Before writing out my 2015 goals for the year I wanted to read The Desire Map (link to my book review) by Danielle LaPorte. My friend Chivon John has been raving about it so I dived in during the month of December to mentally prep for this blog post.

Danielle LaPorte asks us: What if, first, we got clear on how we actually wanted to feel in our life, and then we laid out our intentions? What if your most desired feelings consciously informed how you plan your day, your year, your career, your holidays — your life?

I feel like I’ve been planning my goals in 2013 & 2014 out with how I wanted to feel but I didn’t really name them. It was neat to name my core desired feelings this year. Yes, I said neat. It was a loving soul deep dive that provided me with a bit more clarity into how I truly want to feel. So with my 5 core desired feelings at my side, I set out to plan my 2015 goals.

Danielle has 5 different categories that she outlines during the planning process of The Desire Map workbook. She asks her readers to ponder each category and write about what we’re grateful for, and what’s not working for us and then we freely write about how we’d like to feel. From there you narrow down your core desire feelings. I landed on VITAL, BRAVE, INSPIRED, EASE & LOVE (unconditional). I’m also adding FIERCE to the mix because I wouldn’t do my Alpha Female brand justice without it. Here is the outline of what can be included in each category.

Livelihood & Lifestyle – career, money, work, home, style, space, possessions, fashion, travel, gifts, sustainability & resources

Body & Wellness – healing, fitness, food, rest & relaxation, mental health, sensuality & movement

Creativity & Learning – artistic & self-expression, interests, education & hobbies

Relationships & Society – romance, friendship, family, collaboration, community & causes

Essence & Spirituality – soul, inner self, truth, intuition, faith & practices

At this point I pulled out my handy dandy spreadsheet from the past two years and listed out the 5 categories and then assigned subcategories under each one in terms of where I’d like to set goals.

Livelihood & Lifestyle 

Marketing Career: I want to feel INSPIRED in my career. I continue to call my job at Kobo my dream marketing job because I get to sell books for a living and that’s pretty darn awesome. I have amazing coworkers and I get to create some really cool marketing programs. After almost 2 years (anniversary in April) I want to plan out my career progression at Kobo including a goal of a promotion in 2015 and have a vision for my monthly & yearly work goals that are a bit more structured than they have been in the past. My goal is to have this laid out by the end of January 2015.

Home: I have been in my condo for 7 years. It’s my safe space. I’ve fallen in and out of love in the space. I’ve learned to love myself again in the space. I get to take care of myself through self-care, rest & food prep in this space. When I first moved in I painted my den a horrible dark brown with a red accent wall. The room was uninspiring so I painted it this fall a calm beige with one light blue accent wall in the hopes of creating an INSPIRED writing space where I can work on my book (mentioned in my 2014 goal recap post and I’ll touch again in the creativity section) and practice yoga. I need to take steps to get rid of the current desk in there (too bulky) & bring in a smaller writing desk & full-length mirror for yoga. The goal is to complete this in January to start the year off fresh.

Travel: I want to feel INSPIRED and BRAVE when I make travel plans. This year I’m going to be attending my 3rd annual Transformation Retreat with new & old friends. This year we are going to the Dominican Republic. I promised myself I would only travel to new places but I couldn’t pass up not going on the retreat or I’d have definite FOMO (fear of missing out – yes I’m hip with it). Although I’ve already been to this island in my 3rd year of University, we were in Puerto Plata. This year I’ll be in Punta Cana so at least that’s new in terms of travel plans. I’m also on this new surf kick so I’ve already contacted a surf school down there that I can attend during my free time from the group and therefore be INSPIRED in my attempts to learn & master the sport.

I promised myself in 2013 goal planning that I would do two trips a year. The first is to a resort in the winter (Transformation Retreat) & the second would be an “adventure” trip. In 2015 my adventure trip of the year is potentially going to be Peru. I’m really fascinated by the Inca Trail hike and think that may be on the travel bucket list for the year. I’m also debating Patagonia or Galapagos Islands. I’m thinking of a Sept or Oct trip so I’ll make the decision by the end of the Spring.

Financial: I want to stay credit card debt free in 2015. I also want my financial planning to happen with EASE. I want to save for my RRSP, my TFSA & vacation savings without stress or worry. I have allotted a certain amount monthly that I will contribute to each account automatically each month without thinking twice about it.

Bucket Lists: In 2013 & 2014 I started making Summer & Winter seasonal bucket lists. It’s a tactic I use to try new things, allow myself to live the heck out of our seemingly short summers, endure our cold winters and have a fun life. I already posted about my 2014/2015 Winter Bucket List and I’ll be coming back strong in the summer of 2015 with a new list to check off. I’m definitely already dreaming of putting kite surfing, caving, canoe tripping & zip lining into the mix. For me to do lists work. Because I want to feel INSPIRED, organizing myself with a checklist that I can then schedule over weekends and free evenings means I’m maximizing my time.

Body & Wellness 

Health: If you’re following along I have been recently diagnosed with MS. My biggest goal this year is to feel VITAL in my health. I want to feel alive despite battling an auto-immune disorder. I know there are going to be tough days but I have a holistic health plan to make MS my sidekick (I wanted to type biatch but my mother reads my blogs – HI MOM). Ideally, I would like to never have another episode and therefore not be at the risk of developing the progressive label for this disorder. I can’t control the outcome but I can control what I eat, what supplements I take, how I recover after training, how I self-care each week & how I handle stress. I have my supplement plan, I have new eating tips to follow, I’m waiting to hear what kind of conventional medication I should go on and I’ve been cleared to work out. The month of December was about testing out how far I can push myself, realizing I need to develop stamina again and I’m learning how to recover properly so that exercise stress does not add to the inflammation that my body is battling.

Fitness: As I plan out my training for the new year I know it needs to come with EASE so I have 5 activities I want to do on a weekly basis. Weight Lifting, Running, Obstacle Course Training, Spinning and Yoga. My goal is to attend Alpha Obstacle Training twice a week (one evening & one-weekend class) for my obstacle course race training. I will booster that training with 4 weight lifting sessions a week on my own at the gym before work (focusing on legs, back, shoulder & chest/ab workouts). Finally, I want to incorporate 3 runs a week (road or trail), 1 spin class & 1 yoga class a week. I, unfortunately, won’t be able to return to hot yoga. I’m discovering that heat from workouts, a hot bath, and sitting in a hot tub or sauna are just too much for my body so “cool” yoga will become part of my routine. I also want to try bouldering more or rock climbing to help with my grip strength for obstacle course races.

Races: I already wrote a blog on these goals because they take up a post all on their own. I want to feel BRAVE & FIERCE as I race in 2015 but I also need to feel VITAL. An update already from my 2015 race goal post is that I’ve taken the Snowshoe Raid off my list as I just don’t think my stamina will be ready for a 3-hour race by mid-January. The rest of my goals in summary are: run a winter obstacle course race (Polar Hero), 1 10K (TYS10K), a double Spartan Trifecta, Toronto Tough Mudder, at least 2 X Man races, potentially 2 5 Peaks races & as many Alpha Obstacle Training OCRs as my body can handle.

Creativity & Learning

Blog: I’m really enjoying the frequency of 3 blog posts a week. I want to feel INSPIRED as I write posts both for myself and for you the readers. My post topics have been varied and random or purposeful at times. To put more organization around my content calendar planning for 2015 so you know what to expect… I’m going to focus on my training for obstacle course races, Sunday night meal prep tips, product reviews, things I attempt off my bucket lists, book reviews and how I manage living with MS.

Writing: One of my biggest goals for the year is to become a published author. I spent 2014 writing the rough first draft. I’ve sat with my thoughts, and my book’s purpose and feel more alive and on track for the book’s reason for being. This year will be spent refining the content, and chapters and finding an editor so that I can publish at the end of 2015.

Reading: Reading has always INSPIRED me and keeps my brain fresh and learning so here are some of the books I’d like to dive into in 2015. I’ve placed 21 books on the shelf so far that don’t include business non-fiction which I’ve grouped separately. I read 28 books this year so that will allow me to pick up bestsellers as they come out next year or discover great recommendations from friends.

Business Books: The goal is to read 2 business books a quarter. So January, March, April, June, July, September, October & December will force me to stay on track with this goal and not get side tracked with my usual love for just self-development books which was a theme in 2014.

Essence & Spirituality

Spiritual: My mom got me a new daily devotional for Christmas so I’d like to work on daily habits of praying & reading from it daily. It’s called The Confident Woman (does my mom know me or what?) For this habit to be developed properly I’ll need consistency so I’m going to schedule this in my calendar every morning pre-gym to start the day on the right foot. If I set my alarm for a month it should become second nature for me after 30 days.

I am also going to revisit my goal of watching online church during my Sunday evening food prep. I know this is something I want and miss attending in person. I’ve just always filled the space differently so I’ll plan this out as well in my iPhone calendar to set a reminder for me to tune in and keep my PVR to other nights of the week!

Gratitude Journal: I’m going to continue to update this as time allows. Whether it’s every night before bed or in batches going over amazing days. I like this habit I’ve developed and am going to keep it in my life because it keeps me INSPIRED and happens with EASE.

Relationships & Society

I’ve talked a lot about feeling INSPIRED & VITAL & BRAVE and allowing goals to happen with EASE but I haven’t talked about love. For me, I wrote down UNCONDITIONAL LOVE during the free-flow writing session because this type of love is so very important to me to have it in my life. I’ve been blessed with an amazing family that taught me the concept and has shown me that I yearn to develop my own family unit that is filled with it. But it also applies to my friendships & my self-love. So self-love technically falls under essence & spirituality but I’m going to cover it in the trifecta of self-love, friendships & romance. I think I haven’t found the man who I’m meant to spend my life with and my friendships have evolved over the past two years because I didn’t really grasp how to fully love myself. For sure I pat myself on the back. For sure I toot my own horn. But I’m also ridiculously hard on myself and I’ve only really started touching the surface of what it means to actually unconditionally love myself. I truly believe that God is preparing me for the right people or growing the relationships that he’s put in place already. He may have even been protecting myself & others by having relationships drift apart and more than ever I understand that now. So as I move through 2015 I’m constantly going to remind myself that I am & God’s love is all I need. I will stop seeking it in the back of my head because even though I’ve given up the idea of timelines of how friendships & relationships should go I still yearn for it. And that yearning is ok. It means my heart is ready & excited and to me that’s beautiful. So again no goal in mind because if I put down I would like to be in a long-term relationship next year that’s not my goal to get alone. I just want to continue loving the heck out of myself and living a life where I exude unconditional love to those around me!