Welcome to my monthly post where I share an update on how I’m doing on my goals for 2017. I hope that this post inspires you in your own goal-setting journey!
It’s the beginning of March, 2017 which means it’s time for my second goal update for 2017. I’ll be sharing a recap of each of my goals + an update on how I’m doing on each of them below. (If there’s no update listed, I have no update to report. Hopefully I’ll have an update next month!)
Personal Goals
1. Run 3 miles in 30 minutes — I took up running again this year — as part of my fitness plan that my nutritionist put together for me. I’ve never been skilled in the running department, but I’ve started to really enjoy it and am wanting to push myself here and be able to easily run 3 miles in 30 minutes.
March 1st update: I started in on an more intentional running regimen — varying between easy runs, long runs, progressive runs, and HIIT workouts + intentional warm-up and cool down. My nutritionist is a runner so he is putting together a run training schedule for me each week!
This month, I’m averaging about 2.4 miles in 30 minutes — up from 2.2 miles in 30 minutes last month! I could push myself and do more, but my nutritionist is encouraging me to not push myself too hard, too fast and instead to slowly build up my endurance. So I’m trying to take my time and not get impatient. Because I know that slow and steady wins the race!
2. Make it to Phase 4 of the nutrition plan — I’m currently working through a 4-phase custom nutritional plan with my nutritionist. I start in Phase 1 back at the end of August 2016. He thinks that at the rate I’m going and progressing, I’ll be able to start Phase 4 by mid-2017! And I guess that when I hit Phase 4, I’ll feel absolutely and utterly amazing!
March 1st update: I started Phase 3 in February! This means I get to introduce back in quite a bit more foods and have more wiggle room as far as what I can and can’t eat. Plus, it means that I’ll be eating even more — which is crazy because I feel like I eat so much right now. 🙂
I love how my tastes have changed so much in the last few months. I crave healthy foods almost all the time and rarely have a desire to eat something that isn’t something nourishing. I even like celery now — a food I couldn’t stomach before!
I think one of the biggest things that has changed is that I’ve really made taking care of my health a top priority in my life. And the benefits and results of that are pretty amazing!
3. Read 48 books I already own — I didn’t read as much in 2016 nor did I set any reading goals because I let myself have a lot more time to rest, feel, think, process, sleep, and just slowly go through one or two books at time. I wanted to see what that felt like… and I realized it was good for a year, but now I’m anxious to get back to more reading and having a few books going at once! I decided to challenge myself this year to focus on reading books I already own.
So I picked 48 books — a stack of 12 books that were old Christian reprints, a stack of 12 books that were story driven, a stack of 12 books that were about improving your life, and a stack of 12 books to encourage me in my Christian walk. My plan is to try to read one from each stack each month.
March 1st update: I’m so excited because I read 15 books and ebooks in January (see all 26 books and ebooks I’ve read on 2017 so far here)! Yay! It feels so good to be back to reading again! Here’s what I’ve read so far this year from books I already own:
January: Candles in the Dark, Grace Not Perfection, A Trip Around the Sun, and The Giver. Of those 4 books, The Giver definitely was the one that impacted me the most profoundly. I wrote more about it here.
February: Answers to Prayer, Hope in Front of Me, The Cozy Life, Be Real.
Marriage Goals
4. Go on a 4-day completely unplugged trip — Jesse and I went to Hawaii last year and it was downright incredible. I left my computer at home and didn’t get online or on social media the entire time. It was BLISS!! We walked for miles on the beach, I fell in love with the ocean, I read 10 books (!), we scouted out the cheapest food options (because the food is SO $$ there! But never fail, we found a Subway we could walk to a few miles away from our hotel!), and we just had so much fun together.
We’re planning to do the same sort of trip of this year, but we’re going somewhere different. We’re currently saving up and looking for deals so that we can do the trip for just a few hundred dollars like the Hawaii trip!
Family Goals
5. Go to South Africa as a family — Our kids have been begging to go back to South Africa and we’ve set a goal to make that happen this year. We’re hoping to find a great deal on tickets like we did last time during a timeframe that works for our friends in South Africa. The kids are already getting really anxious thinking about it (and of course, Jesse and I are, too!!)
March 1st update: We’re starting to work on possible dates for our trip this year. Stay tuned!
Financial Goals
6. Sell our 3 rental houses in Kansas — So, we loved having rental houses and it’s been a great investment for us (we paid cash for them and have turned a profit on them pretty much every single month we’ve had them!), but we have decided that we’d like to sell them (and hopefully turn an additional profit when we sell them) and put that money into our house savings. Then, once we’ve purchased a house here, we’ll start saving to invest in local real estate.
March 1st update: We have a contract on the one rental house we put on the market in February and are supposed to close on it this month. Yay! I’ll keep you posted.
7. Save up to pay cash for a house here in TN — As I mentioned above, this is something we’ve been mulling over a lot this past year and thinking through and have decided to start saving aggressively for in 2017. We currently have around 15% of the total amount we’d like to save set aside in our house savings fund. By selling our rental houses, we should have about 75% of the total amount saved… which will mean, we should be able to save the additional 25% needed this year if we careful and strategic.
And yes, homes in this area are much more expensive than Kansas!! We could move about 30 minutes away and homes would go down significantly in price, but we love this area and we love being so close to our church, to the kids’ school, and to other places we go to on a weekly basis. We’ve also decided we’d like to buy something that would be our “forever home” and would give us enough space to have offices + bedrooms for each of the kids.
**Not listed specifically, but very important to us: We decided to take a leap of faith and significantly increase our giving this year. We didn’t feel comfortable listing the details of that as a goal here publicly, but we wanted to acknowledge that this was happening. Because honestly, it’s our heartbeat and one of the number one reasons I blog and have a business — so that we can give generously to causes and people near and dear to our hearts.**
Business Goals
8. Release 2 courses — We have plans in the works for me to release two full-fledged courses on two different topics. More coming on that in the next 3-6 months!
9. Start 2 new blogs — I shared more here about the big changes that are coming to the blog in 2017 — including two brand-new blogs I’m launching late March or early April!
March 1st update: We are hard at work behind the scenes getting CrystalPaine.com and YourBloggingMentor.com set up. The designs are almost finished and we’re working on content now. I’m so excited about the designs and can’t wait to unveil them soon!
10. Learn YouTube/iMovie — I already told you about this goal! You can follow me on YouTube if you want to watch me learn! ?
March 1st update: I’ve had fun editing and publishing YouTube videos and feel like I’ve made a lot of headway in learning tricks and strategies and what works.
I have a long way to go, but I’m having so much fun! I also decided that publishing a video 5 days per week (what I was initially planning) is too much for my schedule. Instead, I’m shooting for 2 videos per week. That seems to be a good pace for me! You can watch my recent YouTube videos here.
where can I get the brilliant life planner book? I think I really need it!!
I think it’s all sold out for 2017. 🙁
You always inspire me with the way you work towards your goals each year! Whenever we set goals for ourselves, we accomplish so much more and I feel good about making steps towards achieving our wildest dreams.
Our big goal is to pay down debt. I think by the end of this month we will have finished the first credit card, the biggest rock standing in our way. Woohoo! Our #yearofno was awesome for helping us reach this goal. We’re going to spend this year using #PressOn as our goal to finish off the whole mound of debt. So far, so good!
YAY!! Way to go on paying off your debt!!
For cheap international flights, I would recommend subscribing to Scott’s Cheap Flights email list. They have some good deals for just a few hundred dollars!
I admire your specific goals! I guess that I have a goal to make goals? I tend to get discourages if I get slightly off track, so adapting to the realities of setbacks is something that I just need to grasp and move on from. This post has inspired me to take some time and really think about my priorities and goals! 🙂
I’m so glad this post inspired you! I’m cheering for you!
Great Job on your goals. I don’t have as many goals as you have, just 3 big ones this year. I am working on completing my MBA; will be finished in May. I want to take my little girl to China over the summer; we just got passports and am submitting visa applications tomorrow, will be using Groupon to save. I am also trying to get admitted to law school, will be retaking LSATS in June and finishing applications this week. Something crazy recently happened that I guess moved my list to 4, my brother that was adopted out contacted me, and I hope to meet him next month. Awesome job for all that you do, I wish that I could learn to chunk and prioritize goals like you do.
That’s so exciting about your brother!!
You are always an inspiration! Thanks Crystal!
Aw, thank you so much for your encouragement!
You’ve inspired me to set a goal for reading this year too! My goal was 36 books (3 a month) and I’m right on track. I had no idea having a goal set (and made public on Goodreads) would actually motivate me so much!
Also, I would love to read more about your experience with rental properties. I’ll search your site to see if you have anything already. I thought I’d mention it in case you are looking for post ideas ever!
WOOHOO for more reading! Way to go!!
I love reading about your goals for the month! It was very encouraging reading about your vacation to Hawaii too – my husband and I celebrate 9 years of marriage this year and I LOVE the idea of going somewhere fun and unplugging for several days. 🙂
Aw, thank you so much for your kind encouragement!
Just thought I’d chime in to say thank you for all that you do. I’ve been receiving your emails and updates for a good while now and I’m so inspired by you and your family. Honestly, I’ve never really been a person to set goals for myself. Sad, I know. But as I continue to grow in Christ I realize that I probably should set some goals to benefit not only myself but The Kingdom. Thanks for putting yourself out there and sharing yourself with us and following up with updates. Best wishes to you on all of your goals!
Reading your goals posts really inspired me to sit down and write my own goals. I’m working on a 90 day goal list. As a person that is crazy about checking all the boxes…or if I don’t get the boxes checked I just give up the goal…until next year. I’m working on your “slow and steady” wins the race. BTW – I can’t wait to see your new blogs! Your instagram posts have been thought provoking and on point lately. Love it!
I love the 90 Days Goal List idea! Thanks so much for sharing!
I tried to find the post about your hawAii trip and how you did it for a few hundred dollars but can’t find it. Would love to be able to get away with my husband but we are on a tight budget. Any help would be appreciated.
I didn’t do a post on it, but the gist of it is that we used points and miles saved up to pay for almost all of it and then were super strategic about staying somewhere where we wouldn’t really have to spend any money on much of anything once we got there. 🙂
You should do a post on it!
I agree about a post! How do you earn miles without a credit card?
We earn points and miles through always flying the same airline and always staying at the same hotel. It adds up over time — especially when I take multiple business trips in a year!
Where did you get the planner you have in the pictures? I like the different sections in it. Seems to be part planner part journal.
It’s from Brilliant Business Moms — but they are all sold out now. 🙁
I had to laugh when you said houses in Tenn. were more expensive than in Kansas…A few yrs. ago a couple w/ 1 daughter moved from Tenn. to here (near Seattle)…they had another child and decided they needed a bigger home…when they looked here everything is $500,000 or more for homes about 2200 Sq.ft. so they are moving back to Tenn. where homes are so much cheaper….and we live 40 miles from Seattle where homes run in the millions….Fortunately we built our home (literally hammered and painted) 30 yrs ago and paid it off in 15 yrs….
There are definitely some areas in Tennessee where homes are inexpensive, just not in our area or in the areas that are close to where we want to live! 🙂 But we’re grateful that the prices are definitely better than some places like NYC or California! 🙂
Great job on your goals. I’m looking forward to your new blogs as the deals you post here aren’t my thing, I like your business and personal posts better.
After a rough last year with a critically ill parent, I made my sole goal this year to take care of me and regaining my health and energy. With that in mind, I’m also starting a new eating program sponsored by our workplace clinic as well as scheduling some surgery that I’ve been putting off for a few years.
At the root of it, I’m tired of being sick and tired all the time. It’s not the way I want to live my life. I have a six week recovery after surgery and I’m really praying that by the time I go back to work I’ll be feeling fabulous.
As women, so many of us put ourselves last but it’s so important to keep the well filled. It’s just taken me a bit longer to realize it 🙂
I’m SO proud of you for making YOU a priority!!