I heard someone say if you want to have clear ambitions and reach goals in your life you should ask yourself where you want to be in a year, five years, or ten years from now. Once you know where you want to be in five or ten years you can start figuring out the smaller daily steps for reaching that goal on time.

I’ve thought a lot about where I want to be one year from now. When 2013 slips into 2014, where do I want to be in my life? What do I want to have accomplished or overcome? What do I want to be different about who I am or what I’m doing? And in turn, what small steps do I need to take each day throughout this upcoming year to reach those goals?

Here are some of the things I want from 2013 in no particular order:

I Want to Relax and Do Things That Scare Me:

I promise to calm down, live life, and stop worrying about all the “what if’s” so much.

I promise to go inner tubing with my husband even though it scares me and washes my eye makeup off—which leaves me looking like a scared, 12-year-old boy 8]

Because you miss out on so much of living when you’re too afraid to try.

I Want to Build a Better Relationship with My Husband:

I promise to go back to the ice cream stand where I fell in love with Darren. The place where I said something “inappropriate” and Darren laughed so hard he almost snorted ice cream up his nose. The place where Darren smeared ice cream in my face and I knew right then that I loved him and wasn’t about to live without him. The place where he was no longer just a guy I liked but became the guy I knew I would spend the rest of my life with. I promise to go back…and this time I’m smearing ice cream in his face :]

Because I don’t want to miss a moment with the man I love so much.

I Want to Capture the Fleeting Beauty of Each Day:

I promise to capture the moments. The fireflies and star-lit skies. The flowers, the leaves, the people and places. All the magic that makes our days.

I promise to take my camera with me everywhere because there are moments to be captured and remembered—moments I’ll never get again.

I promise to develop better photography skills so I can better capture the world around me.

I promise to learn to draw and sketch as best I can so I will have the ability to capture and recreate the beauty all around me.

Because, the world is full of magic you know; it’s all around us if we will open our eyes and see. It’s ours to keep if we will slow down and take it.

I Want to Have More Discipline Over My Body:

I promise to get in good enough shape to climb Mount Washington because Darren loves it up there at the top and I’ve never experienced that place so important to him with him.

I promise to lose the 15 pounds I’ve gained because I’m tired of not feeling good about my body.

I promise to get in good enough shape to ride my heavy 1-speed bike up and down the hills and all over the place.

• I will do this by getting up early enough to work out for 30 minutes each weekday before work.
• I will replace my daily coffee with tea during the week.
• I will control the portion sizes I eat.
• I will buy and prepare healthy meals for my family

Because it’s crazy to let 15 pounds keep me from being healthy and happy in my own skin.

I Want to Go On Quiet Little Adventures:

I promise to go camping beside the ocean and watch the sun rise over the water.

I promise to explore Acadia on my heavy 1-speed.

Because life doesn’t have to be boring unless you’re a boring person. Why be bored when there is so much life to be lived, so much to see and do?

I Want to Make Time for People and Community:

I promise to have people over for dinner.

I promise to make our home a warm, inviting place where people always know they’re welcome.

I promise to go home and see my family even though tickets are expensive.

I promise to spend time with friends and stop complaining about how I’m too busy.

Because people are more important than my schedule.

I Want to Read More:

I promise to spend more time reading and less time watching TV and messing around on the internet.

I promise to invest money into books.

Because whole worlds live in the pages of a book and I don’t want to miss out on a single lesson or story.

I Want to Improve My Blog:

I promise to invest the time and patience it takes to build a beautiful, meaningful blog.

I promise to slow down and write thoughtfully.

Because blogging is an amazing outlet and opportunity I don’t want to waste by being lazy and impatient.

I Want to Have More Financial Discipline:

I promise to stick to our budget.

I promise to stop looking for things to want.

I promise to be thankful for and content with what I have.

Because there is so much more in this world to love than fleeting, material things.

I might make a baby too…

Because…

I’m tired of waiting for life to begin at some other place and time.

This one year, no matter what it is, no matter what it’s not—this one year I’ll never get again.

One year from now I want to look back at this post and see all the things I did, not just things I talked about doing. One year from now I want to have pictures, sketches, words, and stories from a year of live lived meaningfully. A year from now I want to be closer to my husband, my God, my friends, and my family. I want to have gone on adventures and faced my fears. I want to look back with peace and satisfaction—not regret.

To do this will mean taking small steps every day. It will mean getting out of bed earlier than I want to to work out…I hate working out. Sometimes it will mean saying yes to something that scares me and sometimes it will mean saying no to something I want. It will mean making choices—choosing one thing over another because each day comes only with limited time and opportunity to choose what’s most important.

I have no idea what the next 365 days will hold—happiness, heartache, adventure, mistakes…some of each, I’m sure.

Wherever this road leads, whatever I face, I hope only that I will come out on the other side a little bit different. A little bit changed.

What do you hope for in 2013? Where do you want to be one year from now and how will you get there on time?