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My 22 Goals for 2024 (+ my word for the year!)

My 22 Goals for 2024 (+ my word for the year!)

2023 was a year filled with a lot of unexpected challenges and both expected and unexpected changes. I shared more in-depth about the year in my yearly recap with pictures over on Instagram. It was a year that really stretched me to capacity and taught me my own limits and need to ask for help and input from others. And the end result was a lot of good changes that have helped me to have more space and breathing room in my life to be able to be more intentional in the areas God has called me to invest in.

As a result of the lessons learned in 2024, I chose the word HEALTH as my word for the year. This is not just physical health, but also emotional health and spiritual health.

I haven’t done as good job of prioritizing physical health or emotional health the past few years and now that I’m not pregnant or adjusting to another new baby, it’s time focus on making health a real priority. (As most of you know, we brought home 4 babies in less than 4 years — two I birthed and two we fostered and one we adopted and the other we continue to provide childcare for. It’s been a gift and a good thing, but also lots of emotional roller coaster and physical exhaustion involved.)

With this in mind, I chose 22 goals for 2024. That might feel a little ambitious, but I’ve been working on many of these for the past few months, so a lot of them are already starting to become more habitual. This list makes me feel inspired and excited — and that’s what you really want with goals.

How I’m Planning in Grace for the Unexpected and Unknown

Plus, Jesse helped me to cut some of them down and to better quantify them so I’d be able to track them and know how I was doing. If you’ll notice, we built in wiggle room for traveling or sickness or other unexpected things that will come up that might keep me from being able to stick with each goal every single day. So that’s why we chose to set the goal of doing something consistently at least 300 days of the year. That feels a lot more doable, and if you miss a day here or there, you aren’t falling off the bandwagon!

I broke the goals into categories to make sure I was investing intentional time in my areas of priority. One thing you may notice is that I don’t have any goals that are specifically about my older three kids. While they are a big priority and I have various ways I work on intentionally investing time into their lives each week, I decided not to create goals for time with them as their schedules vary and I want to give them a lot of flexibility to live their life and not be tied to some number goal for something I set.

So, here are my 22 goals for 2024…

Physical Health Goals/Habits

1. Sunlight Before Screens at Least 300 Days — I have been highly inspired by Sarah sharing her health journey and how she’s feeling so much better by making sunlight and rest more of a priority. The past week, I’ve been waking up and going out to watch the sun rise before getting on any screens and it’s been so good. Just this simple act has had a trickle down effect in a lot of other areas in my life! So I’m aiming to go out every morning and read my Bible spend some time soaking up some sun before I turn on any screen.

2. At Least 300 Walks Outside — Walking is so therapeutic for me! For the past two years, I’ve mostly walked on the treadmill in the mornings while praying over the details of my day. In 2024, my goal is to take those walks outside to breathe in the fresh air and get some extra natural light!

3. 1000 Hours Outside — I started working towards making this a 2024 goal back at the beginning of summer! Yes, it’s been a long time in coming. But I knew I needed to prep myself for it as I am not naturally someone who spends much time outdoors. But inspired by Ginny from 1000 Hours Outside and all the research she’d shared on the benefits, I’m going for it! I don’t know that I’ll hit 1000 hours, but I am absolutely positive I’m going to be spending a lot more time outdoors this year by making this a goal! If you want to hear more how this has already impacted me (or need some encouragement to consider making time outdoors a priority), listen to the podcast episode I did with Ginny Yurich.

4. Only Eat Refined Sugar Twice a Week — This is a big one for me, as I have a major sweet tooth and love homemade desserts and sweet breads. I started experimenting with this idea of making this a goal in 2024 in December, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be! It helps that I’ve found some yummy replacements for sweets that don’t have refined sugar — thanks to things like Zevia and Lily’s Chocolate! I’m also okay with having honey or maple syrup. Plus, instead of setting myself up for failure by saying no refined sugar at all, I’m setting the goal to only have two items with it every week. So I can carefully choose what I want to splurge on instead of just mindlessly eating lots of carbs and sugars like I tend to!

5. Consume 90 Grams of Protein at Least 300 Days — I have been sticking with this goal pretty consistently since the beginning of December and want to continue on with it. I notice a marked difference in my energy and stamina when I eat enough protein, so I’m hopeful that I make this a habit that comes naturally by the end of 2024!

Emotional Health Goals/Habits

6. No Screens After 8:30 p.m. at Least 300 Days — Our schedule is changing pretty significantly starting next week (Jesse and I will be sharing more about this in the podcast that drops this week), and one of the changes is that we’ll need to be getting all three kids up and out the door for the day by 7:25 a.m. In order to do this, we are working hard on having a much more established bedtime routine that starts earlier for all of this. So I’m implementing no screens after 8:30 p.m. to help with this. The only exception will be for a movie or show with Jesse or the older kids, but the goal is to have that finished/turned off by 8:45 p.m. at the latest.

7. Learn a New Skill: How to Make Sourdough Bread — I have long wanted to learn the art of sourdough. It really intimidates me, but I love sourdough bread so much that I decided this was the year I was going to keep practicing and learning until I master it. I was inspired to set this goal by Acts of Sourdough and purchased her starter and will be following her January plan to learn and practice! I’ll be posting my progress on Instagram if you want to follow along!

8. Complete 3 Embroidery Projects — I love embroidery but it’s something I’ve not done in years! I decided I really wanted to pick back up a handwork project this year so I asked for embroidery kits for Christmas. My sister gave me three and I set a goal to finish them all this year. I plan to work on them just 15-30 minutes at least a few nights a week while Jesse and I watch a show. I’ll be posting my progress on Instagram if you want to follow along!

9. Be Completely Offline 40 Sundays — Okay, full disclosure, while I don’t usually post on social media on Sundays, I’ve gotten into a really bad habit of doing different work projects on Sundays or just falling into rabbit holes online. Since I work online six days a week, it’s really important for me to have one day off each week. So in 2024, I’m committing to take at least 40 Sundays completely off. It’s not perfect, but it will be huge progress!

Spiritual Health Goals/Habits

10. Go through 4 She Reads Truth Bible Reading Studies — I love the She Reads Truth studies and I have a few sitting on my shelf that I haven’t gone through yet, so my Bible time this year will be working those readig plans/studies.

11. Finish 4 Devotionals — I have loved going through a devotional along with my Bible reading every morning this past year, so I’m going to continue doing that in 2024 and am excited to start and finish some new ones!

Reading Goals

12. Read 1000 Picture Books to the Kids — Our little kids LOVE picture books and we read a lot of them almost daily. I decided that it would be fun to track how many we read this year with the goal of reading 1000. Disclaimer: this is not 1000 different picture books. We often read their favorites over and over again and some we read almost every single day. So I’m counting each read as one picture book. If you’d like a free printable tracker for picture books, Homeschool Vintage has some really cute ones!

13. Read the first 4 Little House on the Prairie books aloud to the three younger kids. I’m planning to read a little bit from a chapter book every day at lunch to the little kids. This year, my goal is to finish the first 4 books in the Little House series. I think Kierstyn is at the perfect age to really enjoy them!

14. Read Through The Biggest Story Bible Storybook. We just finished up a devotional and an Advent devotional with the younger three, so we are starting this Bible Storybook and I plan to read one story from it every morning at breakfast. It has 104 stories, so we should easily be able to get through it this year!

15. Finish 75 Books — I only finished 41 books in 2023, which is a fairly low number for me. I have high hopes that 2024 is going to be a better reading year for me! I’m planning to read a few pages from some spiritually encouraging books in the morning, listen to some audiobooks throughout the day, and read 20-30 pages of a story-driven book at night before bed. If I mostly hit those goals, I should easily be able to finish 75 books in 2024. I post the books I’m reading on GoodReads and also will be sharing my honest reviews of books I read in my personal email newsletter every Saturday morning.

Homeschool Goals

16. Finish Junior Kindergarten + Preschool — I’ve been doing Memoria Press preschool with Micah and Junior Kindergarten with Kierstyn. We’ve been loving it and my plan is to finish it by summer.

17. Start Sonlight Preschool/PreK — In the fall, I’m planning to start Sonlight Preschool with Micah and Sonlight Pre-K with Kierstyn. These seem a little more advanced than Memoria Press and focus on different things, so they will fill in some holes before Micah moves up to starting a Pre-K program when he’s 3 and Kierstyn starts Kindergarten.

Marriage Goals

18. ABC Date Nights — I got this idea from Phylicia Masonheimer and Jesse and I are so excited about it! We are planning to pick one letter each week (starting with A and going through the alphabet) to have a date centered around. So for instance, A could be going to Applebees or getting Apple Cider or making Apple Pie, etc. And so on. We are going to trade off picking letters and planning a date around that letter. Since there are 26 letters of the alphabet, our goal is to have a date at least every other week so that we finish all 26 letters by the end of the year. I’ll be posting updates on Instagram and in my personal email newsletter if you want to follow along!

19. 2 Overnight Getaways — I will be weaning Micah in the next few months, so we want to get away for an overnight stay somewhere (probably local) twice this year. Due to having babies and then David’s medical needs, we haven’t had any overnight getaways in a few years and it’s high time we pick this back up again! We hope to be able to do more than one night away next year, but this year we’re starting with just one night and we’ll see how that goes!

Business Goal

20. 6 Product Launches/Sales — I’m so excited about some of the new things we are working on and cooking up! We will be launching a few new products this year and running a few really great sales. Our first product launch is in three days and it’s a product I think you are going to LOVE and it’s going to be on a really, really great sale January 4-6! Stay tuned!

Financial Goal

21. Pay Cash for Another Rental House — We bought a rental home last year with cash and Kathrynne is living in it while going to college. Kaitlynn will likely be living there with her next year and going to the same school. This is saving thousands of dollars + it will be a house we can rent out for a good monthly rate once they are finished living there. We have been saving to buy another rental and are hoping to have enough saved around midway 2024 to pay cash for another rental. We are still looking at where we want to purchase it, but are excited about this additional stream of income and new business venture!

Home Goal

22. Get the Main Floor Re-painted — This has been on our list for quite a long time and we decided it needed to be a goal this year so that it will hopefully actually happen!

How I’m Tracking My Goals

For all of the goals that have a number attached to them, I’m using the Strides app (iPhone only, unfortunately) to track them. You can put in the amount you want to hit by the end of a timeframe (in this case, by the end of the year) and then mark off every time you hit that goal. You can then see in real-time how you are doing and whether you are behind, ahead, or right on track with hitting your goal. I’ve been using it this past year and have found it to be so helpful!

Where You Can Follow Along With My Goals (changes to the blog!)

One big change that has already taken place (without you maybe even realizing!) is that I’m moving around where I’m sharing content.

This past year, I’ve really stepped back to rethink about the best way to show up online with the time and capacity I have. I tried a number of different things that didn’t work and felt like I was stretched too thin and always behind in trying to share what I wanted to share and never getting all of the posts up that I wanted to post.

As I contemplated things more, I realized that I could choose where and how to show up and it was okay to change the way I’ve done and approached things. I know, that seems so obvious, but I think I had gotten stuck in ruts and it took me awhile to realize this!

So as of a few weeks ago, I’ve moved most of my personal content that I had been sharing on the blog (albeit somewhat sporadically this past year) to my weekly personal email newsletter. If you want to read my book reviews, see peeks into our week, hear about what I’m thinking about/learning/trying, hear my goal updates, find out what I’m reading and watching, and know about what products I’m loving, etc. my personal newsletter will be the place to read about it!

I’ll also be sharing some of those things on the podcast and on Instagram, but the newsletter will be a more in-depth space for me to share + I’ll include links so you can go check out whatever products or posts or podcasts or books I’m talking about!

My personal email newsletter comes out every Saturday morning and you can sign up for it for free here. Here’s what you can expect from it every Saturday:

Bits and pieces from our life — especially behind-the-scenes things that I might not share elsewhere
Books I’m reading and really honest reviews — I’m moving my book reviews on the blog to this weekly email newsletter because I felt like that would give me a bit more freedom to share more in-depth and honestly than I feel like I can share in a public space that’s on the internet
Things I’m loving — products, hacks, websites, music, etc.
TV shows and movies we’re watching — and honest reviews!
Lessons I’m learning, things I’m thinking about, etc.
Any fantastic deals that I think you might want a heads up on
New products we’re working on/launching — we have some exciting new things we’re rolling out in 2024!!
Podcasts/interview links and details — If I released a podcast or if I was interviewed on a podcast, I’ll share the links and info in the weekly newsletter

Sign up for my personal enewsletter here.

Don’t worry! There will still be plenty of content here on the blog! I’ll still be sharing my grocery shopping trips and menu plans (I plan to share those on Mondays) and I’ll share a little weekly recap on Fridays with a few pictures and links, etc. but this will free up time and space for my to share more money-focused content here — which is something so many have been begging for. I have so many ideas for articles on different topics to help you save more money and be more intentional with your finances this coming year and this will make time and space for that here!

I see this change as the best of both worlds! It will allow me to still have a place to share personal content that so many of you love without you needing to listen to a podcast or follow on Instagram if those aren’t your things (but in a bit more of a less public way so I can share more openly like I’d like to be able to!) and it will free up space here on the blog for us to share more money-saving content to serve those who are looking specifically for ways to cut costs, pay down debt, and creatively increase their income or decrease their spending.

Thank You SO Much!

If you are still reading after this massively long post (I think this is the longest post I’ve written in a really long time!!), I just want to say thank you so much for being here. I’m so grateful to each and every one of you. 2024 marks 20 years that I’ve been blogging online… can you believe it? I started on LiveJournal sharing with my friends never dreaming it would someday be our family’s full-time income and that we’d have a small team helping us out. Getting to share online is a huge gift and one I don’t take lightly — and it’s only because of each of you that I’m able to do what I do. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you!

Any Questions??

Now, before I close: What questions do you have about my goals or word of the year or the blog changes? Ask away in the comments and I’ll be reading each comment and responding!