If you’ve followed my musings for a while, you’ll know I love setting New Year goals.

For me, it’s not a case of HAVING to set them. It’s more a case of WANTING to. 

They keep me focused on things I would like to achieve, and the geek in me loves to keep track of them and celebrate those wins, however big or small. 

This year, however, I’m taking a slightly different approach to setting my goals. 

Firstly, I’ve put them into three different groups:

• Personal
• Health
• Business

Although there is naturally some overlap in these areas, this is how my brain has categorised them for now. 

Secondly, towards the end of last year, I attended a Club WorkJoy event with guest speaker Elvin Turner, an innovation and strategy advisor. The subject of goal setting came up, and Elvin suggested reframing goals to allow for different levels of success. 

If we take one of my goals from 2022 as an example, which was to walk an average of 10,000 steps each day, reframing it might’ve looked like, ‘To walk an average of between 8,000-10,000 steps per day‘. Reaching an average of 8,000 steps per day would’ve been an increase on the previous year and would’ve felt like a win. Whereas missing my target of 10,000 by 1,000 steps didn’t feel as much of a success as it was. 

So, this year, I wanted to play around with this ‘range’ technique to see how it could work for me.

Thirdly, I entered 2023 in a different headspace than previous years. I’ve taken time to think about what I would like to achieve over the next 11/12 months. I didn’t put myself under pressure to come up with a definitive list to start working towards as soon as the clock struck 12 on New Year’s Eve. I let ideas come and go until I found a set of goals I felt connected to and excited to bring to life.

I also spent some time chatting with my coach, Beth, about a couple of words which kept coming up for me. Those words were:

• create
• creative

We agreed that working those words into my goals may actually stem my creativity. So instead, these are going to be my ‘words of the year’. The energy I get from ‘creating’ gives me such a buzz. It will be fun to see what I can do throughout 2023 with these words in mind. 

So with a new approach to 2023, here’s a look at the goals I’ve set for myself for the year ahead:

My Personal Goals

In December this year, I’ll be turning 40. But rather than the anxiety I felt leading up to my 30th birthday, I feel excited by it.

I decided some time ago that I want to make my 40th year the year I do some of those things I’ve wanted to do but haven’t gotten around to doing. 

My initial thinking was to pick one ‘thing’ for every month of the year. However, Elvin Turner’s thinking in mind, my goal is going to be:

To do 8-12 things that I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t gotten around to doing.

Now, when I use the word ‘always’, these clearly aren’t things I’ve wanted to do from birth, but they are things I’ve wanted to do for a while. Some have been on my mind for six months, and others have been on my mind for many years. 

Some things will be exhilarating adventures. Others might be a little bit more sedate. I’m still compiling my list at the moment, but so far, it ranges from going to watch the ballet to completing the National Three Peaks Challenge!

Setting myself the target of doing between 8-12 across the year feels a lot more realistic than saying I will do 12, one each month. Setting this goal as a range allows for some flexibility. If life gets in the way or an event gets cancelled, it doesn’t mean I will be completely thrown off track.

My Health Goals

As I mentioned, one of the challenges I’ve set myself this year is to complete the National Three Peaks Challenge. 

The Three Peaks Challenge involves tackling the highest peaks in England (Scafell Pike), Scotland (Ben Nevis) and Wales (Snowdon). 

The catch – I’ll be trekking around 26 miles and ascending a total height of almost 3,000m – in just two days.

I’ve signed up to complete the challenge to raise money for the charity Mind. As many of you will know, in the Summer of 2012, my best friend took her own life, and over the last 12 months, I have sought help with my mental health, so it felt only right to choose them as the charity to do this for. 

I’ve signed up for their September challenge, but I’ll be putting in A LOT of training before then. Because of all the walking I currently do, I have calves of steel. But I can’t rely solely on my legs and feet to complete an endurance challenge like this. I need to be in good physical AND mental condition from head to toe. 

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be putting together a training schedule and joining my local gym.

So my health goal for the year will be:

To get my mind and body ready for The Three Peaks Challenge. 

If you’d like to find out more about the challenge or if you would like to sponsor me, you can find all the info you need here.

My Business Goals

As I head into the third year of being freelance, the plan is to continue to grow without taking on any additional help.

The two overarching business goals I have for this year are: 

To finish writing/designing my website

I started the re-design of my website over Christmas 2021, and I’ve barely looked at it since! It’s one of those things that constantly gets put on the back burner because my clients seem to find me in other ways. However, I have noticed a lot of traffic going to my website but not converting to clients, which is something I would like to change this year. Finishing my website will be my initial priority for the year.

To offer a new option for how people can work with me

Initially, I also wanted to add two new ways for people to work with me in 2023, but I’ve decided to scale that back. Scaling back should enable me to create my exciting new offer whilst also maintaining the right level of time and care I need to give to my existing client base. 

I’m deliberately being vague about what this offer might look like. At the time of writing, I am working on the ‘behind the scenes’ plan, but I’m aiming to launch it later this year. So if you are interested in working with me in the future, keep your eyes peeled. 

It’s a wrap

So there we have it, folks. My 2023 goals are good to go. 

It’s now time to start working on the detail and to put a plan in place to give me a realistic chance of achieving my goals in 2023.

In the meantime, I’d love to know, have you set any goals for yourself this year?