New Year's Goals

I like to use the term "goals" over "resolutions". There's something about the phrase "New Year's Resolutions" that invites cynicism, sarcasm, and expectations of failure, even from those who are making them, whereas a person who makes "goals", whatever time of year, is happily encouraged.

As you may or may not know, we're pretty hardcore about goals around here. For the past few months, our goals board has been on hiatus. Now that the baby is getting slightly more independant, and all the Christmas preparation is over, it's time to bring it out again. Which brings me to:

Goal #1: Family Goal Chart.
Use the goals board to track personal and family goals: daily morning and evening prayer, scripture study, 15 minutes of exercise, reading good books or magazines, listening to good music (for some reason i don't listen to a lot of music anymore...), and writing in my journal or blog every day.

Let's face it, i'm not perfect. I don't expect myself to get all of this done every day for at least a month or two; building habits takes time. But I am determined to do my best, to not get discouraged or depressed if i fall behind, and to keep up with as many as i can, and hopefully have the habits established by the end of the year.

In addition to the daily habits i'm trying to build through the goals board, i have a few self-improvement challenges set for myself. Being a nursing mother, i have to make sure to set reasonable goals within my own physical limits.

Goal #2: Focus on Health.
In 2009, i lost 40 pounds on Spark People. Understandably, i felt wonderful, healthy, and very accomplished. Even I was surprised by what i was able to do, and was looking forward to getting rid of those last 15 pounds! Then I got pregnant, and now, six weeks after the birth of that sweet little bundle, I find myself with an extra 30 pounds to lose, on top of those last 15. But because i'm nursing, i can't focus on weight loss - they say the maximum a nursing mother should lose is 1-2 pounds a week. Still a decent amount, but compared to 2009, when i was losing 5 pounds a week, it's less noticable. My problem, though, is not so much eating all the wrong things as it is eating too much, so i will be going back on Spark to re-condition myself to eating an appropriate number of calories, and get all the right nutrients, instead of excesses in any area.

Goal #3: Reading
I spend a disturbing amount of time watching tv and browsing the internet. When you spend most of the day on the couch nursing a baby, there's a limited number of things you can do. i want to read more. I will be putting together a book list for me to read through by the end of the year. I'm going to keep it short at first, because there are a couple bif books that will probably take me a while to get through.

Goal #4: Memorization.
After nearly 5 years of motherhood - sleep deprivation, baby talk, ABCs and 123s, and perpetual overload of my multitasking circuits - my brain is not as quick or sharp as it once was. I have discovered that for myself, the active effort of memorization does wonders for my focus and memory. I did it once for about a week and it was amazing! But then i got lazy. I'll be putting together a list of things i want to memorize, which will be more challenging to choose, but hopefully I can find some good things and keep up with it.

Goal #5: Gratitude
This is one i've been thinking about and intending to do for years now, but this year i'd really like to double my efforts. Our friends and family do so much for us, and while i feel such a deep warmth of gratitude, I've never been very good at expressing it. I'll be buying a stack of Thank You cards at my earliest opportunity. I would like to send out AT LEAST one thank you card every month - every time we receive gifts or service, or to friends or family to thank them for just being in our lives - and to make them specific and personal. We will also be getting the boys involved, to teach them more about being thankful. We'll be starting this month with Christmas gifts from those people who sent us gifts who we weren't able to thank personally.

I am so excited to see what i can accomplish this year! Whether or not i get to cross of everything on my list, I hope to at least finish 2011 a better person than I started.
 
Are you making goals this year? What are you going to do to make sure you keep them?