Happy New Year! We are now 9 days into 2015, and most of you have probably thought about resolutions, goals, or other plans for this brand new year.

I love the idea of a fresh start, even though it’s a bit arbitrary. Spring also feels full of new opportunity to me, so perhaps in March if you look back and find that things have not gone as planned for the first few months, you can update and tweak your plans.

There are many ways to approach your planning – some people make resolutions (lose weight, finish that novel, be nicer, smile more). Conventional wisdom says that resolutions are not effective for most people, since there is no measurable plan for how to get there. (What are you going to do to get your novel finished? Write each day for 10 minutes? Set a deadline with a friend to read your draft?)

I am a believer in setting goals. Not too many, because then I will get overwhelmed and try to focus on too many things at once. I have three main categories for my goals – writing, fitness, and personal. In each category, I have 3-5 goals. I try to make them as measurable as possible, so I can legitimately celebrate when I get there. Some of my goals include Get an Agent (= rewrite the first chapter of my finished novel + send out my manuscript repeatedly), learn/re-learn to knit, and earn a 5K race time of under 30 minutes. Wish me luck!

Perhaps goals or resolutions don’t work for you, or you want to take a different approach this year. Perhaps you are looking for an overarching theme for everything you do this year. When Joanna and I were discussing this subject, she proposed taking a One Word approach. The idea is to use one word as your guiding principle – words like Believe, Forgive, Dare, or Simplify. It could even just be Write! If I were to choose one word to guide my year, I might choose Soul. I want to focus my choices on those things that feed and nurture my soul. While there are things that I have to do that are neutral on my soul (certain kinds of work, perhaps?), it gives me permission to get rid of those choices that are life-suckers and drag me down. Why make time for that?

What are you goals, resolutions, plans or one word for 2015? Please share in the comments! We’d love to hear them.