Happy Friday! I am super stoked today, as I reaveal my *dun, dun, dun, dun* New Year's resolutions! As I mentioned a while back, I was thinking through some ideas for my New Year's Resolutions. Well - I finally decided and I'm so excited to share them with you! Although, typical me - I can never decide on just one thing. I typically don't do resolutions, but something about this new year's clean start really inspired me to set goals now. Instead of making one New Year's Resolution, I'm making 12 monthly goals for 2013.
The Plan
For each month of the year, I'll have a different goal or focus. I love making goals, and I usually get so excited about them that I try to do them all at once. But trying to do them all at once usually results in failure and frustration. So instead, I'm breaking up all my wants and goals for the year over the course of 12 months. This way, I can focus on one goal at a time for long enough to create good habits and see progress. This method allows me to set many goals throughout the year with a reasonable plan for accomplishing them. This plan also helps me shift my focus to many different things instead of focusing too much on any one area of improvement. Below is a short synopsis of my monthly goals. It's a bit long, so bear with me!
1. Back to Healthy January: Typical for a
beginning-of-the-year resolution, I know, but it had to be done after 2012's
holidays. This month's goals include: a new workout plan, keeping track of
meals/calories through My Fitness Pal & striving to eat healthy filling
foods, keeping a water diary (in attempt to drink more water regularly), and
only having one dessert a week.
2. Good Day Sunshine February: An area I want to see change
in is my morning and nightly routine. I want this month to be about
establishing a true routine that allows me to wake up on time and go to bed in
a peaceful state. This goal will allow me to focus on waking up when my alarm
goes off (instead of 10-20 minutes later - novel, I know), complete certain
tasks after waking up, and have a dedicated relaxing beditme routine.
3. Marriage-focused March: This month will be all about
focusing on one of my most important relationships: that which I have with my
husband. This month will focus extra on my relationship and finally make all
those good pins on my love board get some use. I'll also start reading The Love
Dare, which dares you to do something different in your relationship every day
for 40 days.
4. All-things Organized April: I'm pretty sure organization
should have been my middle name, but there's always more room to get organized
in my eyes. Leave no space behind, this month will focus on small
organizational goals from problem areas in my house to going through my whole
closet.
5. Priority in Prayer for May: I do well at prioritizing
prayer, but sometimes what I pray about gets all over the place. To displace
the burden of wanting to pray about everything all the time, I’m going to
commit to following a prayer schedule, where I pray over one topic for that day
of the week, such as my marriage or friends.
6. Stay Pretty for Summer June: While I'm sure I already spend
plenty of time maintaining my appearance, I thought it would be fun to spend
some extra time on it for a month. I tend to get into ruts of wearing the same
clothes and doing the same thing with my hair. This month, I want to experiment
with new styles and trends. My goal will be to try something new with my style
(hair, clothes, beauty, etc.) every day and make sure that every day I do
something to make myself feel and look beautiful.
7. Just Eat July: This month's focus is all about being in
the kitchen. My goal this month will be to try new foods and recipes that I am
normally afraid to try for fear of not cooking it right, it being too time
consuming, and simply because I am a creature of habit when it comes to what I
eat. My goal this month will be to try at least two new full-course meals each
week, featuring a main dish, sides, and a dessert.
8. Worry-Free for August: Something I struggle with is worry
and anxiety. The more I worry, the worse my anxiety becomes. I am always trying
to tame my worry and hand my worries, fears, and insecurities over to God, but
it's definitely not an easy task. This month's focus will be giving up one
worry a day for every day of the month. I will focus on just one worry, such as
worrying about what I eat, and for just that one day, choose to surrender it. I
will outline a lot more details about this one later, but for now, it's just a
worry-free month.
9. Second Half for September: Immediately after running my
first half-marathon, I knew without a doubt that I wanted to run another one.
I'm planning on running the Run to the Rock half-marathon in Plymouth,
Massachusetts where you run to Plymouth rock through the woods!
10. Scary Shop-Free October: I’ve done this before, but it’s
always a challenge: a whole month of no shopping for myself. Simple, but still harder than it sounds!
11. Read for November: One of my reoccurring goals always is
to read more. However, the goal of "read more" never seems to mean
much unless I put a number with it. For this month, I want to read a book a
week for the whole month to push myself to actually make time for reading. More
on what books I'll be reading later!
12. Blog It Up December: Why not take a month to focus on my
favorite hobby: the blog itself! This month will be about all-things-blogging:
social networking, lots of fun posts filled with pictures, and possibly taking
the plunge to buy a domain name :)
- Question for you: Do you believe in New Year's Resolutions - why or why not? What goals have you set for yourself for 2013?
*Special thanks to Shabby Blogs for the graphic.