results are measurable. (I have a whole post about how to stick to your goals and tips for achieving them which you can check out here if you'd like.) I also like writing out my goals, especially in a blog post as it should help me be more accountable in working towards them. And I like to try to keep most of my goals as realistically possible as I can in order to have a good chance of achieving them but of course I would not say it isn't a goal of mine to get a dog asap although I sadly know that won't happen.

So without further ado and in no particular order, here are my main goals for 2018!

-Drink More Water:
This was one of my goals last year too and while I did increase the amount of water I drink I do still want to drink more as I know that I am still not drinking enough of it. For this year my goal is to drink 3 Camelbak water bottles worth of water per day (mine is the 750ml size bottle). Part of my problem is that most of the time I don't even realize I'm thirsty and so I forget to drink water. To combat this I try to always bring my water bottle with me to class and if it's right there in front of me I'll be more likely to drink it.

-Start Stretching:
I want to start stretching twice a week and eventually stretch every morning. I hadn't realized how tight my muscles became due to not having gym class anymore since I finished high school. 🙈 I also want to work on improving my posture.

-Exercise:
I had started the Blogilates beginner calendar in the past and I did like doing it. I felt that I was making progress but then I got too busy with life and stopped being consistent with it. I wasn't making time for it although I should have been. I want to start it over again and actually complete the calendar and then continue doing the videos. I also want to start going to the gym regularly. I will start with once a week and then increase it.

-Eat Healthier:
This is a constant goal as I always want to work on eating healthier. I want to eat at least 2 fruits and 2 vegetables a day. (I know it's supposed to be more than that but I'm going to shoot for 2 first and then work my way up!)

-Sleep Smarter:
As I am a college student my sleeping schedule is not that of "normal" people 😅 but I want to improve it. I want to be in bed by 1 am and hopefully start waking up at a more consistent time each day, even if I do not have an early class every day.

-Education Goals:
I plan on graduating this spring and I want to make Dean's List one more time, for my final semester of school. I hope to graduate magna cum laude (with honors). And during 2018 I want to continue learning new things. For starters, I plan on downloading an app or something to help me learn Italian (I took it for a short while in high school) and also Spanish (I took this in middle school and high school but of course forgot most of it, oops).

-Mindset:
Overall I want to have a more positive mindset and outlook on life. Each day we get to determine if it will be a good one or a bad one. There are definitely circumstances that are out of our own control that will affect how our day goes, but we get to choose how they will affect our day. I want to start looking on the brighter side of things even more than I do now. I'm not saying that we can't have bad days or feel sad or uninspired, etc. because of course we can, those are natural human emotions, but I don't want to continue to let small or insignificant things impact my mood so much and change it from positive to negative. Another goal of mine that I feel is related to having a positive mindset is being more confident. I am not very confident in myself and I definitely want to change that. I want to accept myself more for who I am, and I know it's cliche, but I want to learn how to better embrace my flaws but also work on being a better version of myself each day.

-Blog:
I want to post more consistently on my blog. I actually have a number of posts drafted but not finished yet and I want to be more dedicated, finish them and publish them. I want to start posting at least twice a month and I also want to start using Bloglovin' more. I think that Bloglovin' is great as it provides a way to see blog posts from your favorite bloggers, all in one place. And it provides you with a feed instead of having to use a search engine to get to individual people's sites in order to read their posts. I think that using it will be very helpful for keeping up with the blogs I like to read and I also want to start commenting more on blog posts as I know I always enjoy hearing people's thoughts on my posts as well.

-Travel:
In 2017 I did not do much traveling at all, I just took a few day trips around my home state of Massachusetts such as a trip to Rockport, which is a cute coastal town on MA's north shore (I wrote a recap of that day as I enjoyed it so much!) and I did a couple day trips to neighboring states such as Maine and New Hampshire as well. I had done a fair bit of traveling at the end of 2016 since I had been abroad so I guess I had to sadly take a little break from it lol and didn't do any major traveling in 2017. This year I really want to go to NYC for a weekend as I have been to NYC a couple times but only for a couple hours each time. I have never even seen Times Square or 5th Ave, etc. I also want to go to Montreal for a couple days as well as hope to visit some family near Atlanta, GA this summer and then do a road trip to Tennessee from there (my mom loves Elvis and really wants to see Graceland) before coming back up north to Massachusetts. And my biggest yet least likely travel goal for this year is to visit Japan! I know that if I'm not able to make it this year I will definitely be going at some point in the future though!

-Miscellaneous:
I also have a couple other goals which are to read more, spend less time on my phone, take more risks with my style and fashion choices (as in push my comfort zone) and this one is really random but - have RBF less when I'm at the grocery store. 😅

As mentioned above, these are my major goals for 2018 but not a 100% extensive list of everything that I hope to accomplish or work towards this year. (The post would get way too long and I doubt anyone would want to read it lol)

But now for some more cliche words. I want to leave you with one last thought here... we get to fill the next pages and chapters of the books that are our lives the way we want to so let's have a good time and make them worthwhile!

Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear some of your goals in the comments!