Continuing on from yesterday, I made the last five areas of my goal setting business-related. Yes, I have my hand in too many things. I've thought about this, prayed about it and pondered my options, but I have realized that it just isn't clear enough to me to give any one of these areas up. Given that, I've made goals for each one of them.
Catholic Homeschooling Resources - my website for homeschoolers. Ah, there is so much I'd like to do here so hopefully I can accomplish some of it this year. Every summer I have such dreams....Anyhow. My main goal here for the year is to send out four newsletters (one per quarter) and add to and update my Highschool section. I have some great ideas for that and just need to get them up live!
A Plan for Joy in the Home - My goal this year is simple: sell more books than I did last year. My main advertising avenue (besides the website) is word of mouth. Won't you help me spread the word??
Homeschooling With Joy - yep, this place right here. I love to write, but sometimes my mind is just blank. My goal for this space is to try hard to remain consistent throughout the year. I'm setting my sight on three posts per week - but only if they're meaningful...no fluff here (or at least I'll try).
The Goat Milk Soap Shop - I love this soap and it's the only soap we use so I just can't give it up! My goal - increase sales over last year by being more consistent in the avenues I already have.
Dominick Photography - like I say, "homeschooling is my life, photography is my passion". Photography gigs increased a lot last year so I'd like to keep the momentum going. More family photo shoots and more student/senior portrait shoots is where I'd like to aim (ha, no pun intended!).
Well that should keep me busy when I'm not busy with my other, more important goals (i.e. family and schooling). I am super excited to see how things go. I'll check in here occasionally and keep y'all updated. I hope that these posts have inspired you to consider setting some goals.
Now, on to the second half of the book, "Living Well Spending Less" - the spending less part!
God Bless!
affiliate links inlcuded
Showing posts with label Goal Setting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goal Setting. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Monday, January 19, 2015
My First 5 Goal Areas
Wow, we had a busy weekend and that seems to do a good job at throwing me off track. My mind gets caught up in all that is going on, not to mention how tired I get, and it seems to take me a day or two to get back on the motivated band wagon. Maybe that is why today just wasn't a very productive day.
When I sat down to think about what I wanted to try to accomplish this year, after my "main" goals, of course, I came up with 10 different areas that I wanted to work on. Setting goals, like I said, doesn't come naturally to me, and sometimes I caught myself just making big to-do lists for an area. For some areas, that is okay, but for others I tried to rethink them and make more specific goals instead.
The first five areas I want to focus on are: Family, School, Spiritual, Health and Home.
I took these five areas and made some pretty specific lists. Here's the gist of what I came up with.
Family - instead of getting to summertime and having us all scratch our heads about whether or not we're taking a vacation and if we can all get off the same week, I want to start early and actually plan something. It might not even be big, but if we start now, it can definitely be bigger than doing nothing! We're starting this month with a family meeting to discuss summer activities already on the calendar and then brainstorming ideas for vacation time.
School - my main goal for this semester is to get the kids' writing program organized. The girls who have been teaching the highschoolers for the past 3 semesters aren't doing it this semester, so it is again up to me. I'm aiming for at least 12 weeks of good writing.
Spiritual - one of the hardest things for me to incorporate from St. Ignatius' recommendations on a good prayer life is the daily spiritual reading. Ugh. I just can't force myself to do it. In an effort to do something, I've decided to read one spiritual book every quarter this year. Three months to read a book - I should be able to do that. AND, it has to be a book I already have which I haven't read yet. That makes my options very numerous!
Health - I'm staying on the Trim Healthy Mama wagon and working harder (since the backsliding during the holidays) to get another 10 pounds off. I'm also getting back to weightlifting. I'm starting with twice a week.
Home - ah, home decorating. We desperately need a new mattress and some new couches, so it will take some saving and some good shopping to accomplish, but I hope to do that this year.
Not bad for a newbie, huh? Really, I think writing them down (and now putting them out here for all to see) will definitely make me more accountable. Each month I'm breaking the bigger goals down into bite-sized pieces that should be doable.
Next up, my five business related goals.
God Bless!
When I sat down to think about what I wanted to try to accomplish this year, after my "main" goals, of course, I came up with 10 different areas that I wanted to work on. Setting goals, like I said, doesn't come naturally to me, and sometimes I caught myself just making big to-do lists for an area. For some areas, that is okay, but for others I tried to rethink them and make more specific goals instead.
The first five areas I want to focus on are: Family, School, Spiritual, Health and Home.
I took these five areas and made some pretty specific lists. Here's the gist of what I came up with.
Family - instead of getting to summertime and having us all scratch our heads about whether or not we're taking a vacation and if we can all get off the same week, I want to start early and actually plan something. It might not even be big, but if we start now, it can definitely be bigger than doing nothing! We're starting this month with a family meeting to discuss summer activities already on the calendar and then brainstorming ideas for vacation time.
School - my main goal for this semester is to get the kids' writing program organized. The girls who have been teaching the highschoolers for the past 3 semesters aren't doing it this semester, so it is again up to me. I'm aiming for at least 12 weeks of good writing.
Spiritual - one of the hardest things for me to incorporate from St. Ignatius' recommendations on a good prayer life is the daily spiritual reading. Ugh. I just can't force myself to do it. In an effort to do something, I've decided to read one spiritual book every quarter this year. Three months to read a book - I should be able to do that. AND, it has to be a book I already have which I haven't read yet. That makes my options very numerous!
Health - I'm staying on the Trim Healthy Mama wagon and working harder (since the backsliding during the holidays) to get another 10 pounds off. I'm also getting back to weightlifting. I'm starting with twice a week.
Home - ah, home decorating. We desperately need a new mattress and some new couches, so it will take some saving and some good shopping to accomplish, but I hope to do that this year.
Not bad for a newbie, huh? Really, I think writing them down (and now putting them out here for all to see) will definitely make me more accountable. Each month I'm breaking the bigger goals down into bite-sized pieces that should be doable.
Next up, my five business related goals.
God Bless!
Friday, January 16, 2015
My Main Goal
In the book, "Living Well Spending Less", the author talks about how she found it important to tackle her biggest, hardest goals first thing in the morning when she was still fresh. For her that meant getting up earlier and putting in 90 minutes of writing time.
"But," I moaned to my husband after reading that, "by the time I have time to tackle any of my goals my brain is fried. I mean...we get up, go to Mass and do school and by the time all of that is over with - there just ain't much left of my stamina or determination."
Maybe you are more astute than I was, but after awhile of thinking like that, the Holy Spirit took a 2x4 to my head and got me to see that I AM tackling my biggest and hardest goals first thing in the morning. By getting us to Mass every day, I'm providing for mine and my children's spiritual formation and welfare. By making sure we spend our mornings homeschooling and not doing anything else, I am assuring that my kids are being educated. I didn't see it that way at first, but eventually I realized that all of the other items on my list of goals is secondary to what was happening before noon each day.
Once that settled in, it made the rest of the goal-setting process easier for me. All the rest is icing on the cake, so-to-speak. If I get to noon and am still able to think, then great, I can tackle some of my other goals for the year! If it has been an exceptionally taxing day, well then whatever is left can wait till the next day.
That being said, I still managed to come up with 10 areas of my life that I would like to focus on in some way or another this year. I'll share the first five next time :).
God Bless!
affiliate link included :)
"But," I moaned to my husband after reading that, "by the time I have time to tackle any of my goals my brain is fried. I mean...we get up, go to Mass and do school and by the time all of that is over with - there just ain't much left of my stamina or determination."
Maybe you are more astute than I was, but after awhile of thinking like that, the Holy Spirit took a 2x4 to my head and got me to see that I AM tackling my biggest and hardest goals first thing in the morning. By getting us to Mass every day, I'm providing for mine and my children's spiritual formation and welfare. By making sure we spend our mornings homeschooling and not doing anything else, I am assuring that my kids are being educated. I didn't see it that way at first, but eventually I realized that all of the other items on my list of goals is secondary to what was happening before noon each day.
Once that settled in, it made the rest of the goal-setting process easier for me. All the rest is icing on the cake, so-to-speak. If I get to noon and am still able to think, then great, I can tackle some of my other goals for the year! If it has been an exceptionally taxing day, well then whatever is left can wait till the next day.
That being said, I still managed to come up with 10 areas of my life that I would like to focus on in some way or another this year. I'll share the first five next time :).
God Bless!
affiliate link included :)
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Are You a Goal Setter?
It seems kind of fitting that my word for the year is Purposeful and this month I seem to keep running into things about setting goals. I will admit that I have never been a goal setter. I've really never seen the point in setting 5 and 10 year goals because that just seems too far out for me. So much can happen in that time span that how can you even come close to knowing what God will want of you in that time frame.
Alright, I can see setting goals like, "finish school and get a job in my field", but for whatever reason, I've just never been an official goal setter (the writing it down on paper kind of goal setter). My husband says it is because I don't like to commit. I'm sure it has something to do with my temperament.
Last week, however, I came across the book, "Living Well, Spending Less" by Ruth Soukup. "What the heck," I thought, "let's order this and see what she has to say." I expected the book to be more about the "spending less" part, but really it is split between the two topics, and, you guessed it, the first half is a lot about setting goals.
I've gotten through the first half already; the part about Living Well. I've decided to take a short break from the book and, well, actually set some goals. It took me a few days to process the whole concept, but I finally got to the point where I could set goals for this year in 10 different areas. I just finished putting them down on paper and now am pondering how to break them up over the months of the year. I can already see how the act of writing down your goals goes a long way towards actually meeting them. The key now will be to keep looking at them so that I don't forget them.
Over the next couple of posts I hope to share with you my 10 areas and some of my goals. Making them public will also help me to be accountable to them. In case you are like me about the whole goal-setting thing, maybe this will help you, too. First up...my main goals at this point in my life!
God Bless!
Alright, I can see setting goals like, "finish school and get a job in my field", but for whatever reason, I've just never been an official goal setter (the writing it down on paper kind of goal setter). My husband says it is because I don't like to commit. I'm sure it has something to do with my temperament.
Last week, however, I came across the book, "Living Well, Spending Less" by Ruth Soukup. "What the heck," I thought, "let's order this and see what she has to say." I expected the book to be more about the "spending less" part, but really it is split between the two topics, and, you guessed it, the first half is a lot about setting goals.
I've gotten through the first half already; the part about Living Well. I've decided to take a short break from the book and, well, actually set some goals. It took me a few days to process the whole concept, but I finally got to the point where I could set goals for this year in 10 different areas. I just finished putting them down on paper and now am pondering how to break them up over the months of the year. I can already see how the act of writing down your goals goes a long way towards actually meeting them. The key now will be to keep looking at them so that I don't forget them.
Over the next couple of posts I hope to share with you my 10 areas and some of my goals. Making them public will also help me to be accountable to them. In case you are like me about the whole goal-setting thing, maybe this will help you, too. First up...my main goals at this point in my life!
God Bless!
Monday, December 31, 2012
Happy New Year!
Or at least New Year's Eve if you're reading this on Monday. What a blessed and busy week we've had since Christmas. I so enjoy our groups that wait until the Christmas Octave to host their parties. We went to a family dinner with the priests of Miles Christi on Thursday night, my hubby's Knights of Columbus council Christmas dinner on Friday night and then we hosted our extended family Christmas party on Sunday, which is always a blast.
Today brings a funeral for a very dear man from our parish. He was in the choir with my girls and had a great, deep voice. Only Ms 16 yo is able to sing with the choir today for his Mass as Ms 20 yo is in Rhode Island visiting her boyfriend and Ms 18 yo is sick on the couch while I stayed home to keep a watchful eye on her (yes, she must be sick if I'm doing that!).
Since I'm home instead of out for the day, I felt inspired to write a New Year's post and reflect on all of the things I am grateful for from 2012. My first inclination is to think back upon how difficult this year was. Difficult in so many ways: financially, emotionally, spiritually. However, that is not how I want to remember this past year. So, here is my list of 12 things that I am grateful for specifically from the year 2012. The fact that I am immensely grateful to God for my faith, my husband, my children, my family, my friends and our home is a given!!!!
1. Being able to go on my yearly silent retreat with my two oldest daughters. Even thought we didn't get to talk to each other, it was still wonderful sharing something so spiritual with them.
2. A few days away with my husband this fall. When you don't have anyone else that you have to focus on except the wonderful man you married, it brings back a lot of memories :)
3. Feeling healthy enough to get in better shape. To lose some weight, gain it back over the summer and then be able to lose it again this fall and feel better than I have in a long time. I know how great of a blessing it is to be able to do this!
4. For the many awesome parties we were able to host this year. The hosting isn't what made them awesome, it was the people who came to each and every one of them that made them so fun and memorable.
5. To have daughters with beautiful voices and a son who is maturing into something wonderful and the fact that they are willing to use their talents in the service of the Lord.
6. To have graduated another child from our homeschool this year. To see her standing up there in her cap and gown with that big smile and know that all of the blood, sweat and tears over the past 12 years of schooling is SO worth it.
7. For the opportunity to get to know some new people this year. Hosting about 30 people at our house for five days this summer was a great experience and a chance to meet some wonderful people. We even added another "adopted" member to our family.
8. For the opportunities I've had this past year to photograph so many people. I love to keep honing my skills and I've been blessed to take some pictures of some truly beautiful people and events. If I have a passion, this is truly it.
9. For the trials that we've gone through this year and the grace to endure them and come out on top of them. Truly the work of God! Our trials can either defeat us or make us stronger and I am grateful that I was given the grace to not let them defeat me.
10. We had another great extended weekend in Michigan this year. It is always so much fun to go there to relax, swim, boat and have our yearly reunion with a great family we are blessed to know.
11. A peaceful fall semester. We had such a good first half of the year of homeschooling. If you homeschool, you know how rare those can be. We covered a lot of ground and weren't moving at our usual frenzied pace.
12. For work for my husband; it may not be perfect but it has kept us fed, sheltered and clothed. For a job for my daughter and the entrepreneurial spirit that keeps us always looking for ways to expand our knowledge and help others.
There are so many more things to be grateful for but I'll keep it to these 12! I pray that you will be blessed with a peaceful, healthy and fruitful 2013!
God Bless!
Today brings a funeral for a very dear man from our parish. He was in the choir with my girls and had a great, deep voice. Only Ms 16 yo is able to sing with the choir today for his Mass as Ms 20 yo is in Rhode Island visiting her boyfriend and Ms 18 yo is sick on the couch while I stayed home to keep a watchful eye on her (yes, she must be sick if I'm doing that!).
Since I'm home instead of out for the day, I felt inspired to write a New Year's post and reflect on all of the things I am grateful for from 2012. My first inclination is to think back upon how difficult this year was. Difficult in so many ways: financially, emotionally, spiritually. However, that is not how I want to remember this past year. So, here is my list of 12 things that I am grateful for specifically from the year 2012. The fact that I am immensely grateful to God for my faith, my husband, my children, my family, my friends and our home is a given!!!!
1. Being able to go on my yearly silent retreat with my two oldest daughters. Even thought we didn't get to talk to each other, it was still wonderful sharing something so spiritual with them.
2. A few days away with my husband this fall. When you don't have anyone else that you have to focus on except the wonderful man you married, it brings back a lot of memories :)
3. Feeling healthy enough to get in better shape. To lose some weight, gain it back over the summer and then be able to lose it again this fall and feel better than I have in a long time. I know how great of a blessing it is to be able to do this!
4. For the many awesome parties we were able to host this year. The hosting isn't what made them awesome, it was the people who came to each and every one of them that made them so fun and memorable.
5. To have daughters with beautiful voices and a son who is maturing into something wonderful and the fact that they are willing to use their talents in the service of the Lord.
6. To have graduated another child from our homeschool this year. To see her standing up there in her cap and gown with that big smile and know that all of the blood, sweat and tears over the past 12 years of schooling is SO worth it.
7. For the opportunity to get to know some new people this year. Hosting about 30 people at our house for five days this summer was a great experience and a chance to meet some wonderful people. We even added another "adopted" member to our family.
8. For the opportunities I've had this past year to photograph so many people. I love to keep honing my skills and I've been blessed to take some pictures of some truly beautiful people and events. If I have a passion, this is truly it.
9. For the trials that we've gone through this year and the grace to endure them and come out on top of them. Truly the work of God! Our trials can either defeat us or make us stronger and I am grateful that I was given the grace to not let them defeat me.
10. We had another great extended weekend in Michigan this year. It is always so much fun to go there to relax, swim, boat and have our yearly reunion with a great family we are blessed to know.
11. A peaceful fall semester. We had such a good first half of the year of homeschooling. If you homeschool, you know how rare those can be. We covered a lot of ground and weren't moving at our usual frenzied pace.
12. For work for my husband; it may not be perfect but it has kept us fed, sheltered and clothed. For a job for my daughter and the entrepreneurial spirit that keeps us always looking for ways to expand our knowledge and help others.
There are so many more things to be grateful for but I'll keep it to these 12! I pray that you will be blessed with a peaceful, healthy and fruitful 2013!
God Bless!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
New Year's Resolutions
New Year's Eve: A time that inevitably makes one think of the dreaded New Year's resolutions. I might think about them, but rarely do I ever make any. That doesn't mean I shouldn't. Of course I should exercise more (okay, I guess that is not accurate - I should say: I should exercise). I shouldn't eat as much chocolate as it gives me a headache and makes me crabby when I eat too much. I should be more consistent in my discipline (this is one I KNOW my kids are glad I don't follow up on!).
The list could go on and on, but it doesn't, because I never even make it. I have no problem making resolutions - and even sticking with most of them - during my yearly silent retreat, but for some reason the thought of a New Year's resolution makes me gag. So instead I will go blindly forward into this New Year without a list of things that I should be doing to improve myself. Even if I made a list, I probably wouldn't remember it after a month, anyhow!
I guess the only resolution that I will continue to keep is to try to remain as close as I can to the Lord so as to keep that connection open and active. This way, if He wants me to do something, I might have a chance of actually hearing Him. Going into uncertain times, I guess the best resolution anyone can make is to remain faithful to their prayer life. To back up that statement, here is Our Lady Queen of Peace of Medjugorje's December 25, 2008 message to the world:
"Dear children! You are running, working, gathering - but without blessing. You are not praying! Today I call you to stop in front of the manger and to meditate on Jesus, Whom I give to you today also, to bless you and to help you to comprehend that, without Him, you have no future. Therefore, little children, surrender your lives into the hands of Jesus, for Him to protect you from every evil. Thank you for having responded to my call."
Even if you don't believe the Blessed Mother is appearing in Medjugorje, there is still a lot of food for thought in those words. May the Lord bless all of you in the coming New Year.
God Bless!
The list could go on and on, but it doesn't, because I never even make it. I have no problem making resolutions - and even sticking with most of them - during my yearly silent retreat, but for some reason the thought of a New Year's resolution makes me gag. So instead I will go blindly forward into this New Year without a list of things that I should be doing to improve myself. Even if I made a list, I probably wouldn't remember it after a month, anyhow!
I guess the only resolution that I will continue to keep is to try to remain as close as I can to the Lord so as to keep that connection open and active. This way, if He wants me to do something, I might have a chance of actually hearing Him. Going into uncertain times, I guess the best resolution anyone can make is to remain faithful to their prayer life. To back up that statement, here is Our Lady Queen of Peace of Medjugorje's December 25, 2008 message to the world:
"Dear children! You are running, working, gathering - but without blessing. You are not praying! Today I call you to stop in front of the manger and to meditate on Jesus, Whom I give to you today also, to bless you and to help you to comprehend that, without Him, you have no future. Therefore, little children, surrender your lives into the hands of Jesus, for Him to protect you from every evil. Thank you for having responded to my call."
Even if you don't believe the Blessed Mother is appearing in Medjugorje, there is still a lot of food for thought in those words. May the Lord bless all of you in the coming New Year.
God Bless!
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