First off, I want to say Happy New Year! I’m sure you are tired of hearing that by now but this is the first time I’ve had the chance to tell YOU. 

Are you the resolution type or is it something else for you? I’ll go back and forth depending on the year. If you look back on my earlier years (right out of college and no kids) you’d see me trying to set more resolutions. A lot of them revolved around trying to lose weight. As my health journey became a lifestyle, I didn’t feel the need to set those resolutions any longer.

Now I like the word “goals” instead. I don't know what it is but it just feels better in my head than “resolution” these days. Resolution feels like I’m saying, “Fine, I can’t seem to do it otherwise, I should try to make it happen”. Where, goal feels like you are saying, “I want this, I’m going to get it”.

Goals for 2024

Goals seem to be a hot topic in my writing lately. I guess it’s just that time of year. That said, I want to write down my goals and the motivations behind them. I’ll share them here as one way to try and keep me accountable when I get distracted or feel aimless. No matter how “on it” I always try to be, nobody can be perfect all the time. 

I like to organize things into buckets in my head. So I’ve split my 2024 goals into 3 categories: Art Biz, Fitness, Family. There may be another bucket or two that appear, like house projects, or garden, but I haven’t fully thought those out yet. At the time of writing this, those first 3 are top of mind. 

Art Business Goals

I’ve talked about my main art goals for next year already and I’ll recap them here. And then tell you why I chose the goals. 

1. Double my gross revenue from 2023 and hit a $30,000 year.
2. Completing 6 murals
3. Finishing my graphic design course for homeschoolers 

But why?

I have a great job that fills up most of my normal working hours so this art business isn’t my main thing. But I don’t want to be the type that just sits around saying “it will happen someday”. I’m going to set goals and go after them. If I don’t hit them, I’ll adjust and try again. 

I set my revenue goal because I painted my first mural this year and it acted like a catalyst for a lot of other projects. I didn’t do anything other than consistently post on social media and I somehow made almost 15k. I know that won’t happen every year, so setting that goal puts a fire under me to do the work that leads to it. I won’t be sitting around waiting for work to come, I’m going to go after it and find it. My business coach is helping me a lot with this.

I set my mural goal as the main way to hit my revenue goal. If I can book decent-sized murals this year I should be really close to that number. Anything else that happens will be icing on the cake. Hopefully…

And I want to finish my graphic design course because it was something that I set my mind to earlier in 2023 and sort of just let it slip.

Fitness Goals

My fitness goals revolve around powerlifting. This is the main type of weight training I do. I may or may not compete in a powerlifting meet this year but I will continue to get stronger. 

Here’s what I want to accomplish:

1. Deadlift 500 lbs
2. Bench 300 lbs
3. Squat 450 lbs

But why?

I want to keep getting stronger. I started my fitness journey when my daughter was born. I wanted to ensure that I was strong and healthy enough to be alive as long as possible in her life. I want to be able to lift her up and throw her in the air until she won’t let me anymore. They’ll see my working hard and staying consistent through different chapters of life. 

Family Goals

My family and I do everything together. And this year we want to have more adventures.

Here’s how we’re making sure that doesn’t happen:

• 12 adventures together as a family

But why?

Because my wife homeschools our kids and I work remote, we’re around each other a lot. I love it and wouldn’t change it for anything. But being at home so much can turn into a rut. Before you know it, the year is over and you didn’t go as many places as you wanted or have as much fun as you wanted. 

We’ve already planned our adventures for the first half of the year. The strategy has been to look at the weekends where I have days off and pick something to do. In months where there are other big holidays or no long weekends, we’ll do a day hike or something like that. 

I’m excited for it and the first one is happening tomorrow! We’ll be headed up to Tenaya Lodge in Yosemite with our Frenchie, Norman. 

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That’s enough about me. What are your goals or resolutions for the year? Have you written them down somewhere? How are you going to hold yourself accountable?

Hit reply and tell me. Just telling one person about it can help create some motivation. 

Cheers,
Crawdad