I think I already do an okay job of tak­ing care of myself. I exer­cise. I eat well. I go out on fun dates with my hus­band from time to time. I write for plea­sure. How­ever, I find when I am not inten­tional, these moments are spo­radic, so I typ­i­cally end up with sev­eral days in a row of fran­tic crazi­ness and then a day of indul­gence leav­ing me dread­ing the next few days of the same rou­tine. I’m sure no one can relate, right?

With the New Year and some per­fectly timed emails from a friend and ONS Con­nect focus­ing on self-​​care, I have decided to pay a bit more atten­tion to myself—intentionally. Each week, I plan to focus on one self-​​care tech­nique. I’ll share it here, too, so join me in inten­tional self-​​care this year. Let’s take bet­ter care of our­selves so we can pro­vide bet­ter care for others.

For this first week, spend some time thinking—really sit­ting and thinking—about one goal you’d like to accom­plish this year. Don’t only think about the goal; lay out a plan for the year to accom­plish it.

Want to learn to knit? Set some bench­mark goals, and sign up for a class. Want to run a half marathon? Down­load a free online train­ing pro­gram, reg­is­ter for a race, and get after it. Want to spend more time with fam­ily? Cre­ate twelve or more spe­cial days now, and make it hap­pen. As nurses, we know goals are futile with­out proper assess­ment, plan­ning, and imple­men­ta­tion. Set the goal; make it happen.

One of my goals for 2012 is com­plet­ing a writ­ing project I’ve had in mind for a while now; I’ve bro­ken my goal up into words to write per day. It def­i­nitely makes that ele­phant eas­ier to eat, in small bites. What’s your goal for 2012?