10 Goals For November

Getting back into goal-setting…woot woot!

It’s so easy to let busy-ness get in the way of sticking with my goals. But my mantra came back to haunt me recently: do the things now that will make you the person you want to be in the future. I asked myself, so, what are you doing to…

• Be a devoted wife?
• Be a healthy person?
• Know God and the Bible deeply?
• Grow personally and emotionally?

Asking myself those questions reminded me that all the little choices I make today add up to shape who I will become.

So here are my goals for November. These are the things I’m going to do now to become that person down the road.

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Spiritual/Church

1. Read my Bible every day

2. Pray over a prayer list once a week

3. Learn the names of two more people at church

Marriage

4. Read The Love Dare together five times a week

5. Write Kevin two encouraging notes

6. Read one marriage book

Health

7. Eat vegetables five days a week

8. Go on a walk three times a week

Personal

9. Write two blog posts a week

10. Say “no” to someone once a week

What are your goals for this month?

12 Goals for July

As you may have noticed, I kind of took a break from goals for May & June….yeahhhhh, not very intentional, huh?

While in my dream world I would be perfect at absolutely everything, that certainly isn’t reality. Instead of feeling down, this is one of those moments when I need to give myself grace and keep striving for intentionality every day!

Though, to be honest, while I haven’t been very consistent with following through with my daily and weekly goals, I’ve made some good progress on several of my one-time goals I had for myself for this year:

• Reread the Harry Potter series by Christmas – I’m on book 5 of 7!
• Print out wedding photos and put in a photo album – completed!
• Host a baby shower for my friend Breanna – did that back in May!
• Visit the Grand Canyon – Was an overachiever on this one: went there 3 times!

It’s just a reminder to be proud of even the little accomplishments. 🙂

So, without further ado, here are my goals for July!

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Spiritual/Church

1. Read my Bible every day

2. Recap Romans memorization: memorize Romans 1

3. Pray over a prayer list once a week

4. Learn at least 2 parents’ names of the kids I teach on Sundays

Marriage

5. Read The Love Dare together 5 times a week

6. Write Kevin 2 encouraging notes

Health

7. Eat vegetables 4 times a week

8. Wear my retainer 4 times a week

9. Workout 3 times a week (we’ll see how this goes!)

Personal

10. Read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

11. Try a new recipe

12. Have someone over for dinner – probably won’t try the new recipe out on that day 😉

What are your goals for July?

March Goals Check-Up & 12 Goals for April

For my first month of goal-setting, I’d say I did so-so. There were many areas I fell short in. But I’m still proud of what I was able to accomplish, especially considering that our schedule got thrown off a little this month with family members visiting.

First Kevin’s mom and dad visited us and we had a great time sight-seeing the Grand Canyon, going to a Leadership Institute parent’s lunch, golfing, and hanging out by the pool. When my mom and sister came to visit us, we went on a beautiful 5-day hiking trip to the Grand Canyon and Sedona.

Suffice to say, I was pretty busy this month! I wish I had accomplished all my goals, but I’m okay with what I did accomplish and even more determined to work harder in April. Failure to complete all our goals is not a reason to never make goals. Instead, every failure is an opportunity to evaluate, what worked, what didn’t work, what can I do better next month? If we want to live an intentional life, we can’t let set-backs keep us from moving forward.

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Here’s my March Goals Check-Up:

Spiritual

1. Read Bible every day

Week 1- 7 days; Week 2- 6 days; Week 3- 6 days; Week 4- 4 days

I’ve found that I stay on track best when I have a daily time of Bible reading on my lunch break from work. It’s very relaxing to come home and eat lunch while I read a chapter or two.

2. Finish memorizing Romans 1 by the end of March

Not completed – I’ve mostly memorized verses 1-29. Still working on 30-32. And working on getting to the point where I can say the entire chapter out loud without needing to look at the first word of a paragraph, etc.

3. Start serving weekly at church

Completed! I attended our Volunteer Orientation and started to work at a welcome table. I love the opportunity I get to welcome first time guests to our church.

Marriage

4. Complete acts of service 4 times a week.

Week 1- 2 times; Week 2- 3 times; Week 3- 2 times; Week 4- 1 time

This one has been hard for me because I think I need to better define “acts of service.” In my mind, it seems like these should be grand acts, but that’s not what is even meaningful to Kevin. Acts of service to him means more like, getting him a glass of water, picking up his plate from the dinner table, etc. Seeking to improve this in April by narrowing my focus.

5. Read The Love Dare daily together

Week 1- 6 times; Week 2- 4 times; Week 3- 5 times; Week 4- 3 times

Not only do we want to be more consistent in this, but we want to discuss our thoughts on the devotion after we read it.

Health

6. Eat vegetables 4 times a week

Week 1- 1 time 😦 Week 2- 1 time 😦 Week 3- 3 times; Week 4- 3 times

I’m pretty disappointed in my lack of vegetables. Definitely needing to put more intention into our eating habits!!!

7. Price a Gold’s Gym Membership and decide if we want to join

Completed! Found out that the gym we are looking into is actually called EOS Fitness (but owned by Gold’s Gym). The price is really great, but as Kevin and I will be moving in about a month, we decided to wait to join until we move.

8. Wear my retainer at night 4 times a week

Week 1- 1 time 😦 Week 2- 2 times; Week 3- 4 times; Week 4- 2 times

Relationships

9. Give someone a genuine compliment or expression of gratitude 3 times a week

Week 1- 2 times; Week 2- 3 times; Week 3- 4 times; Week 4- 1 time

Personal

10. Finish reading The Power of Habit

Completed! What a great book! Planning on writing up a review of it for you.

11. Clean my car

Completed! It needs a nice car-wash on the outside and a little dusting on the inside but I’m happy with at least getting rid of all the trash and random papers!

12. Make wedding photo CDs for parents before they visit

Completed! At least, I made them CDs before they left to go back home, so that counts right?

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Last month it was those routine goals that got the best of me. I’m striving to put more effort into those areas!

Here are my goals for April 2015:

Spiritual

1. Read Bible every day

2. Memorize through Romans 2:16 by the end of April

3. Spend time praying over a prayer list once a week

Marriage

4. Complete acts of service 4 times a week

5. Read The Love Dare together daily (and discuss!)

Health

6. Eat vegetables 4 times a week

7. Wear my retainer 4 nights a week

8. Drink only one soda a week

Relationships

9. Give someone a genuine compliment or expression of gratitude 3 times a week

Personal

10. Read Have a New Husband by Friday

11. Sew cloth diapers for a friend

12. Make a mistake and learn from it!

What are your goals for this month?

12 Goals for March

In case you missed it in my goal kick-off, I mentioned that I’m going to be sharing my monthly goals with you! At the beginning of every month I’ll post my goals for the month and give you a glimpse into how well I followed through with last month’s. (The pressure is on!)

Here are my goals for March 2015:

Spiritual

1. Read Bible every day

2. Finish memorizing Romans 1 by end of March (started at the beginning of the year and have had slow progress so far!)

3. Start serving weekly at church (it’s taken me some time to get plugged in at this new church campus, so I’m ready to finally get plugged into an area of service and get into a routine)

Marriage

4. Perform an act of service 4 times a week

5. Read The Love Dare together daily

Health

6. Eat vegetables 4 times a week

7. Price a Gold’s Gym Membership & decide if we want to join

8. Wear my retainer at night 4 times a week

Relationships

9. Give someone a genuine compliment or expression of gratitude 3 times a week

Personal

10. Finish reading The Power of Habit

11. Clean my car

12. Make wedding photo CDs for parents before they visit

What are your goals this month?

Living Your Vision

Does this sound familiar: “There’s really no point to making new year’s resolutions – my dreams for myself are most likely unrealistic and when I inevitably fail to achieve them I’ll only feel worse about myself!” Sounds pretty bleak, but when every new year rolls around this is the prevalent mindset.

We get inspired to draft new year’s resolutions for ourselves, but all too many of us like the idea of making resolutions more than actually taking the time to do it. Maybe it’s due to laziness for some. But for many of us, I think the reason we never create resolutions is because deep down we know we will fail to complete it.

But, as I said before, we never just become who we want to be in a day. We get there through small steps, every single day.

That’s why it’s crucial to write out goals for ourselves. Our goals are those series of small steps, they are our game plan for reaching our destination.

That’s why every month I’m going to share my goals with you. At the end of the month I’ll let you see how well I was able to follow through with them. Hopefully together we can mutually inspire each other to keep pressing on and taking those steps to greatness.

If you missed out on making new year’s resolutions this year (or if you did happen to make some new year’s resolutions but have already failed), don’t beat yourself up! I have already failed at a few of my goals for this year. But every day is a new day and a new chance to press on towards where we want to be. There is no need to wait for the new year, the choice take forward steps starts now!

If you want to write some goals but aren’t sure where to start, the first thing you should do is think about who you want to be at the end of the year: where do you want to be in your spiritual life, how do you want to treat friends and family, where do you want to be with your finances, what personal weaknesses do you want to improve, what do want your health to look like, etc.

When you think about the person you want to be, it can be overwhelming. It can easily discourage us, as we begin to believe it’s impossible to ever reach such lofty ideals. But don’t let this vision-casting get you down! With intentional efforts, we can all make improvements every day – no matter how small!

So now, once you know who you want to be, next you should ask yourself, how will I make that happen, what are some small steps I can take now that over time will get me where I want to be? For example, if you want to be a more positive person at the end of the year, perhaps you could do things like write out things you are thankful for everyday, compliment someone at least 3 times a week, choose to point out a strength instead of criticize, etc. Think of the small steps you can take every day, every week, or every month to reach your target.

And, voila, you have goals! These small steps are your goals. Of course, you may need to tailor them to make them more specific and measurable. Also, it’s a good idea to make them time-bound – give yourself a “due date” or a “check-in date,” so you can re-evaluate how well you are keeping to this goal and make necessary changes.

Now, the only thing left is to DO them! This is the hard part. It takes a lot of intention to make our dreams a reality! But I hope that as we both work at our goals together, you’ll come to find that goals aren’t burdens bogging you down, but keys to unlocking great potential in your life, if you are just willing to put in a little hard work.