8 Categories to consider when goal setting

Happy 2018!

Hope your year is off to a great start and that you feel yourself moving closer to the truest, highest version of you.

If we’re being honest here, mine started off quite slow. I guess a part of me had expected to wake up on the first day of January feeling like… well… magic. Like someone had turned on a faucet and suddenly a flood of fortune, greatness and clarity would pour into my life. Instead, I took the first week off from putting up videos on my channel, procrastinated on just about everything and found it so hard to get back into work.

I’m now well into the swing of things and can feel myself gaining momentum, but it took some time to get to this place. If you’re struggling to find your mojo, some of the things that worked for me included listening to inspiring podcasts, finding accountability partners, going for walks but most importantly, listing down my goals. Seeing them on paper reminded me why I always felt so excited about 2018 and all the things I hoped to accomplish this year.

I’ve always been a believer of listing down the things I want to accomplish at the beginning of the year. I find that it just helps put things into perspective and ultimately allows me to make better decisions as I move through the year. It’s not to say that I’ll be the most focused, productive individual throughout – in fact, halfway through I’m usually panicking because I don’t feel like I’m moving fast enough or perhaps even my goals have changed. But at least having these goals gives me something to focus on; a goalpost if you will.

My goal setting process started off by listing down the things that I was grateful for from 2017. I found that starting off with a gratitude list put me in an even better headspace as I worked on my vision for the new year. I divided my goals into eight categories and started dreaming up what I’d love to accomplish in each one. The categories that I found worked for me are:

1. Career
2. Health
3. Relationships
4. Money
5. Public Service
6. Self
7. Pleasure
8. Family

And in the spirit of being open and having even more accountability partners, I’m going to share at least one of my goals from each category!

Career

Putting this on here feels a little bit like showing up naked to a black tie dinner. I feel a little nervous and embarrassed but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s something I truly wish for in 2018. So here goes – one of the goals I set for myself is to hit 100k subscribers on my YouTube channel. 100k! I’m not going to lie, this feels utterly impossible but you know what they say, if your goals don’t scare you, they aren’t big enough. I’m going to uploading two videos a week and I would love it if you subscribed to my channel if you haven’t already!

Health

Let’s face it, the holidays threw whichever healthy routines I’d picked up in 2017 out the window. I’ve had the hardest time getting back to my routines but I’m slowly getting there. One of the things I want to start doing this year is going for more walks, especially with Naila. So far I’ve been going for 30-45min walks about 3 times a week. Naila seems to love her stroller rides plus I get to listen to podcasts as I walk which means it’s a win win whichever way you look at it.

Relationships

My goal here is simple: to invest in the healthy, loving relationships currently in my life. I really want to make the people I love most in this world feel special by checking in on them regularly and gifting them regularly. I believe over the years I got a little lazy about this but I really want to change things up this year.

Money

Boy oh boy don’t I have some big goals in this category. Having a baby just made me want to speed things up x10! Amongst my many goals in this category, one of the things I really want to do is research more on investment options and money management. This goal was actually inspired by one of my friends, Marion, who’s such a go-getter. A conversation with her made me realize that it’s important to be actively learning about money.

Public Service

I’m hoping to get more involved in projects that help the world produce intelligent, empowered and successful women. Having a daughter has really opened my eyes to the importance of this and made me really conscious of the role I play in this movement. My goal is to be part of projects that have a significant impact on women and girls in Kenya by either lending my voice, time or money to worthwhile causes.

Self

I’ve got a lot of goals here but one of them is reading more. My target is 15 books which may or may not seem like much (depending on how much of a reader you are) but given that last year I read a total of 3 books, this feels like a mountain. If you’d like to get your hands on some of the books on my reading list, you can go ahead and check out these: What I Know for Sure by Oprah Winfrey, How to Get Shit Done by Erin Falconer, and The Course of Love by Alain de Botton.

Pleasure

At the top of my list is a trip to Morocco! I’ve been dreaming about this country for months now and I just have to make it happen in 2018.

Naila (Family)

The most important goal for me here is to continue to put her first and to be present for her. It’s crazy just how much changes in just one month. She’s crawling all over, going up steps and her first tooth is coming out strong! It feels like if I’m not careful, I’ll blink and she’ll be 1.5 years and I’ll have no idea where time has gone. So I really want to work on being in the moment when I’m with her and capturing special moments with her!

Hope this outline will help you list down your goals! And if after all this you still can’t seem to get back into the groove of things, it’s ok. It really is. It might take a little longer than you’d expected but the key is to try and tackle one small thing because it’ll ultimately inspire you to move on to the next.

And trust me, the minute you start feeling productive, you’ll really start to enjoy 2018!