Every year I come up with a set of goals I want to achieve over the course of the coming year. I prefer the term goals to resolutions because it seems more achievable. Each goal I set for myself is specific and measurable, so by the time New Years Eve 2021 rolls around, I can evaluate whether I met them or not. Here’s a review of whether I met my 2020 New Year’s Goals and what I plan to achieve in 2021.

2020 New Year’s Goals

• Get engaged
  • FINALLY! We’ve all been waiting for it and March 20, 2020 it finally happened! Jared proposed and we started planning the wedding of our dreams. You can read all about the proposal here, and look through the Lifestyle -> Wedding Planning tab to see the planning I did each month leading up to the wedding.

• Buy a house
  • Jared and I started looking to buy a house in January and through lots of COVID craziness, we finally closed on our house in May. It was such a big step for us and we truly couldn’t be happier with the house we’re in.

• Get a full-time teaching job
  • Another huge life step! With very few teaching positions available for the 2020-2021 school year, I was extremely honored to be offered a position at Johnson K-8. Although I thought I wanted to teach younger kids, I accepted the position I was offered for 3rd grade and then it ended up getting switched to a 5th grade position! I was terrified of the “big kids,” but I could not love my class and 5th grade more!

• Finish reading the Game of Thrones series
  • Alright this is the one thing I didn’t achieve this year. I finished the second book in the beginning of the year and couldn’t bring myself to start the third. While they’re incredible books, they’re just so long and not the typical genre I read. I also already knew what was going to happen since I watched the show, even if there are some differences, so I didn’t have the suspenseful motivation to keep reading.
  • However, I did meet my goal of reading 20 books this year and read some incredible pieces like the Court of Thorns and Roses series, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (The Hunger Games prequel), and One to Watch (highly recommend for any Bachelor fans!!).

• Reach the Pure Barre 250 club
  • Pure Barre remains one of my absolute favorite things to do – let alone my favorite way to exercise. Even amidst temporarily closing due to COVID, I did livestream classes at home and still managed to reach the 250 club (250 classes) this past fall. I also successfully completed the Fall Fit Challenge this year, which happened to culminate with my 250th class!

2021 New Year’s Goals

• Get married
  • Of course I had to put this on there even though I knew it would happen! Easiest goal to check off right at the start of the new year! Don’t worry there’s still plenty of wedding content to come on the blog.
• Reach 1 million TikTok followers
  • I created a TikTok account in July and since then have gone pretty viral. One video I posted has over 35 million views and I currently have about 908,000 followers. My goal is to hit 1 million followers by my birthday (March 22), but I’ll settle for any time in 2021 if that doesn’t happen.
• Go somewhere I’ve never been
  • I love this goal because it can be as simple as going somewhere in Florida I’ve never been, or as extravagant as going to Bali, Indonesia on our honeymoon (fingers crossed it’s still happening).
• Go to a Disney park 5 times
  • As Gold Annual Passholders, if we go into parks 4 times throughout the year, the pass pays for itself between the ever-increasing ticket price, $20 for parking, and discounts on food and merchandise. Jared and I are already planning a weekend trip for my birthday so this one shouldn’t be too hard to check off the list!
• Run 6 5Ks
  • I was so disappointed this past year that COVID cancelled 5K runs. Mom and I had done 4 or 5 in addition to our 10K and half marathon and we love them! And don’t come at me with these virtual 5Ks – I would never run (any distance) on my own. Now that races are happening again, we can’t wait to start working on my personal record again (not that it’s at all fast for any normal human). I wanted to set my goal for 12 (one a month), but it’s just so hot in the summer. Maybe next year!
• Read 24 books
  • As I mentioned before, last year I read/listening to 20 books so I’m upping my goal to 24 for this year. Who knows, maybe I’ll get back in to Game of Thrones.
• Finalize and start trying to publish my book!
  • In my creative writing class senior year of high school, we had to write a fairy tale. We were told to write 5 pages minimum. I came into class the day it was due with a 45 page story (double-spaced, but still). I stumbled across the story on my computer the other day and started reading it when I realized it’s actually really good. Definitely some editing to be done, but I was impressed with my 17-year-old self! I decided this summer I’m going to go through and edit it and then try to get it published. I’ve wanted to be an author since I was little and this is my chance!