In the past I've started the year with a LONG list of goals. I had so many things I wanted to change about my health and my life. This year is a little different. I'm starting at a much better spot.
Do I want change? Of course. But I'm not at a low spot just trying to catch my breath and completely turn my life around.
Do I want to lose weight? No. Do I want to try some new diet? No. Do I want to make tons of money? No. Do I want to start a new hobby? No.
So what do I want this year? I want to focus on a few things and let God lead the way. I want to live life. I want to let go. I want to be the person God created me to be.
1. Writing - I will pursue making my writing and my blog into my career/a business. I'm not sure exactly how it will evolve. Here are some thoughts: giveaways, newsletter, update the look, new platform, monthly link roundup. I will likely be sharing a little less about my kids. And I'm still debating about keeping up with the monthly goals.
2. Photography - Along with my writing I want to get better at food photography. I just got a book on food photography for Christmas. I'm very excited. My hope is to update pictures of some of my recipes. At the least the more popular posts. And continue to experiment and learn.
3. Healing - I will continue to pursue improvement in my health. I'm very anxious for my test results in a couple weeks and figuring out where to go from there. I hope to start getting more sleep this year (I need to make it a priority). I want to continue to improve my mental health/decrease my OCD. Ultimately I'd like to not have any special "diet"...no restrictions. I will focus on being healthy.
4. Homemade Food - I want to make it a priority to feed my family less processed food. I make a lot of things from scratch. But I still reach for a box of organic crackers or fruit snacks sometimes for my kids. I'd like to get away from that. It's so much fun to make homemade versions of our favorite snacks. Maybe I'll go one by one through the boxes in the cupboard and recreate them.
5. Relationships - I need to focus on building relationships this year. I want deeper friendships. But I also want to make my whole family a priority (husband, kids, siblings, parents). I need to be intentional about making time for this and putting in effort.
6. Rebecca - I want to focus on Rebecca's needs and make any necessary changes for her. We'll be seeing a speech pathologist and a psychologist this month. Hopefully then we will have better direction. It's still TBD if/when I'll try any dietary changes.
7. Crafts - I love making crafts, but I don't often have time. I'd like to find a few fun crafts to make at some point this year. It would be nice to start working on Christmas presents now so that I'm not scrambling at the end of the year. I always love giving homemade gifts, but I don't think of it early enough. This could be sewing projects, but other types of crafts as well.
8. Cakes - I will continue to experiment with cake baking and decorating. I just got some drawing books for Christmas. So my hope is to work on my artistic abilities and then translate that into cake decorating. At this point I'm still not trying to make this into a true business. It's a hobby that I enjoy. But I don't have time to do it often with small children.
9. Declutter - After another generous Christmas I feel like our house is overflowing. We are so blessed. But all of our blessings sometimes give me stress when I see messes and "stuff" everywhere. So I'd really like to simplify and declutter. We need to purge some toys and plenty of other stuff. I'm hoping to get started right away in January working on organizing toys and getting rid of old ones.
10. Acceptance - I had a friend once that decided on a word for the year for her family. They focused on that one attribute the whole year. I thought it was a neat idea. Over the last few months one word has continually come to mind - ACCEPTANCE. God has been speaking to me about this. And I'm trying to listen :) This is something I have a hard time with. But something I'm slowly learning. I need to accept myself the way I am and not compare myself to others or even myself (in the past). I need to accept my family members. I am such a perfectionist I tend to be very judgemental and critical of others. It's not something I'm proud of. But it's hard to control when it's part of my personality. This year I want to truly accept others. Every quirk. Every habit. Whether they make choices or do things I agree with or not. I need to love and accept all the members of my family. And I need to accept all people. We are all so different. But we are all God's creation. We all have different strengths and weaknesses. We all make mistakes. But we are all beautiful images of God. This will be my year of acceptance in all areas of my life. Instead of always wishing something was different, I will accept.
What are your goals for this year? Do you have a lot of changes you'd like to make? Or are you just looking forward to a year of loving the life you have?
Happy New Year! I love your list of goals this year. I'm glad you have changed your view on them and have simplified a lot. Good luck with them!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to seeing the blog changes over time. I personally really like your monthly goals posts. And for others new to your blog, I think they are the best source of following your health journey (since there are just too many weekly menu posts to read through easily all at once). I like the links you offer with your recaps now, too.
I actually posted some goals on my blog for 2013. Nothing life-changing or anything, though. Just simple goals to loving life. :)
Thanks for the feedback, Sara. I suppose I should think about January goals if I'm going to keep up with them ;)
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