Friday Five: 2018 New Years Goals

Coming into the new year, I set a few New Years goals for myself and for my blog. How original, right? But hear me out. I’m usually not one for resolutions – I don’t believe in waiting until a calendar date to start improvement. However, 2017 was a bit chaotic and quite a challenge so I’m jumping at the opportunity to set some New Years goals for myself in 2018! Let’s do this.

I’m a huge goal setter, generally speaking. I like setting my sights on something and then achieving it. That’s what motivates me as a Type A person. But, I’m sure if you’ve been reading Visions of Vogue for awhile, that doesn’t come as any surprise. It also probably doesn’t surprise you that I have a note in my iPhone that’s a mile long with a bunch of mini New Years goals. That list is constantly growing. I wanted to share my major New Years goals (or groups of them) with you guys though today as the first Friday Five of the month!

If you’re new to the Friday Five, it’s a fun series I post on Fridays that consists of lists of 5 things. They’re pretty random and I like to keep it fresh that way for you guys as readers! I’ve covered everything from how to survive winter physically (and mentally), date night ideas he actually wants to do, healthy restaurants, and photography tips from my Instagram Husband. That list of random things goes on and on and you can see all the posts here.

1. Going vegan.

I talked about this earlier this week but picking back up on the vegan thing is something that I really want to do this year. I feel so much better when I do it. It’s also a lot healthier. This didn’t happen overnight. I’ve been vegetarian for almost a decade and gradually, I’ve noticed how bad eating dairy makes me feel. While I love a good Trader Joe’s cheese platter, I’m hoping that I can resist the temptation in 2018! I shared 9 tips in Wednesday’s post on things that have really helped me be vegetarian/vegan if this is on your list too! Make sure you’re following me on Instagram too as I share my dinner recipes real time.

2. Stretch every day.

Of course, I have the regular workout and fitness goals. But in order to avoid being boring, I wanted to highlight this one. Since I spend most of my day in a cubicle, I feel like stretching is extra beneficial since my body is in the same position for 9+ hours. There are a bunch of other benefits to stretching like preventing injuries, lower blood sugar, and less stress. But stretching is also about taking a few moments to just relax and take care of me. I spent most of 2017 forgetting to take care of myself and this is why this goal has made the list. I’ve got groundbreaking news for you. I’m not getting any younger either so carpe diem.

Don’t worry, I’ve also vowed to try new workout classes (Orange Theory is up next), make better use of my Pure Barre membership, foam roll twice a week, and do modified BBG workouts too (I got bored doing it last year). Those just all seem a little more basic.

3. Career success.

Duh. Who doesn’t want that? I’m constantly having conversations with my boss about where I want to go so this is more of a gentle reminder to me to keep fighting for it. I also know myself really well. If I’m not progressing, I’ll get demotivated incredibly fast. That doesn’t yield a good employee which I know from being one and also managing teams of them. I don’t know any workplace where promotions are just handed to you – at least none that I’ve been fortunate enough to work in. So even though I might be frustrated in my day job at times, I wanted to remind myself to keep on pushing. This is a long term play – not short term.

4. Giving up pop.

You might know it as “soda” but here in the Midwest, we call it “pop”. While this seems like something more fit for Lent, pop became a huge part of my life after the move to Chicago. I never really drank it until I went to a doctor for the migraines I’d been having. I’d tried every pharmacy drug out there and nothing worked. I’d be down for the count for 2 days, barely able to see and definitely not able to tolerate sound! My doctor gave me a powerful migraine prescription and recommended I drink coffee for the caffeine as soon as I feel a headache coming on. However, I hate the smell of coffee and don’t like tea. So that left soda as the other option.

Guess what. The prescription didn’t do anything. The caffeine? Worked like a charm. I’d drink it as soon as I felt any ounce of pain because migraines are miserable (for anyone who’s ever had one, you know). I was terrified of letting it get to it’s full blown state. Which meant that I was probably drinking them a little preemptively too. It got to the point where I was also using the caffeine to stay awake. It’s at this point where I catch myself and think about how much I sound like a drug addict. I don’t like relying on caffeine. I don’t like relying on anything really.

So, this ties into my overall health goals focused on taking care of myself. I’ll get more sleep so I don’t need the caffeine and hopefully the stretching will help me relax so I can release some stress.

5. Financial blog goals.

Yep, you knew this was coming. With a day job in finance, you know that I’m looking at my Profit & Loss statement regularly throughout the year. I fell short of my goals in 2017 so I’ve learned from my mistakes and am formulating an improved approach to 2018. There’s nothing that gets me more excited than pulling together my financials every month. Not sure what I’m talking about? In my post about the 5 things that help me work full time and blog, I gave some more details about how I pull this together. For 2018 I’m focusing on the basics: increasing top-line revenue and decreasing expenses by 10%. I don’t know if you’ve been following all of our travel guides but I’ll give you one guess as to where most of our spending goes!

As I mentioned, these are only some of the New Years goals I’ve set for myself in 2018. It’s not like I don’t want to share the rest. It’s just that the rest are probably not as interesting to you or sub-goals of the ones above. I mean, do you really want to read about how excited I am to dig into my website analytics? I’m betting not. Plus, I’m an open book on Instagram stories so you already know I’m also committing myself to sharing more safe beauty this year!

What are your New Years resolutions? Are there any New Years goals you’d like to share? I’d love to hear them! Maybe I can add those to my ever-growing list too!