With a new year, always comes a renewed desire to set goals, to grow, to improve, to develop new habits or break old ones. We start out the year hopeful, and eager to improve ourselves, or to adjust our routines and then, more often than not, we lose momentum after the first few days or weeks, and eventually, our enthusiasm fizzles and we forget or shrug off what we were planning to do.

Make it Happen

This year, why not try being more intentional about setting goals for yourself? Set aside some time over the weekend or on a quiet night at home this week to sit down, reflect on what you want to change this year, discuss your goals with your spouse or your family and figure out some simple and attainable steps to help you achieve each goal.

Then WRITE THEM DOWN. Make a list, print it out, sign it so that you are at least psychologically committed to follow through. Hang the list somewhere you will see it every day.

Goals are only wishes until you create a plan to turn those wishes into realities.Click To Tweet

Check out the free email course on goal setting from Just a Simple Home that complements this post and helps you Plan to Thrive with tips sent right to your inbox.

Practical Steps and Accountability

Once you have your goals formulated, make sure to add the action steps of your goals in your planner or google calendar. Otherwise, if you don’t make time for them, you won’t have time for them.

Plan to schedule out time during each month where you can revisit your goals, revise them if needed and talk about the progress you are making with someone close to you.

My husband and I have done goal meetings in the past and we plan to continue this more regularly in the new year. When we talk about our goals consistently, we have seen a huge impact on committing to and following through on our resolutions. When we keep our goals a priority they don’t become stagnant, or get lost in the life’s busyness.

It’s also a perfect time look at the weekly/monthly budget,  to touch base on family plans or upcoming events and iron out any details and make sure your individual schedules are aligned.

This year, part of our goal making will include entering new territory we haven’t covered before. Meal planning, scheduled date nights, and planning out our travel expenses to align with our budget for the year.

We are planning to set aside time intentionally every weekend to meet across the dining room table, coffee cups and computers in hand and collaborate on these areas. We both take turns cooking, we often have conflicting schedules, and we tend to overspend on our budget, so we need time, and a continued group effort to communicate and make decisions together to run our household more smoothly and to keep our family more organized.

Here are our goals for 2017 broken down by category.  I’ve included my personal goals and my blog goals as well.

My  Personal Goals:

• Read 2 books a month, one for the well read mom’s book club and one novel for fun (1 chapter per night).
• Master menu planning
  • Use my menu planning dinner calendar,
  • Sit down and plan out meals for a week or two at a time (on Friday or Saturday)
  • Stick to making meals that are assigned
  • Buy only what we need at the grocery store and have correct ingredients (grocery shop once a week)
• Grow out my nails (use nail polish daily)
• Get up earlier and be more productive during the week days
  • 4 hours of clocked-in work a day, 4 days a week,  work between 7 am and 1 pm.
  • Follow daily schedule on Google calendar
  • Get work done first and set a timer on my phone for social media. (only 1 hour daily)
• Schedule in weekly holy hour at church and use prayer journal
• Scrapbook once a week (Tuesday night)

Goals for our Marriage:

• Go on a monthly date night (plan ahead for babysitting)
• Couple meeting to plan our finances/dinner menu/scheduled date night (every Saturday at 9 am)
  • Figure out our budget for the year and the number of trips we will take to visit family
  • Plan out weekly dinner menu together so we know who is making dinner when and what ingredients to have on hand
• Nightly family rosary
• 1 hour or less of TV per day, read and talk instead of watching TV
• Pay off student loans by January of 2018
• Plan to have a couple/family over for dinner once a month

Goals for our Children

• Take them to story time once a month
• Plan a play date twice a month with two different friends
• Do a monthly craft
• Watch educational shows twice a week
• Read them a bible story and/or saint story once a week at least (Sunday Afternoons)
• Do prayer time with them at breakfast and at bedtime

Goals for my blog:

• Guest post once a month
• Find a new sponsored product/company post once a month
• Rebrand and create new prompts/activities for Midnight Moms Facebook group
• Set an hour timer for social media promotion daily and stick to that
• Master Rich pins (use momsmakescents.com for reference)
• Follow the Pinterest planner and update it monthly
• Create a new opt-in and add Mail Munch features
• Finish re-branding and updating old posts
• Reference the blog goals and schedule on startamomblog.com
• Continue to create a monthly blog posting schedule on google calendar and stick to it
• Aim for 1 new blog post a week
• Complete the Instagram challenge from For the Love of Mom
• Complete the blog challenge from Melyssa Griffin

Become the Best Version of Yourself

It doesn’t have to be an over-complicated or a lengthy list, it just has to be a list that seems attainable, reasonable and helpful to you and your family whatever stage of life you’re in. As Mathew Kelly says it’s all about “becoming the best version of yourself.”

Time to Set Some Goals:

Are you ready to make your list of goals for 2017? Grab my free goals printable in PDF form below. All ready for you to print, fill in, sign and hang in your home or office!

2017-goals-list

I’ve created different colored sections and plenty of writing room so you can organize your goals by categories and create hierarchies of smaller action steps, similar to what I have done above.  I would recommend that you set deadlines for yourself and schedule it into your planner so you don’t get overwhelmed.

For instance, try to focus on one goal a month. For really small goals, aim to master them in two weeks time and for really large goals, set a deadline of 4 to 6 months.

There are many categories to choose from depending on your own state in life: Family goals, marriage goals, spiritual goals, personal goals, work goals, financial goals, exercise goals, organizational goals, ect.

Try to make your goals as detailed as possible so you know exactly what tangible and realistic steps you will take to achieve them and when you will make time to work on them.  No matter how many goals you set, the important part is to write them down, schedule them into your routine and resolve to work on them by signing and saving the goal list.

For Review:

+List Goals

+Make them detailed and specific

+Categorize them

+Create hierarchies of smaller action steps

+Schedule each goal into planner and set deadlines if applicable

+Continue to revisit and re-evaluate goals

My goal this weekend is to print out my list, sign and hang it on my bedroom wall just in time for the new year.

PS. In case you were wondering, here are our goal lists for the year, printed, signed and hanging in our bedroom, husband’s and wife’s, printed on the same PDF that you can use!

(Note: you can use Doc-hub on google drive or the fill and sign feature on Adobe Acrobat Reader to edit the file before printing).

Be ready 2017, because we are ready for you!

 

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8