Oh hey there 2021! We sure are happy to see you! Can you sense that fresh, dynamic feeling in the air? I’ve always been a big fan of January 1, but this year has a tinge more excitement to it than usual. I’m starting my new year with my 12 Monthly Goals for 2021! I’ve shared these monthly goals for the past few years (see my monthly goals from 2018, 2019, and 2020.) Some of these are serious, but most of them are just fun monthly goals to put a little bit of intention into my new year.
Last year was a doozy for most of us. Apart from the pandemic, it seems like bad things just kept happening. (Law Of Attraction, anyone?) I woke up this Friday morning, the first day of a brand new year, and realized that nothing has actually changed all that much: we’re still wearing masks, avoiding crowds, and putting any plans for trips, birthday and anniversary celebrations, and big food and music festivals on hold for now. COVID-19 is still a very real risk where I live here in Austin (and around the globe), and we have to be careful and do our part to help save as many lives as possible. BUT.. (but, but but!) there’s still something magical about that 1 at the end of the date I wrote on my journal this morning. This is a new year, friends. Vaccines are rolling out, and change is in the air.
Benefits of monthly goals instead of yearly goals:
1. Since 80% of New Years resolutions are forgotten by February, monthly goals give you something new and fresh to try on the first of every month.
2. They can easily be edited! Maybe you thought that journaling every day in August would be fun, but then you found out you’ll be moving apartments that month. No problem; just flip your August and September goals.
3. You can skip a month. Seriously, these are just meant to be fun and help you with personal growth, and there’s not a lot of pressure!
The year 2020 taught me to focus on the things that I can control. I can’t control my circumstances, but I can control the way that I choose to think about my circumstances. And so my monthly goals for 2021 will be all about the things that I can keep in my control.
It’s funny to look at how my monthly goals have evolved throughout the years. Back in 2018, I was all about the intense goals (workout every day for 30 days straight, give up sugar for the month, etc.). As I’ve grown older and started a new decade of life, I’ve begun to appreciate goals that propel me toward lifelong habits I want to create, rather than vigorous goals that will fizzle out after the month is over.
So you’ll notice that my monthly goals for 2021 are gentler and more focused and fun and vitality. (Of course, you might look at these goals and think they look like no fun at all! That’s the beauty of getting to create your own monthly goals – they only have to work for you, no one else.)
I hope you enjoy reading through these goals. Maybe you’ll feel inspired to create your own monthly goals for 2021!
12 Monthly Goals For 2021
Jan//get rid of the things that waste my time. I sat down and made a list of things that waste my time every day, and this is what I came up with:
Checking my email too often
Watching instagram stories of accounts that don’t make me feel invigorated, energized, or excited about something.
Writing things in my head (captions, blog post titles, blog post outlines…HA! I wonder if other influencers/bloggers do this as well? I am constantly writing in my head while I’m falling asleep at night, and it’s not helpful unless I can actually write it down on my computer.)
My goal for January is to cut these things out of my life. I’m anticipating this to be a really challenging goal for me! These are deeply engrained habits. I wake up in the morning and instantly grab my phone and do one of these things, and I can easily waste 10-15 minutes of my morning. I love thinking of how much more energy I’ll have for productive work and energizing fun (time with my baby boy!) as I cut these time wasters out of my life. Super pumped for this goal.
Feb//weekly date nights with Nate. February is so short, dark, and gloomy, so I wanted a fun and easy goal for this month. Nate and I went on so many dates (both formal and casual) before we had Milo, and now that we’re in the midst of a pandemic and have a 1-year-old who goes to bed at 7 pm, we don’t go out as often. We typically get to 7 pm, put Milo to sleep, and then collapse in an exhausted puddle on the couch while we eat dinner, watch an episode of Mandelorian together, and then clean the dinner dishes and get into bed by 9 pm to read books.
So for February, my goal is to create a weekly date night that involves something other than dinner/tv. There are so many creative and fun things to do at home (especially since COVID hit!) and I’ll just have to flex my creativity muscles a bit to plan ahead and find new things to do.
March//10 minutes of cardio 5X/week. Did you know I’ve started skipping cardio entirely? I go on daily stroller walks with Milo, but I haven’t done HIIT workouts since before Milo’s birth in October 2019. (I just love resistance work so much!) I’m not going to reinvent the wheel, because my body feels good and strong with more resistance work than cardio, but I also know that getting my heart rate up is only going to help me keep that vital organ stronger for life.
April//find 2 new places to hike in Texas. April in Texas is beautiful! Despite the cedar allergies here in Central Texas, the outdoors is my favorite place to be. I’m going to scope out some fun new hiking trails to explore this month.
May//practice daily meditation. I always have to sneak it into my monthly goals somehow. 😉 I’ve included this one in my monthly goals for the past 4 years because it’s one of my favorite habits, but it also takes a significant chunk of time out of my morning. I have to list it as an official goal to reboot the habit each year and remind myself why I love the results that come from meditation.
June//celebrate Gay Pride Month by reading LGBTQ+ literature. I’m going to choose two books to read this month from the LGBTQ+ community: one novel, and one memoir.
July//go on a staycation for my golden birthday. Oh, July 2021…I’ve been looking forward to you for decades! This is the year I get to celebrate my golden birthday (I turn 31 on the 31st), and I want to celebrate it with Nate at a fun hotel or resort where I can enjoy not making my own bed, relaxing by a pool, and indulging at a beautiful restaurant where someone else cooks for me and does the dishes. 😉
August//take a break from social media, rest, and enjoy life. August is a hot, lazy month in Texas. I’ll be ready for some rest halfway through the year, so I’ll take a break from monthly goals this month. And, looking ahead, I know that August is going to be a full month for me anyway, so it’s a nice time for me to take a little break from extra goals.
September//plan 2 outings with some girlfriends. Friendships have taken a weird turn since the pandemic hit in 2020! I’ve noticed that it is so easy to let months go by without checking in on some of my closest friends. I really have to be proactive about setting up friend dates (happy hours, backyard hangouts, dinner dates, etc) to be able to connect with my friends past the superficial texting. Of course, this goal is contingent upon the vaccine slowing the spread of COVID and the hope that September will be starting to feel a bit more like normal…
October//family walks after dinner. Ok, another one that’s contingent upon circumstances I can’t control (Nate’s leg healing…), but October evenings are sooo lovely!
November//pick 4 spaces in the house to organize, purge, and donate stuff. I’m going to squeeze this one in just before the holidays, when our home tends to get full of so much stuff. In November, I’m excited to choose a few spaces (it will probably be the hall closet, laundry room, garage, and kitchen junk drawer) to Marie Kondo and clear out. I’m sure I’ll find some stuff to donate. I’ll get our house back to the stuff that we actually use and love so that it feels clean, organized, and ready for the holidays!
December//try some new recipes for holiday baking! I loooove beautiful Christmas cookies and candies during the holidays. My mom had 4 staples she would make every year (peanut brittle, peppermint bark, spiced pecans, and peanut butter balls) and those candies still taste like the holidays to me. I want to find some new (to me) recipes to try out this year and maybe even form my own new family traditions of our own holiday candy selection.
We made it! Its 2021. We all get a fresh start today, and so I’m going to try to bottle up that “fresh start” feeling and remember that I can tap into that emotion any time I want to start again. Today is, after all, just a regular Friday morning. There’s no reason why I can’t choose to feel this invigorated and excited on any Friday morning (or Tuesday afternoon, or Sunday evening…) throughout the entire year. Cheers to a new year, friends!
Looking for more inspiration to craft your own monthly goals? Here are my monthly goals blog posts from the past three years:
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