I am a goal setter.

Every year usually the week leading up to the new year i start thinking broadly about some things I want to change in my life during the upcoming year. In that processing of information I also revisit my goals from last year.

A resolution is the action of resolving something. Solving a problem. I am not interested in solving a problem nor do I think I can ‘solve’ things in my life. That is why I focus on goals, progress, and growth.

I am a list maker, but I am a flexible list maker.

The lists that I make always contain opportunities of things I would like to accomplish, but they are usually longer than possible. Even my lists for the weekend or my work day contain everything I would like to complete, but the fact is it would be unrealistic to get to all of the tasks I have listed.

To many peoples surprise, I am okay if I don’t get my entire list done for the day. It just rolls over to the next day or next year or I take it with a grain of salt knowing my intention was to improve, only I had other things that were focused on instead.

So that being said, I do give myself grace for my yearly goals. In 2017 I have rounded out the year with 50% of my goals completed, which for me is a great year! Being intentional, I think ‘ what are the things I can work on and improve on? How can I live a better life?’. My goals for 2017 are listed below:

2017:

1. Learn More about Eleanor Roosevelt (I started this one.. but I didn’t continue to pursue for the whole year)
2. Leave 5 minutes earlier for things.
3. Make my husband dinner 4x a week.
4. Start transforming our home (at least 2 rooms).
5. Invite someone to church once a month.
6. Share and encourage someone everyday.
7. Finish reading through the Bible.
8. Pray for the Lost.
9. Go to Prayer meeting once a month (min).
10. Work on healing my skin.

Once I have written down the goals I want to work toward for the year I pray about them, asking God to direct me to the ones he wants me to pursue first or how he wants me to pursue them. I check in on how I am doing with my goals 3-5 times throughout the year.

The goals in bold text above are the ones that I ended up working towards in 2017. Progress is the goal.

2018:

In 2018 there may be some goals from last year that I didn’t make  much progress in. One of those is #3 cooking dinner for my husband 4 times a week. I decided this would be one of my priorities at the beginning of 2017, which I started to pursue… and then life got in the way. We worked on buying  a new house, selling our old house, renovating our new house, and I finally went to see someone about my skin (goal #10). I am working with a holistic esthetician with a focus on how food impacts the skin. So now I am eating more selectively which has made it challenging to cook dinner for both my husband and I. So now that I am starting to understand what foods are best for me to eat I have been working on cooking meals for both of us.

Look out for my 2018 goal list. And share with me some of the Goals you had from last year or have made for the new year.

What goals were easy? What ones were challenging? Do you strive for progress or perfection?

love  is  where you  live,