A word of the year to stay focused in 2020, plus monthly goals for January. Share your own goals and stay motivated to accomplish them! I took 2019 off of writing monthly goals, and I didn’t love it. So I’m bringing my monthly goal series back to life in the new year, starting with my 2020 word of the year post! Check out my word of the year generator if you’re still looking for a word to focus on this year. My friend Andie also created a fun printable word of the year activity for this site.
Choosing a Word of the Year for 2020
What You'll Find on This Page
2020 will be a big year for me! I’m turning 40, I’ll finish up my first year back in a classroom in 13 years, and we will find out if Mike is getting tenure. If he does, we’re likely here to stay. If he doesn’t, who knows where we’ll end up! Either way, we’re packing up our house at the end of the year since we are going to spend the first three months of 2021 in Oxford, England. Mike will be looking after his students as they complete study abroad. The kids and I will join them for outings. We’re also planning all sorts of adventures for days when Mike is busy, so if you have ideas of things we should do while we are in England let me know!
2020 also marks the beginning of the last decade where I will have children at home. My youngest daughter graduates from high school in the spring of 2030, and most likely I won’t have kids living at home after that. Already I see my children branching out and becoming their own people with their own lives. They still need me and always will (I love having parents as an adult!), but our relationship will grow and change a lot this decade.
My Word for 2020: CONNECT
I used my Word of the Year Generator to select CONNECT as my word for 2020. I want to connect with Mike and the kids, friends, family, and the middle school students I’m teaching music to right now. Priorities are also something I want to connect to. All too often I find myself chasing interesting things without stopping to think if they are the most important interesting things. Right now I’m working to be more mindful of what opportunities I pursue.
I also want to connect more with readers here. I think that’s actually something I lost a bit when I quit writing these monthly goals posts last year. Hopefully bringing them back this year will close the gap. The connections I make with readers and social media followers make this job worth all the work!
Read all my Word of the Year posts here:
- 2015 Word of the Year
- 2016 Word of the Year
- 2017 Word of the Year
- 2018 Word of the Year
- 2019 Word of the Year
- 2020 Word of the Year
- 2021 Word of the Year
- 2022 Word of the Year
- 2023 Word of the Year
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Monthly Goals for January 2020
I’m back at writing monthly goals after taking a year off where I just didn’t feel like I got enough of the things I wanted to do done. I got most of the things for other people done, but I find it hard to prioritize my own priorities. And I think that’s an issue that a lot of moms struggle with. If I blog here and write it down in my planner (a Happy Planner this year) I can get it done most of the time. When I skip the blogging step, it doesn’t seem to happen nearly as often.
I’m bringing back my themes of gratitude, mindful living, and education for my monthly goals as a way of focusing in on what matters most.
Here is what I’m hoping to accomplish in January of 2020:
- Create a super simple arrangement of the opening of Beethoven’s 5th for my band kids. They want lots of solos, and I’ll see what I can do. Focus: education
- Finish Emma and Anna’s weighted blankets. I’m making them for all four kids. I started with the middle kids since they so often get stuck in the middle, so Lily and Johnny’s are already done. Be sure to read my weighted blanket sewing tutorial if you want to make one. Focus: gratitude and mindful living
- Declutter. This is ALWAYS A January thing for me. Honestly it’s year-round, but I find it especially on my mind each January. Focus: mindful living.
- Organize my room – and maybe re-arrange it. The current setup has been bugging me for a while now, but it’s the obvious layout for the space and I haven’t come up with an alternative I like – yet, at least. Focus: gratitude and mindful living.
- Write up a list of the books I read in 2019 like my list of books read in 2018. Focus: education and gratitude.
And that’s it for me for January! I hope you’ll share your goals with me either in the comments below or on social media.
What is your word of the year for 2020?
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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
I think Connect is a great word of the year. In this fast paced society with so much tech, true connection is what is really missing! More face to face, more listening, more talking those are great goals for us all.
I’ve figured out within a few months I completely forget about my word of the year. Of course, I also do the same thing for my yearly goals, yet I still pretend to make those….. So, that tells you how things go for me.
Another blog I read has weekly goals, and I’ve learned from pretending to play along, I am terrible at making realistic goals. I always seem to think I can accomplish about 5 times as much as I really can. I am not good with time.
I purposely cut myself off at about the half way point of goal setting to keep it achievable… but it’s definitely something that matches some personalities better than others!
Happy New Year! I finally found a way to comment again on your blog by reading it in Firefox :) Your goals for the year sound great and I hope Mike gets tenure and you will stay close. Tell him we are rooting for him!
Thank you! Fingers crossed…