Personal Goals for 2014

I don't usually make goals or resolutions because I am usually a "take me where the wind blows me" kinda gal but as I have gotten older, I am attempting to be wiser and more focused in my time management. Although the wind can blow you to some pretty awesome places, it can also get you off track fairly fast as well. I am trying to add balance in my life because I have become more and more aware of this need in the past few months.

I also did not want to  share this on Day 1 of 2014 because it is still so hectic at that time for us and therefore not a time to be able to reflect accurately on what I want to accomplish. I just want to dig out from under the pile of candy canes, tinsel, and crap everywhere to find a seat for heaven's sake.

So I have given it a few weeks and wrote things down as they came to me. I wrote down goals for myself and goals for my family (they don't know these yet…should be exciting), goals for blogging, and goals for the house/projects.

I'm going to share personal goals first because these I hope will build character and thus affect everything else. Like the Trickle down economics theory except I don't think the economic benefit has quite gotten to us yet. Maybe next year….

Okay here they are in a very particular order because I am organizing them in order of importance:

1. Regular Bible study - now I do manage to get up around 6am each morning and sit down to study my Bible. However, my focus has been way off this year. I get up after 30 minutes and can't remember what I read or the verses that I underlined. So I am really praying that the Lord will focus my mind on Him so then I can be changed into someone that looks more like Him in action and deed.

I find that when I have had a good time in the Word, my day goes better and I am a much nicer person. I also want to be a good example to my kids that reading the Bible and praying is a necessary part of their day. But if they see me "studying" and I am not changed, then to only is it for naught for me but for everyone that I come in contact with. My Jesus will not look too exciting and desirable if I don't start working a bit harder on this. That is why this one needs to be #1!

2. Listen to my husband's sports talk podcast http://drewandtomsports.podbean.com regularly. Yes, this is number two because he has been my biggest supporter of the blog and regularly hands out my business cards for my furniture business. He's my marketing manager apparently and is way better at it than I am. He started this sports talk podcast about a year ago with his buddy and it is great. And by great I mean phenomenal. It is clean which I love because so many are not and as a "girl" I find it very informative which is saying something.  I don't always agree with his point of view but it has lead to some interesting conversations for us so that is a win. I try to listen when I think about it but sadly, I am not on top of it. So I want to up my support of him in a big way this year.  If you don't mind- pass this link on to your husbands/ brothers/friends/co-workers. I think they will get a kick out of these two.

3. Exercise! Criminy do I need this. I even took before pics in my bathing suit for motivation. Yikes! I was going to post them but when I started looking at them up close, I really am trying to grow the blog and not sure this is the best way of doing that. I think I will keep them just to hopefully stop myself from shoving  chocolate into my mouth during times of stress.  

Needless to say, I don't have to do this to see the cellulite. 

Now anyone who would look at me would say I am thin. And I am, I am not trying to brag here. But clothes are really great for hiding things like the picture above and I highly recommend them...at all times. Especially since you can be arrested if you don't.  

But there is a thing I call skinny fat. And by that I mean, my weight may be good but my fat/muscle ratio is heavily tilting in the wrong direction and has been since I turned 40.  I am saying this because often people get mad at me and say "what do you have to worry about, your skinny".  As if thin people can't have days when they feel bad about what they look like. Hello, can you say monthly cycle! 

Yes, bad, bad, bad days indeed.

You also don't see the layer of fat that I have on my belly because I am very good at dressing myself in clothes that camouflage it. Low waist pants where the waist band hits exactly in the middle of the pooch are great at hiding it. High waist? only if you want to emphasize the pooch. But trust me, it is there and has slowly gotten more visible to me over the past year of total and complete non-movement.

Guess what? We all have body issues. We all have our own little food addictions. Thin people need to exercise just as much as someone trying to lose weight. Not because they are trying to lose weight but maybe because they HAVE lost weight and want to keep it off or just because it is healthy.

If I don't start making exercise a priority now, it will just get harder and harder as I age.

 I am not trying to lose weight for sure. That is not my goal. But the greater your fat/ muscle ratio is the greater health issues can develop and I am trying to curb that now before I "have" to do something about it. Plus, my dad is a diabetic so that is on my mind as well.

UPDATE: I have started doing the 7 Minute workout and it is great. I have already seen improvement. No, I still have cellulite but now I can do 15 modified push-ups where a week ago I could only do 5 before dying! Woo Hoo! Small victories. 

I also bought the app for the 7 minute workout because you can modify the time of each exercise and the rest period once it starts to get easy for you so you can continue to improve. And it tracks the days that you workout so you can stay motivated. 

I will try and keep you posted on how it is going.

4. Reading- I love to read and one of my greatest joys once I graduated from grad school was reading for fun! You forget that that is an option when all you have been doing is reading research papers. Blah! 

I am trying to make it a priority for me to read at night before I go to bed to read for enjoyment. This means I actually have to put myself to bed at a reasonable time so I don't fall asleep on my book.

If you are a reader, please let me know of any books that you have read that are worth it. I know that this will be a luxury for me so I want to read books that are not a waste of my time. Stuff that will be thoughtful and not trashy so please comment with your  recommend reading lists!

5. Scheduled - so for all of the above to happen, I will need to be more scheduled in my approach to life. This can get a bit hairy as I have never, ever been good at keeping to a schedule. I am really good at organizing one and writing one down. My roommate in college used to marvel at how I would create a new schedule for every semester. I would beam at it upon it's completion. I would proudly push pin it into my cork board above my desk and stare at it proudly some more. Hoping that this was the one that I would finally keep.

What an accomplishment! 

What a load of crap! 

I wasted more hours creating schedules that I never kept. What did I learn from this?

Schedules need to have some flexibility or I will feel trapped. Trapped? yes, trapped. I usually made the schedules with every minute accounted for with no wiggle room for fun. 

I have discovered that as a creative spirit,  I need some small measure of being able to deviate from the schedule. I think I went too far on the deviation side and have become very poor at managing my time!

So I am once again going to write down things I want to accomplish each day  and then give a 2 hour window in which to accomplish them. It's a start and if it works for the cable company, I think it should work for me too. They seem like they are making some serious bank so I am going to start here and see how it goes!

So there it is. My wish list for 2014. I'll try to keep you updated on how these things are going. Would you all be so kind as to keep me accountable by checking in on me? Thank you because I know you will! 

True friends do not let friends avoid the list!

Always being renewed,

Please see the link party page to see where I link arms with those blissfully beautiful bloggers that host every week. So gracious they are along with these other sweet ladies!

Read more at http://diyshowoff.com/2013/04/01/that-diy-party-10/#xgMAcRCgRocl5vmh.99       

 

 

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