At first I was a bit lost when I started thinking about my goals for 2021. We’re coming out of such a strange year, so it’s incredibly hard to know what might be reasonable goals when our life is still nowhere near back to “normal”. I’m a goal setter, but I just wasn’t inspired because our state is still has severe restrictions with no end in sight. How can I set goals when I have no idea what the coming months may look like? Then it hit me. I need to focus more on what I can control and less on what I can’t control right now.
Setting Goals for 2021
Let’s face it. There’s a lot we can’t control right now. 2020 has certainly taught me that. Towards the end of the year when my family and I started looking back at this last year, we realized that we really did have a wonderful year. No it wasn’t the year we’d expected and planned, but we certainly had a lot of great experiences. We had to abandon some goals, but we achieved others.
PIVOT. Many people go into a new year with a focus word to help them keep their focus on what’s important to them that year. I think the word for 2020 was PIVOT. We certainly made a lot of pivots as we tried to navigate all of the changes. I need to keep that word in mind as we head into 2021.
This is why it was so hard for me to look at 2021 and set some goals. I have NO idea what 2021 may bring. So much of it is out of my hands. However, I can focus on what I CAN control.
I went back to the basics with goal setting. SMART is an acronym that can be used to help set goals AND achieve them. Every goal needs to be…
- S – Specific
- M – Measurable
- A – Achievable
- R – Reasonable
- T – Time Bound
Without these, goals are incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to achieve. With that in mind, here are some of our goals for 2021.
Related Post: Skip Resolutions and Make a Quit List
Homeschool Goals
I keep reminding myself that one of our main reasons for homeschooling is that we can customize our kids’ education to fit their individual needs and interests. I’m definitely prone to getting stuck in the “check the box” mode, so I’m making a commitment to cater more to them and not a checklist.
My oldest is taking Interior Design classes on Outschool which makes it really easy to make sure she gets plenty of time to pursue this passion. Plus, she’s really enjoying interacting with the teacher and other students online.
My youngest is still loving all things STEM – especially engineering and robotics. We have several wonderful books that she reads on her own, but we’ll be using them in a more structured manner during science time so that she can really get the most out of them. We’ll be switching from her usual science curriculum to focus on activities from Engineer Academy, Scientist Academy, and Coder Academy for the remainder of this homeschool year. I wrote it all out with a plan to finish these books by the end of summer.
Related Post: Making Homeschool Middle School Unique
Read Aloud Goals
We already do a ton of reading because we use a literature-rich homeschool curriculum. My kids also love to hoard books from the library. However, I’ve noticed that we have a lot of fantastic books that we haven’t read much because we’ve gotten away from our Morning Basket routine. My kids have noticed and they miss it.
I’ll be using my Morning Basket Planner printable to get back into this wonderful routine. I’m excited to share these great books that we’ll be reading this year, which will help keep me accountable for my goal of reading aloud for 20 minutes every day from our Morning Basket in addition to our usual homeschool curriculum.
Last year, 2020, has definitely taught me the importance of building our own library of books. While I LOVE the library, getting books from there has been completely unreliable this year as it has been closed for long periods of time. We’re budgeting a bit extra every month so I can start buying more books that I know we’ll use again and again.
Related Post: Morning Basket Tips to Get Started
Nature Adventure Goals
Last year I completed the 52 Hike Challenge for the first time and I’m really looking forward to another year of adventures! We’ll also be tracking our time outdoors with the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge. My kids already get a lot of time outside with the neighborhood kids, so we’ll be focusing on having 500 of those hours out in nature. I’ll be sharing pictures of our adventures over on Instagram so stop by and say hello!
There are other goals that I’d like to make for the year, but they rely a bit too much on things I’ve realized that I can’t control. So, I’ll keep them in mind and understand that we may have to pivot again as we have in 2020.
What are your goals for this year?
Leave a Reply