For the past several years, I've chosen a guiding word to lead me through the year and give myself a lens through which to filter decisions. I decided to take a break from this method in 2018. Instead, I made a fairly ambitious list of goals to work on throughout the year. I've also kept myself accountable for reviewing those goals and my progress on a weekly basis.
I'd say it's likely that I will move back toward choosing a word in future years. I think it is a worthy method and there have been years when it has really shaped my actions and changed the way I've thought about my life. It has also added a sort of emotional layer to my goals - a reason why specific goals are chosen and why they are worth my time.
But for now, I feel pretty steady where I stand. I know that staying true to myself and my values is important for my emotional well being - and I feel like I have a pretty good handle on all that. Plus, a single word still hasn't jumped out at me. So, I'm good with my beginning-of-the-year decision to skip the guiding word.
With all that said, let's take a peek and see where things stand at the end of the first quarter of the year.
Goals /
As far as goals go, I'm happy with my progress thus far and I feel like the goals I've chosen to continue working on are still deserving of my time.
As of today, I have:
- read 20 books. (Annual goal: 52)
- two of those books were spiritual. (Annual goal: 4)
- finished one sewing project, started a second sewing project and have plans for a third. (Annual goal: 5)
- completed 14 Project Life weekly layouts. (Annual goal: 52)
- created and printed several pages for the kids' scrapboooks, set up a system for photographing their artwork, papers and projects (Goal: buy an album for each kiddo and update regularly)
- made plans to complete a Week In The Life album using the Project Life App in May (Goal: start and complete the album and print multiple copies so the kids can each have one.)
Life /
Things are okay in my world. These first three months of the year have been a mix of good days and days when I feel like I'm just reacting to what's in front of me.
I've been getting more sleep and more consistent sleep (fewer middle of the night wake ups) than I've had in many years. It's been really quite wonderful.
I created and started using a "Rule of Six" to help keep our family life in line with our values. I think it very well may be the best thing I've done as a parent. It is amazingly rewarding to know that the small things we are doing on a daily and weekly basis are aligned with our long term goals and hopes. (I promise to write a post about this in the near future.)
On the other hand, I've done very, very little exercise. Bleh. After another good stretch of feeling accountable to my Fitbit, I've fallen back off that bandwagon and haven't even been meeting my step goal. And to go along with the lack of exercise, I've spent a lot of evenings sleeping on the couch. As the evening winds down, I think I'm going to accomplish a project or two after the kids are in bed. Then we get them to bed and I just fall onto the couch and stay there until Brian wakes me up to go to bed.
And my big emotional weight of the moment is not knowing what's ahead for Eli and school. There is a big homeschool or public school debate going on in my head and heart with a lot of factors that need to be considered. We still have a year before we have to make a decision, but I find myself worrying about this all the time. And I know that I just need to give this worrying up and pray, but I keep not doing that.
I've been getting more sleep and more consistent sleep (fewer middle of the night wake ups) than I've had in many years. It's been really quite wonderful.
I created and started using a "Rule of Six" to help keep our family life in line with our values. I think it very well may be the best thing I've done as a parent. It is amazingly rewarding to know that the small things we are doing on a daily and weekly basis are aligned with our long term goals and hopes. (I promise to write a post about this in the near future.)
On the other hand, I've done very, very little exercise. Bleh. After another good stretch of feeling accountable to my Fitbit, I've fallen back off that bandwagon and haven't even been meeting my step goal. And to go along with the lack of exercise, I've spent a lot of evenings sleeping on the couch. As the evening winds down, I think I'm going to accomplish a project or two after the kids are in bed. Then we get them to bed and I just fall onto the couch and stay there until Brian wakes me up to go to bed.
And my big emotional weight of the moment is not knowing what's ahead for Eli and school. There is a big homeschool or public school debate going on in my head and heart with a lot of factors that need to be considered. We still have a year before we have to make a decision, but I find myself worrying about this all the time. And I know that I just need to give this worrying up and pray, but I keep not doing that.
So. I'll take all this in from the glass-half-full point of few and recognize that I need to make a few changes and get to work implementing them.
Cheers, friends. I hope that life is good in your neck of the woods.
Image: I created a vision board of sorts using Canva and printed it as an 8x10 photo print.
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