So last year around this same time, Charles and I sat down and wrote out an awesome list of our goals for the year (you can read about that here).  In regards to those goals…they were great, but many of them did not come to fruition.  We did some amazing things instead, though (buying a house, perhaps?)!

We are at a much different place in our lives (both individually and together) than we were at this time last year.  We have learned a LOT about ourselves and each other over the course of the past 52 weeks.  As a result, we are feeling much more prepared and much more optimistic about 2013!

Charles and I have spent a couple of weeks talking about what we realistically want to accomplish in 2013.  We talked about setting achievable, small goals.  We talked about where we want to be 52 weeks from now.  We talked about each other individually, and we talked about us together.  We acknowledged that our lives could take more crazy turns in the coming year.

Then we sat down, and we did it.  We wrote down our goals for 2013.

Then we broke them down into smaller, quarterly goals.  We had a meeting, y’all.  Over coffee & hot chocolate, we took our goals and we formulated a plan.

Before you laugh too hard at us, know that we realize plans change.  Life is unpredictable, and we are fully aware that we will likely have to make some modifications as the year progresses.  But we are feeling SO optimistic and excited!

Our goals as a couple are broken down into five categories:

1. Physical Shape
2. Relationship with God
3. Financial Goals
4. Home-related Goals
5. Us Stuff

Each quarter, we have specific things we want to accomplish in those categories.  We also wrote out lists of personal goals that we each want to meet, and broke them down into quarterly chunks as well.  As these are personal, I’m not going to share all of them with you (sorry!), but a few categorical examples are…

Me:

• Reading goals
• Blogging goals (get excited!)
• Relationship with God
• Photography
• Homey Stuff

Him:

• Piano goals
• Techie goals
• Relationship with God
• Investing/business goals
• Website goals (he’s working on a site too!)

While our goals for the year are relatively general, our quarterly goals are much more specific.  They are broken down into two or three very achievable bits per quarter; for example, one of my homey goals for the first quarter is to hang pictures up in the hallway.  Mind you, these pictures that I’ll be hanging have been sitting together in a box, ready to be hung, since a couple of weeks after we moved into the house last April.

At the end of each quarter, we plan to have another “meeting” to go over our progress and make sure we are on track for the next quarter.  If we need to make adjustments to our quarterly goals, we will.  In fact, most of our Q4 goals say “TBD,” because we really aren’t sure where we will be in October.

So there you have it; our plan for 2013.  Hopefully it will be more successful than 2012′s plan!  Our biggest mistake in 2012 was failing to revisit our goals after we purchased and moved into our house.  We learned from the mistake though, and have awesome plans for this year as a result.

I will be sharing more about some of my personal goals here in the coming days, and I think you’ll be excited about some of them!

Thanks for sticking with me for almost two years now (my blogiversary is coming up on the 12th!)!  2013 is bringing some amazing things to my life!