20 #Goals for 2017

Peace out 2016! Welcome to 2017!  I made this list in January FYI even though I’m posting it in March. Better late than never. Right?! Let me know in the comments what some of your goals are for this year!

Here are 20 of my goals for 2017:

1.) Finish a Full Ironman race– And not just finish it, CRUSH IT! I’m always training to have fun, but this year I want to push myself harder than ever. I want to know what it feels like to give it 100% while training, not the 60% I usually put in. The Ironman Santa Rosa has my name written ALL OVER IT! I’m signed up and marked my calendar for July 29th! 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, 26.2 mile run-I’m coming for you! Anyone want to join me?!  🙂 I’m also hoping to find an awesome tri-group to train with along the way and a swim coach because I’m a TERRIBLE swimmer! lol

I had the pleasure of competing in my first triathlon in 2016 at the Escape from Alcatraz race (click link to view blog post) and later in the Austin 70.3 Ironman race (which is half the distance of the full Ironman). I can’t explain how much joy I get from the running/triathlon community. It gives me purpose and something to look forward to. Training keeps my mind engaged and my body in check. You don’t have to run in the races, you can also volunteer! Volunteering is something I want to do as well this year.

2.) Volunteer– If that means helping a family or friend move out of their apartment, watching their kid or fur baby for a couple hours, spending time with the elderly, caring for animals, raising money for good causes…I want to make this a priority this year. It should always be a priority and had been in the past when I was a Big Sister in the Big Brother Big Sister organization for a couple years. It is selfish, but I probably gained more from that experience than my little sister or brother did.

It is easy to ignore those around you suffering or in need of a hug or hand. I want to be a stronger person myself so I will have the capacity to serve others this year, and I will gladly welcome your help and love this year. I’m not the best at accepting assistance from others, but it can be exhausting trying to do everything on your own. Remember to put your mask on first before you help those around you. A little airplane talk for ya! ha 🙂

3.) Start my own Race– I had this bright idea about a year ago. I want to put on a race that will bring people together and will encourage kids and adults to get active. If you have any suggestions/want to help me accomplish this goal or have been thinking about it yourself, let’s make it happen! I think it would be the COOLEST thing to host a race and set up cheering sections! Let’s make this dream of mine a reality!

4.) Finish my 5th NYC Marathon-I made this goal 4 years ago, and I am so close to checking this one off the list! I’m not sure why I had it in my head that I wanted to finish 5, but I did. I can’t imagine not being in NYC for the marathon to be honest. The entire week feels like a modified Christmas celebration. All the love, the people, the hope, the charities, the athletes…it is positively wonderful! I’ve entered the lottery and will find out in March if I made the cut. If I don’t get in through the lottery, I will run for a charity again which is always fun!

5.) Write– It is daunting to expose your inner thoughts and feelings in a public forum, to not hide behind a picture. Writing in this blog offers me a way to connect with my family and friends all over the world, but it has also been hard to share. I can’t tell you how many posts I’ve started, but I never published them. This year will be different.

I want to create. Sometimes to create means to fail, but I am a huge fan of trying and landing on my face or my a&*! I don’t believe in failing though. I try to learn something positive from every experience. Do you feel like you’re always looking at the negatives or the positives in your life? That negative energy can really weigh you down!  I’m not saying I don’t have crap days. We all have those, but after you have flushed the sh&% down the toilet look for the equivalent of the air freshener in your life! haha

6.) Get my emails under control aka become more tech savy– I have 65, 148 emails at the moment. What the what?! Should I be on the show Hoarders? Does anyone else have this problem? That is too much clutter in my life. Confession…most of them are shopping emails.

Using WordPress and my iPhone are at the top of my list of tech items to conquer. Learning how to utilize technology will help save me some valuable time, I hope.

7.) Book more TV shows/Films/Commercials– My major goal is to be a series regular for a respected show. Okay, so this one is not completely in my hands. When I audition for things, I obviously try to bring my best self, but it is not always in the cards. HOWEVER, I’ve decided that this year I need to start taking the reigns on things in life I can control…go to next goal…

8.) CREATE!- I want to connect with more of my peers to create! Pictures, videos, blog posts, YouTube videos, Instagram content…I want to make things and not wait for them to come to me. Shout out to my friends Ana and Aaron for including me in your creative process. You guys are the BEST!

I pride myself in being a proactive person, but I’ve struggled to find the courage to release content that I haven’t had the chance to perfect. This year is all about trying, learning, and growing. If you want to make a project, please let me know how I can help! Let’s collaborate! And honest feedback is always welcome! I promise, I have ridiculously thick skin.

9.) Start a Birthday Card tradition- A couple years ago, I set out Valentine’s Day cards and candies to friends from Facebook. V-Day is one of my favorite holidays! It’s seriously a day of celebrating love! You don’t need a significant other to celebrate that! It was a BLAST making the cards and sending out stuff in the mail.

My #1 favorite thing, is getting stuff in the mail! I would LOVE to do this with birthday cards this year! If you would be interested in getting a little HBD love this year, please leave your email in the comments so I can message you for your address!

10.) Embrace failure– If you get sick of me posting this year, sorry I’m not sorry. If I look silly doing something or write things with a ton of grammatical errors, oh well, life goes on. If I embarrass myself with terrible acting or make a dumb joke, hopefully the next round will be better. If I crash and burn meeting a new group of people, maybe they will find in endearing. This is a pep talk to myself by the way. Lol

11.) Live in the moment– PUT YOUR FREAKING PHONE DOWN FOR A FEW MINUTES!!! People watch, read a book, breathe, enjoy the rain or the snow or the sunshine…just BE. I’ve been called the iPad police on more than one occasion by my nephews. Seriously, they fear me when they’ve been seen with their contraband. haha Just know, if we are at dinner and you are on your phone, I’m secretly judging you. Honestly, I’ll probably be sending you menacing looks, so you will certainly know I’m thinking not so nice things aka how rude you’re being.

12.) Learn to speak Spanish and play the guitar– I have either made excuses or didn’t make the time to practice. I am a HUGE fan of learning and experiencing new things, but I need to make this a daily habit instead of an afterthought. My friends, Jeremy and Jen, already said I could borrow their guitar! Score!!

13.) Become a more experienced photographer with my new camera/document my travel experiences to share with others– My camera is allowing the creativity to ooze out of me. Hopefully, I can turn this passion for capturing images into something fun. If you want to model for me, let me know! I’m taking submissions! Haha

14.) Love harder, complain less, and stop being impacted by others’ expectations of what my life should look like– You are engaged, married, pregnant, have 10 kids, have zero kids, have 10 cats/dogs, have a normal job, have a house, are religious, hate religion, live in the city, live in the country, you’re vegan, you hunt, you love politics, you hate politics, you’re in debt, you have a million dollars saved up, etc…I get it, you think your life is amazing, and I am SOOOO happy for you! I think your life is great too! But just because our lives are different, doesn’t mean they aren’t equally wonderful!

I know you think having kids will make me happier, but you don’t hear me telling you how great it is to not have that responsibility yet or how crazy you are for having them in your 20s do you?! And on that note, how do you know I can physically have them or if I even want them if I could? These are personal topics that so many people discuss freely. It’s kind of weird and personal to me.  I feel like I could write an enormous post on how as women we are pressured to have kids/get married/look a certain way by other women and men. (Maybe I will at some point) For the men out there reading this, I know you have your own set of expectations as well. I’m only using this as one example of people not being empathetic. I will try to be more understanding of the close-minded people that only see their way of living as the right way though, and I will also try to be more open minded myself. We are all entitled to live our lives how we see fit. We can all hug it out!

15.) Encourage, embrace, accept other women- For some reason, I’ve found women are harder on each other than men have ever been on us! Why do we do that to one another?? Why are we body shaming other women? Or mom shaming? (Is that what it’s called? ) Why aren’t we encouraging women to be leaders? I seriously saw a post this year from a woman explaining that she didn’t believe women should ever be in leadership positions. #mindblown Why can’t we support women who decide to go to work in an office AND also support women who decide to work in their homes to support their families? Can we give each other a freaking BREAK?!

I’m not a jealous person. I am thankful I was raised to appreciate the strengths of others. I want to learn from you if you are more knowledgeable or more experienced than me. Teach me. Show me. I’ll STFU and listen. Please and thank you! Can we all try to do a little more of that? Instead of tearing each other down? Everyone is always so quick to judge, but would you be saying any of that stuff to that person’s face?

Also, can we please stop using the B word? It is offensive and degrading to me and other women. I sometimes slip and say it, but I’m actively working on removing it completely from my vocabulary. I encourage you to do the same. Your words are powerful. Choose them wisely.

16.) Start a bookclub/tv show/film club- Who’s in? I read and watch A TON of content. It would be fun to make this a monthly thing or even a long weekend type of event. I’m a decent cook and love hosting events!

17.) Do one of those 100 days of fitness challenge things- My friend Carson recently did this, and I thought it was a great idea! I was thinking about trying something like that in a daily video blog to show body progress, talk about my daily food choices, and training I’ve done during the day. What are your thoughts? Would you have any interest in seeing or hearing about that type of thing? —-I’m starting small, all of March, I will post on IG, workout, or post on my blog…or all three. 

18.) Get better at responding on social media- I tend to have weeks where I’m a full blown crazy social media person. Then I have times where I’m MIA for months at a time. I want to be more consistent with communicating with those around me. I don’t always see comments or messages because I’m usually on my phone not my laptop, and for some reason FB isn’t as iPhone friendly. That, or I’m just really bad at navigating the app.  I’m trying to get better though.

I appreciate when people take time out of their busy days to show me love. I want to make sure I do the same in return. I will say that I am more likely to respond to people I have met personally. I also want to point out that I am not interested in sharing my love life on social media and haven’t been for a very long time. I like to keep some things private in the age of over exposure. I hope you will understand and respect my decision to keep that to myself.

19.) Participate in races across the country/world with other women (and men too!)- In 2016, there was a group of us girls that ran a 20k together in Dallas. Honestly, it was one of the best weekends of 2016! I got to spend time with old friends and met some new ones along the way.  I also met some awesome girls at the Austin 70.3 race that I would love to connect with at future races as well!

Does anyone already do this? Wanna include me in the email list? I’m always up for a race weekend. I will be posting my race schedule in the next few weeks when I have a more concrete idea of what I’m going to do.

I want to encourage more girls to be involved in these races. You CAN do it! I promise! We can walk a 5k together or run a marathon side by side! I’ve heard so many women tell me they could never run this or that. I have witnessed a close friend in her 50’s finish her first 5k running through that finish line! She never thought she could do it, but she did! Let’s do it together! If I can’t physically be there, I will try my best to be your cheerleader from afar!

20.) Continue making new goals! –That’s a given

Okay, If you’ve read my post this far, WOW, you have stamina! And you will hopefully help me hold myself accountable this year for completing this to do list! We have to rely on each other because we can’t do it all by ourselves. I like to write my goals down as a gentle reminder of the things I want to accomplish. Otherwise, I will forget and three years will pass by before you know it!

What are some of your goals/dreams you want to make realities in 2017 or beyond?  I would love to know! 

Ready to jump in and get to work!!

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XOXOXO BRITT

4 Replies to “20 #Goals for 2017”

  1. kaoscharlie says:

    Great goals! Good luck Britt! Much love always!
    Charles Hendzel

  2. B. Waller says:

    Good stuff, rock on!

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