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For my first post of the year, I thought it would be fitting to do a goal post. I have always loosely set goals in the past. As a result, I often didn’t feel like I accomplished much during the year. This year I wanted to hold myself more accountable by displaying all my goals for the internet world to see. I will probably regret this a year from now, but I’m going to give it a go.
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Personal Goals
1. Eat a healthy diet and cut down on the number of fast food trips we make. Last year, we didn’t eat the healthiest and bought many convenience foods. I will plan ahead this year so we eat many more meals at home.
2. Exercise daily. Get at least 10,000 steps per day and do at least 3 other workouts per week. I just got a new Fitbit Charge HR like this one. I love this Fitbit because it measures my heart rate as well as tracks my steps.
3. Lose 10 pounds. Over the last year, I have put on weight. Being just a little over 5 feet, a weight gain like that is rather noticeable. Part of the weight gain is related to my age. Being in my 40s, I can no longer eat the way I used to and I need to realize my metabolism is not what it once was. The other reason for my weight gain is due to a lot of unhealthy choices through grief eating. I spent a good portion of my time grieving the death of my mother-in-law by eating. Most of the time, I didn’t even realize I was eating. I’d pass by the pantry and find comfort in a few granola bars. Granola bars, no matter how healthy, can definitely pack on the pounds if eaten in large quantities.
4. Drink more water. I drink a lot of coffee, but I don’t drink enough water. At most, I drink 24 oz. per day. I would like to drink at least the recommended 64 oz.
5. Read 52 books this year. I joined the Goodreads challenge. If you have a Goodreads account, you can become my friend here to see what I’m reading. I am going to try an A to Z challenge where I read a book starting with each letter of the alphabet and then a book from an author starting with each letter of the alphabet. So far, I have read Animal Farm and am now reading The Book Thief. I found the idea for this challenge on Read 52 books in 52 weeks.
6. Reach out to family and friends more. We are so consumed with life’s mundane details that we don’t take enough time to savor moments with family and friends.
7. Grow spiritually. We go to church each week, but I know that is not enough to fulfill my spiritual needs. I would like to find a good devotional so that I can address this need on a daily basis.
8. Crochet or make one thing per week. I would like to fill my Etsy store with a lot more items. Right now, I am going to take an Etsy break until I have more inventory. I don’t know how to fit this in my schedule, but I want to figure this out by the end of the year.
I would like to fill my Etsy store with a lot more items. Right now, I am going to take an Etsy break until I have more inventory. I don’t know how to fit this in my schedule, but I want to figure this out by the end of the year.9. Finish at least 2 Udemy courses or Skillshare courses per month. I enjoy taking online classes and have learned so much from them. I want to continue to learn a variety of skills during 2016.
10. Participate in the fatmumslim photo challenge and improve my photography this year. I love taking pictures and I want to learn more about photography. If you want to join in this challenge, you can find it at Photo a Day at Fatmumslim.com. I like her challenges because they cause me to take the time to be mindful about the process of taking a photo. I’ve noticed it also is allowing me to find moments throughout the day I might not have paid attention to before. You can follow my Instagram account here: Learned Mom’s Instagram account.
Family Goals
11. Spend more focused time with my kids. I get so distracted by everything that needs to get done at home that I feel like I’m not always giving my kids my full attention. I want to spend more time one on one with my children this year. I would like to set up a one-on-one monthly date with both of my children.
12. Encourage our family to do more for other people. We are extremely busy, as most families are, and it seems like we don’t spend enough time doing charitable work or enough time doing things for other people. I would like to get into a habit of performing one family act of kindness each week.
13. Go on a date with my husband at least once a month. I can’t think of the last time my husband and I went on a date. We spend a lot of quality time together at home, but we don’t ever go anywhere together without the kids. I want to make date time more of a priority. I found some great winter date ideas at this webpage: Club 31 Women.
14. Spend more time reading aloud to my kids. Right now we are reading Anne of Green Gables. My youngest is enjoying it and my oldest has listened enough that she wants to start reading this independently.
Household Goals
15. Get my house in order. Finish going through the Kondo method and complete the daily tasks/challenges on the following three sites:
16. Maintain a clean house by using a weekly schedule. We clean our house regularly, but it is always done in such a haphazard way that it stresses me out. I want to develop a schedule to help me manage this better.
17. Get my kids more involved with the household maintenance tasks. We were doing well with this until Christmas break happened. I can’t seem to get them back on track. I am trying some of the ideas from this book: Cleaning House.
18. Establish a more consistent allowance system with my kids. I want them to learn how to use money, how to budget, how to save, and how to give to others. I want to implement some of the ideas from The Opposite of Spoiled.
Blogging/Website Goals
19. Revamp my site to include a better menu at the top. Now that I have several posts, I need to organize my site better so users can find topic-related posts.
20. Post twice per week when possible and allow myself breaks for spending time with family over holidays and when I am rehearsing for a show.
21. Learn how to monetize my blog. Since I spend so much time writing, I would like to figure out a way to monetize my blog.
22. Increase my page views to 5000 per month. It is difficult to get traffic to my website and I need to learn how to drive more traffic to my posts.
23. Learn more coding and graphic design skills to help me with the design of my blog. I am utilizing some great sites which teach these skills for free.
Performance Goals
24.Create my performer webpage/resume. I’ve had my domain name for three years and still have done nothing with this.
25. Learn how to make vocal recordings. Eventually, I would like to record some music for my family and for posting on my performer site, but I have no idea how I should do this.
26. Perform in two productions this year.
As you can see, I want to accomplish a lot this year. Looking at this list overwhelms me, but I’m going to try my best to focus my attention on as many of these goals as possible throughout the year.
Do you have goals for 2016? How do you set and track your goals?
Wow, very nice job. There are so many here I can relate with.
Spending more time with the children, but focused. Love this!
Dates with my husband, we used to do this-then we stopped. Need to get this back, even if its kicking the kids out and movie night at home.
Very thought out, I really enjoyed reading this post. There was one thing you didn’t link to and I was so hoping you would. What are Skill share courses?
Have a great night,
Thank you. Skillshare classes are great! There are all kinds of creative classes plus some social media marketing classes. You can go to the link at http://skl.sh/1SCJ4cy. That’s my referral link. There is a special right now for 50% off the annual plan. They even have knitting classes….basically, everything I love.
I can identify with most of your goals. Especially 5 (not sure I’ll make it to 52books though), 7 (priority for me),13 (poor husband has been neglected ever since my little man was born) 21 (a must for this year). As for family goals, all of the above.
Thank you for visiting my blog. At this point, I am not doing too well with my goals. I definitely set more goals than I should have. With kids, I find that it is very difficult to actually accomplish what I set out to do each day.
Wow, you have some ambitious goals for sure. I have all of the same goals, except I don’t have children and I can’t sing well enough to want to make a recording. Taking time to go on a date with my hubby, doing a daily devotional, reading books, crocheting more, working on my (brand new) blog- those are all things I also want to do! Thanks for sharing!
I am finding my goals are way too ambitious. I should have removed at least half of those goals. Time to prioritize and figure out what I can actually accomplish.Thanks for visiting!