As 2017 comes to a close (like, how?), I’ve been thinking a lot about goals lately. I am a big proponent of list-making, so you know I have approximately 13 notebooks around my house with random goal lists I have half-heartedly made throughout this year. And because there are so many different lists, I misplace them, forget about them, and then come December think, “Hm, what did I even do this year?” with a follow-up question of, “What did I even want to do this year?”
To be honest, I did a lot this year that wasn’t even on my radar at all, like:
Getting engaged, planning a wedding, and getting married within six months
Receiving a promotion at work and really overhauling my entire job, in the end getting way more flexibility than I ever thought I would have
Going on three big trips with my (now) husband – Houston, TX, San Francisco, CA, and Montego Bay, Jamaica
Finally getting in the habit of writing again on a regular basis
Developing a regular yoga practice, going to class multiple times a week
There’s for sure more, but those are some of the biggest things that pop to my mind and like I said, most of those weren’t even necessarily “goals” I had at the beginning of the year. So is there even really a point of setting goals? I think yes and no. Yes, because they help keep you focused, and it feels great when you achieve them. No, because it’s really easy to either get 1000% hung-up on them and let them take over (and sometimes ruin) your life or to totally forget about them and then feel guilty when you realize you forgot.
SO with that all being said, here we are on the last day of November with one more month of 2017 to go. And with me being the control-freak, list-maker that I am, I want to share with you some mini-goals I have for the month of December. I am a sucker for New Year’s, and I love starting “fresh” each January 1, so my hope is that these goals help me to get there seamlessly and as stress-free as possible over this upcoming crazy holiday season:
Keep up on my to-do list every single day. I am a big fan of pushing things from day to day, literally sometimes for weeks on end, simply because I don’t feel like doing them. In reality, most of them would take less than a half hour to complete if I just sat down, focused, and did them. So my rule for myself for the next 30 days is that I am just not allowed to re-write something to the next day.
Get back into my routine of early morning workouts. I was doing really well on this one for a while and am still doing decent, but I just know I feel so much better as the day goes on if I got out of bed at 6am and went straight to the gym. Especially now because it seems like something always inevitably pops up during the day that makes an evening workout even more difficult to complete. It’s super important to me to keep both my mind and my body healthy and taken care of, especially in the busy seasons of life.
Write every single day. Not necessarily even on this blog, but just in general. One of my bigger, long-term goals has always been to write a book. I finally feel like I’ve narrowed it down to the idea I’m most passionate about, but something keeps holding me back from actually starting to put words on paper. I know that habits take time to form, so my thought is that if I can write even one paragraph each day for this next month, come January it will (hopefully) be a breeze to keep it up. I’ve even got this handy new set-up in our house (that I love) for writing/working!
Actually get Christmas shopping taken care of before the week of Christmas. As much as I am the opposite of a procrastinator in real life, I am the biggest fan of putting off Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve that you will ever meet. I think I just always make myself believe that I still have time to find something better? Which is so not the case, but this year will be different. I’ve convinced myself that I will have everything ordered on Amazon by December 15, and I won’t have to actually step foot in a real store. I’ll keep you updated on how that one goes. 😉
Take time to step back and actually enjoy the holiday season. I think you’re lying if you say you don’t like Christmastime. Sure, it can be corny, but that’s part of the fun of it. An actual excuse to go ice skating, drink hot chocolate, watch children’s movies, and put up glitter all over your house? Sign me up. I feel like every year I make this big long list of holiday activities I want to do with Chris or my girlfriends, but I never get around to it because I’m too busy running around. This year in my attempt to be more organized, I am going to intentionally schedule time on my calendar to do all those silly little holiday-related things that bring me immense amounts of joy, simply because I think it’s really important to sometimes do things just because they are fun and you want to.
Sometimes writing goals out like this isn’t enough for me, and it is really helpful to print them off and hang them on the refrigerator, bathroom mirror, or simply put them on my desk so I am forced to see them every day. Like I said earlier, habits take time to form, and there’s nothing wrong with needing a daily reminder of what you decided is worth your time and energy – at least until you are able to remember on your own. With the constant chatter of the holidays, it’s easy to forget to take time for yourself to focus on what keeps you sane so you can take care of others, but it is so, so important to find whatever way works for you to remember.
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