2017 Goals and Intentions — Girls Like You and Me

At about 2:30 am on January 1st, I was in an uber heading home from a New Year's Eve party. We chatted a little bit about our evenings, and then she asked, "Do you have any New Year's goals?" I was caught off guard- and more than a little sleepy- and blurted out, "I want to work more."

My uber driver, a fledgling director, just nodded, and we ended up having a great conversation about the work it takes to build skills, relationships, and establish ourselves in our respective spaces. At the start of the new year, I don't usually set concrete goals. I prefer to have intentions for the year ahead. I do set goals in my professional and personal life; they're just not bound by a January start date.

Here are some of my intentions for Girls Like You and Me:

Bring a new interview to you every week. This is definitely more "goal" than "intention"
Build the Girls Like You and Me community and create the content YOU want to see
Spread the word about Girls Like You and Me to reach more girls and women and expand the pool of women whose stories we share here
Be open to unanticipated avenues for growth. I have a vision for Girls Like You and Me, but I want to stay open to having that vision evolve
Get better at managing the back-end of the site. I don't know if I'll learn any code, but I want to become more knowledgable about Squarespace, the platform we use, and how to get the most out of it

And some personal ones, which are :

Spend time with friends. This one is always on my list. I have wonderful friends here in Chicago, but many of my closest friends are all over the country. That means that we need to commit time, energy, and money to have that face-to-face friendship. At the start of every year I like to remind myself of how important they are.
Build some habits for working on the road. I inevitably end up traveling a lot (see above) and have a hard time keeping up with my work when I'm away from home. I need to face up to the reality that having a flexible schedule doesn't mean I can take time off whenever I feel like it.
Reading! I always have a goal of some kind with reading. In 2015, it was to read 75 new books because I hadn't read much in 2014 and I wanted to get back in the habit of reading a lot. (I made it to 74.) In 2016, I wanted to read more non-fiction by women and more long books. (I finally finished Team of Rivals, which I started in 2006!) Since I inevitably read almost everything that really popular, I think I'm going to stick with the same goal as 2016. It's a good reminder to tackle the more involved books I want to read, even though they require more patience, attention, and time.