FIVE GOALS FOR 2023

MY FIVE GOALS FOR 2023 cup of coffe

Five Goals for 2023 | Friday Five


My five goals for 2023 are personal. Being a Fresno Wedding Photographer keeps me busy. I can easily get caught up in my business and all the things it takes to keep it running well. This causes me to get unbalanced. My personal life ends up getting neglected.

I am not one to set new year resolutions, but I am learning to set attainable goals for myself each year. Right in line with what I just said, those goals are usually related to my business. Those goals may be to increase bookings, shoot at a dream location, increase revenue, etc. This year I decided to commit to setting personal goals and find a better balance between running my business and living my best life!

Here are my five personal goals for 2023:

Goal #1: Read More

I used to be an avid reader. When I was a kid my dad and step-mom didn’t own a TV. When I would visit them during the summer we would go to the library each week. I would check out vinyl records and a stack of books. I’d listen to the albums and read through those books like crazy.

My passion for reading continued as an adult. The books I tend to gravitate toward are historical fiction, the typical romcom story, and a good self-help book. Life is already so full of drama and awful things, I don’t find it entertaining to read about those things.

Reading is one of those things that I quit doing because my business took so much of my attention. I also found I didn’t have the same ability to sit quietly and get into the book. My mind kept racing with things I believed I should be doing instead.

Now that I have systems in place that make running my wedding photography business easier, I can carve out space in my day to get into a good book. Have any you want to recommend? Drop your favorite titles in a comment!

MY FIVE GOALS FOR 2023 stack of books

Goal #2: Attend Church

This is an important goal for me. I grew up attending a Seventh-Day-Adventist church with my family every weekend, it wasn’t an option. When I became a teenager I quit going. I started to question things about the church we attended and I was realizing how stifling it was. I just didn’t believe that God intended things to be the way they were.

While I was student teaching it came to my attention that my master teacher had attended the same church I had growing up, but her family left the church just as my family was coming in. Our paths never crossed because of this. She told me about the church she and her husband were attending and it sounded wonderful to me. She invited me to join them and the church was wonderful!

They had a saying back then, “We are the church for people that hate going to church”. Boy, that was sure me at the time! I learned about having a relationship with God, rather than the hell and damnation that I grew up hearing. It was refreshing and something I had craved. I kept going back, seeking more, until I got divorced and everything changed.

After my divorce, it became easy not to attend church on Sunday morning. I was tired and broken, so I wasn’t up for the Fight with my kids to get them to church. The longer I didn’t go, the easier it got to just stay home.

Here we are almost 13 years later and I still haven’t gone back. So, this year my goal is to go back and reconnect. I haven’t lost my connection with God, I’ve lost connection with other people, and it’s those connections that fill my soul.

MY FIVE GOALS FOR 2023 cup of tea

Goal #3: Shoot a Wedding in Italy

Yep! This does sound like a business goal not a personal goal, but it’s kind of both. My heart yearns to travel and see the world. There is so much out there to experience. I love meeting new people and experiencing different cultures. Italy is on the top of my travel bucket list, if I set a goal to visit Italy I may as well shoot a wedding while I’m there, right? How could I not come home with gorgeous images from a wedding on Lake Como? If you know of anyone getting married there, let me know!

MY FIVE GOALS FOR 2023

Goal #4: Be Intentional with my Relationships

This goal is about not just talking about it, but being about it! How often do we run into an old friend that we haven’t seen in a long time, who we like, and say things like, “We need to get together and catch up”, but it never happens?

My goal for 2023 is to make it happen. If I say we should do something, we need to do it. Life is so short and we never know when we are going to leave this earth. I want to be intentional with my relationships. My friendships and my family are important to me so, I need to make sure I am spending time with them and creating core memories. Want to grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine? Let’s do it!

Goal #5: Minimize

Where are my fellow pack rats? I am not a hoarder by any means, but I was taught not to be wasteful and I definitely learned that we might need that someday, or it will come back in style.

My 97-year-old grandmother saved every single birthday, anniversary, Christmas, you-name-it card since the 1950’s! She had boxes upon boxes of cards stashed in her home. She also saved every newspaper clipping and we won’t talk about the boxes of photographs she had stacked up in her closet.

I am all for sentimental value, and I learned from the best (my grandmother), that you save everything. Now, my house is full of clutter. My closets are full of “I’ll use it someday things”. There are clothes in my closet from over 15 years ago. Good grief that’s a hard one to admit.

My number 5 goal is to let go of things that serve no purpose or take up space in my home that I don’t need. If it comes back in style, I’ll buy it again. If I find I need it, I’ll replace it. There is something so freeing about clearing out all the things I’ve held onto because of a family habit. I’m really looking forward to shedding off all this clutter this year. Anyone out there that loves clearing out junk and organizing and wants to come help me?

Thanks for taking the time to read about my 5 goals 2023 goals! What goals do you have for this year? Let me know in the comments!

Read more personal blogs.

Here’s a great article on setting goals.

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