Accomplishing Long-Term Goals in 2022

“Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow.”- Tony Robbins

https://www.azquotes.com/quote/564493?ref=long-term-goals

2022 is going to be a big accomplishment of long-term goals year for me. Three long-term goals will come to fruition.

               -I am going to run a marathon.

               -I will pay off my student loan.

               -I will write a cookbook. It will not be published, but written.

These are big, lofty dreams of mine. The cookbook and student loan is a dream I’ve had for at least 10 years. Running a marathon is a dream I created for myself in 2020 I believe. I had ran my first half marathon, and I decided I wanted to do the hardest, most insanely possible thing I could do, and that is run 26.2 miles nonstop. I have signed up for a race on March  6, 2022. I begin training for a marathon on November 15, 2021.

For my student loan, man, I have wanted to pay that thing off for a decade. I had a lot of negative emotion wrapped up in my student loan debt, $36,000 to be exact, that I was just buried under the shame. I desperately wanted to make changes in my work field, but I couldn’t take the pay cut to begin in the business field with an entry level job. I was stuck with a Master’s degree I didn’t use. Every month that $262 payment came right out of our account, and I thought, that’s a car payment for a more reliable car, that would pay down some credit card debt, I would be able to afford nicer clothes, that would be a nice vacation stash, etc. etc.

Then, later in 2019, after I ran my first half marathon, and realized, I am the only thing standing in the way of my goals, I decided enough was enough. It was time to get ahold of my money, and get ahold of this debt. I was going to take over the shame I had in my debt. So I read about 4 different budgeting books, Money Honey, The Budgetnista, Dave Ramsey, and another one. I educated myself, and I made some goals. I started keeping track of our money. I went back 3 months of credit card statements, and categorized our spending, and I had no idea that we overspent the amount of money we brought in. Three months in a row. Do you know what that means? We probably did that most months. And I had absolutely no idea. Doesn’t it seem ridiculous to not know you are overspending the amount of money you are bringing in??? If this is you too, get a pen, paper, and dig into your back statements, line by line.

I made a plan to have my student loan paid off in 5 years. That was my ultimate goal. I gave myself a stretch goal of paying off $10,000 a year, and that would put me at 3.5 years. The first year, we paid off $6,500 towards my principle, falling short of my $10,000 stretch goal. But I was super proud of myself and a mentor told me that paying off $6,500 a year just in principle on top of my $262 a month was a very aggressive accomplishment. I had paid off a vacation budget towards my goal!!

So the next year, 2020, I decided that $10,000 was too heavy of a goal, and scaled it back to $5,000. Something I knew that I could attain, and anything over that would be a huge bonus, emotionally. I had managed to pay $1,000 in the first 3 months of 2020 towards my principle. Then, guess what happened in early 2020? Covid. Student Loan payments stopped. That doesn’t mean that I stopped saving and paying though!! Each month, I put a certain amount of money, much less because it was uncertain times, into a savings account. I wanted to have the money available if we needed it, rather than have no option had I already paid it on my account. Every month, I would make a deposit into the savings account.

Now my last goal, is to write a cookbook. And this is also something that will take a few years to actually happen. I have talked about writing a cookbook for a decade. I want to write something that is meaningful to ME. My heart, my stories, the recipes I’ve grown to love and ones collected from people that I love. I have dreamed on and off about this. Now that I am into goal setting, and I understand the difference you can make in your own life, I began dreaming of writing a book, having forgotten about the cookbook. The past two years have been a journey into bettering myself, and creating the life we actually want to live. Now that I am in a place where I understand growth, I wanted to write a book about it. But I didn’t want to write a memoir, because there’s a lot of pain in my past, and I want to write something from a positive place.

I do believe I was on a run, when I was listening to a podcast about purpose. And basically if you struggle with your purpose like I do, look for common themes in your life. My common theme is food. I taught myself how to cook, loved it, and all my friends associate me with cooking. I am deeply passionate about teaching my daughter to cook, so that when she is an adult, she knows how to shop, store, and prepare food for herself. Then I started thinking about how much I talk about meal planning, and my friends ask me about it. Then, I found a recipe I had typed up at least 8-10 years ago, and the lightbulb went off. I should write this cookbook that has been in my heart all this time! It seemed so obvious to me at that moment. I could write from my heart, I could share food stories, and I could also teach and talk about meal planning. Win, win, win.

               Having spend the past 2 years making progress towards goals, I know what has to be done to bring this cookbook to fruition. I have to type the recipes. Every single day, I have to make time, and gather,  write, cook, and photo these recipes. And it is going to be a lot of work, and I usually stop as soon as I get started because I am overwhelmed by the amount of work it takes, and negative self talk takes over. But I am dreaming of the day that I am holding a cookbook in my arms, and give it to my young daughter. That vision is what is giving me the fuel to write it.

               You can’t do everything at once. I am a huge dreamer, and I have tried to work on several things at a time. I have completely burnt myself out from it. I understand that I am human, I will make progress, it just may not be as fast as I like. And that is ok. These goals are years in the making, and that gives me fulfillment and determination to keep going.

Let’s do hard things together,

Alicia