I’ve always said the best way to achieve your goals is to write those goals down and revisit them from time to time.  This will be my place to share my goals with you and you will hopefully keep me accountable to some point.  Things in my life are different now and it’s weird how quickly things can change.  In the past, I would have been talking about collecting states on my marathon quest or that new distance I was hoping to tackle.

I feel like I’m in a place of starting over and I don’t mind it at all.  Having Baby G has given me a new perspective on things.  I’m building new parts of my life and wandering into a great unknown for me. But I’m also in a place of rebuilding which is something I needed so I can grow and truly be better and train smarter for all things I want to accomplish.  Of course, it goes without mentioning, I want to lose my baby weight from pregnancy but it’s my overall health and activity that will the focus of my goals

1. I want to be a good mom.  This is all new to me so I know I will learn as I go.  I just want to make sure I’m the best possible mom to Baby G as I can possibly be to her.
2. I will strength train consistently throughout the year.  It’s something that I was doing but it wasn’t a habit.  I would go a couple of months of going strong and then I would really get into my running and I would back off of it.  I want to stay consistent with it this year which probably means I’m going to have dedicated days for strength training where I don’t do anything else.
3. I want to be a stronger runner than I was before.  I LOVE running.  It’s embedded into my soul so it’s not going to be something I’m going to stop doing.  But in the last year, I feel like I was fighting off injury and just struggling.  (Probably due to the fact I was pushing my body to the limits.) But I wasn’t progressing, I was digressing which was frustrating at times.  This is where I want to train smarter.  I need to focus on better mechanics, stretching, and recovery to make sure I’m moving forward and not just looking back on the “glory” days.
4. I want to be a better blogger by being consistent.  When I got pregnant, I slacked off of blogging because I didn’t want to share too much about my pregnancy, I was stagnant in my workouts and being active, and I was just plain tired.  This is not a habit that I want to keep going.  I also LOVE this blog and I’ve been working on it for 4 years.  It’s just not something I want to let go.  It’s just a matter of finding the time to get the work done.  Current time: 3:24am.  <– Anytime is a good time to get the work done, right?
5. I just want to get back in the gym.  I can’t wait for the doctor to clear me to get back to working out.  I still have several weeks before he’ll even think about doing this so I still have to be patient.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to get back strong and regain my fitness level so I can at least go back to teaching my cycle classes.
6. I may only run one marathon this year, but it will be the Chicago Marathon. I am running with Team Action for Healthy Kids again and I’m raising AT LEAST $800 for the cause. My goal is to run that marathon in less than 5 hours.  Training will be rough because it will be in the middle of summer and it’s going to be a complete rebuild, but I’m up for the challenge.  Hopefully, mommy life will motivate me to get things done early so I’m not missing time, but she will always come first.
7. Organization and lists are a way of life for me.  Maybe I get those things get in my way but I do this to avoid chaos.  I will try to be a little more flexible in my daily life just to loosen up a bit.  Some people say I’m too rigid, but the truth is: I get things done.  I want to spend 2017 enjoying the moments instead of always thinking about what else needs to be done.

Those are my long-term goals for the year.  I want to keep the list short so I don’t get overwhelmed.  I think there’s enough her for me to work on and to look forward to down the line.  Now you just have to hold me accountable for all the things I want to accomplish this year.  But most importantly, if I don’t achieve all the things on this list, it’s ok.  It’s about trying and putting in the work; I’ll never be disappointed in that.

Have you set your goals yet?  What are one or two long-term goals you have for the year?