A brand new year is here! And while it’s always fun to celebrate at the beginning of the year, why stop there? Let’s take a new spin on things and adopt the mindset that every day is the best day of the year for the entire year and beyond!
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
2023 could get quite dicey with more expected losses in the markets, further job cuts, and economic uncertainty. Thus, things may not work out the way we hope or we may face great adversity. But, let’s really make a conscious effort to keep plowing on through and make the most of each day.
Side note – if you suspect layoffs are coming at work, you must read How To Engineer Your Layoff!
Every Day Is The Best When You…
Feel And Think Your Way To Greater Happiness
Experiencing long durations of happiness really stems from our mindset and outlook on life. There are thus lots of positive benefits to convincing ourselves daily that today is the best day, and tomorrow, and the next.
Most people are searching for happiness. They’re looking for it. They’re trying to find it in someone or something outside of themselves. That’s a fundamental mistake. Happiness is something that you are, and it comes from the way you think. – Wayne Dyer
Lead Time In The Direction You Want
One of the things that gets me frustrated quickly is feeling like I’m falling behind, especially on my to-do list. Progress, however, brings me immense happiness. That is why I smiled when I read this quote:
The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot. – Michael Altshuler
We can’t stop the passing of time, but we can control how we spend it. Being more mindful and purposeful with my time is at the top of my mind lately. So I was excited when I got a great gift recently: The Time-Block Planner: A Daily Method for Deep Work in a Distracted World.
It’s a super simple organizer with a short intro by Cal Newport that explains the benefits of planning out our days in blocks of time. This method of planning helps with focus, efficiency, and productivity – all three things that I need help with a lot these days.
Let’s strive to take better control of our time and navigate our way to more progress and greater happiness this year. Sure, I have down days and frustrating weeks like everyone else. But, I do believe that the two key ways to feel every day is the best day of the year are having a happy mindset and feeling in command of our time.
Now I’ll share my 2023 goals which you can skim through and perhaps get some ideas to use in your own resolutions.
2023 Goals – Every Day Is The Best Day Edition
Lifestyle Goals
Adopt the mindset: Every day is the best day. Anticipation is what makes the time leading up to a vacation, holiday, or adventure so exciting. But why should we only have a few exciting days a year when we could make all 365 of them amazing? In reality, there will be down days, sick days, and fire drill days. But I want to adopt the mindset that every day is the best day and tap into the anticipation of doing great things often.
Feel and look healthier. It’s never more apparent that we are aging than in December and January when holiday cards start arriving. Kids have shot up in height or even left the nest, friends have gained weight and gone gray, and some of our loved ones have sadly passed on.
After weighing more than I thought the last 2 times I’ve stepped a scale, I’m PO’d. I want to lose 1-2 pounds per quarter by giving up deserts and going mostly dairy and gluten-free. And, I plan to play pickleball and/or hike stairs 1-3 times a week. Grrr, I will fit into my skinny jeans again, gosh darn it! I also need to do some strength training on my ankle which bothered me for several months last year.
Related reading: The Ideal Body Weight Pisses Me Off – Time To Get Back In Shape
Simplify. I’m starting with decluttering closets and drawers, and organizing things better. It’s time to respark my Marie Kondo addiction. I also want to simplify our house, our lives, and my mind. Mental clutter is just as annoying as physical clutter. I want to use time block planning to help improve my focus and output each week as well.
Stop sighing so much. I’ve developed a bad habit this year of sighing in frustration, disappointment, and stress. My kids are even calling me out on it. I need to better manage my emotional state and kick this habit.
Work Goals
Get back to writing regularly. My writing production was embarrassingly low for 2022 and I don’t want that to happen again in 2023. I genuinely love to write and need to prioritize it more each month. So often I get bogged down with my kids or other work projects that take a lot of time to research and figure out. But, I want to regain the satisfaction and benefits of writing regularly. Stick with anything long enough and you’ll be successful.
Get to the last mile. Some argue that getting started on anything new is the hard part. Sure, that can be true sometimes. But, I think the hardest part of any task is finishing, ie getting through the last mile. I get stressed when I have too many unfinished projects. So I hope to focus more on the last mile and make sure I execute to completion.
Be more amenable and flexible to coaching and advice. It’s easy to dish out advice and directives, but often very hard to receive. I hope to be more patient, receptive, and appreciative when receiving constructive criticism, feedback, tips, etc.
Improve my editorial and proofreading skills. I should have a fantastic work opportunity to do more copyediting and proofreading in 2023. To help make my efforts more streamlined and beneficial, I plan to pick up more grammar knowledge through reading and subscribing to tip emails.
Get a new laptop. My ol’ precious is six years old now and I’m ready for a replacement. I hope to clear out my downloads folder before then, purge files I don’t need, and start fresh.
Educational Goals
Keep up with learning Chinese. My daughter needs more help with learning Chinese for school and I want to learn with her. I’ll find new ways to make it fun and help her gain confidence.
Read 3-5 nonfiction books. I love reading, especially when I can learn something. There are a lot of nonfiction books I want to get through. I hope to improve my skillsets in parenting, childhood development, self-improvement, and communication.
Get a new water heater. It’s time to replace the ol’ gal before the bottom rusts out and makes a ginormous mess. I hope to tackle this in 1Q2023.
Further train my intern. I have an intern that I’ve been working with for several months. My goal for this year is for us to get into a more consistent cadence, enhance her skills a lot further, and get to the point where certain assignments no longer need my review so our productivity can really start to increase.
Family And Relationships Goals
Go on more dates. I had no idea how time-consuming raising two kids can be when I was in my 30s. As precious as our kids are, going on dates is fun, refreshing, and very beneficial for us. I want to use more off-peak hours to work so my husband and I can enjoy extra time together sans kids during the day and evening hours.
Help my mom with settling her sister’s estate. This is a huge, complex burden that’s been placed on my shoulders. But I feel it’s my duty to help my mom as much as possible because she seems totally incapable of doing it herself. Hopefully, the end game will more than make up for the effort. But I’m keeping my expectations low.
Continue to get death files prepared. My dad owes me a lot of paperwork, and my mom owes me some. I need to help them get this done. And I also need to work on my own and continue to beef out contingency plans.
Laugh more with my kids. I have a tendency to be nit-picky and correct my kids a lot. I’m afraid if I don’t teach them good behavior now they’ll have a very hard time later. But I think I also need to adjust my parenting style, try to keep things lighter more often and laugh more with them.
Tweak my parenting style. So much of how we parent stems from our inherent personalities. It’s hard to know how well or how poorly we’re doing when the vast majority of parenting is subjective. I’m confident that I’m doing certain things well. But, I hope to tweak my parenting style and pick up some new and improved skills this year. My husband and I are trying to get more aligned in our parenting, which will help in both the short and long run.
Get Excited Because Every Day Is The Best Day Going Forward!
My time block to finish this post is quickly coming to a close, so I’m gonna wrap things up here. I hope you’re excited to bring positive changes and growth into your life this year. Positive change is rarely easy, but it’s what keeps life exciting.
Here are some other posts to check out before you go:
- Get rid of bad habits once and for all!
- Here’s how to increase productivity and get more done right now
Untemplaters, what are some of your goals for the year? Are you ready to think your way to greater happiness and take control of your time?
Wonderful goals!
Training your intern will be great for the long term. And helping out your mom with the estate stuff is a big task. Fascinating to understand how different country estates work.
Let’s learn Chinese on duolingo together!
May you have an incredible 2023!
Sam
Thanks! If I start thinking about how much work I have in store it can be pretty overwhelming, especially after a long day like today when my eyes are half way shut but I’m still trying to get things done. But in small chunks of time, I do believe that anything is possible.
One thing I’m trying to do lately is keep my to-do list for the current day limited to only a few tasks and have everything else saved for tomorrow’s list or put into other categories. That makes it easier for me to stay focused and feel less stress.
Sounds good to me. We tend to underestimate what we can do in a year and over estimate what we can do in a day or a week. The process of always showing up and regularly tackling goals will pay off.
Get the top three things done for me to do list every day, and it’ll feel like a huge win every day!