Goals for 2010

If you aim for nothing, you'll hit it every time. - Unknown

It's only taken me the entire month of January to come up with them! Which, of course, only leaves me 11 more months to accomplish them...ahhhh, procrastination never pays. I've decided to set goals for myself in 2010 as opposed to resolutions. Resolutions, well, they just seem made to be broken. Goals, as long as they are realistic and attainable, are much more my speed - something to work towards. So, here goes...

Spiritual (ok, I could get philosophical and say everything in life is spiritual, but I won't get into that here) :

Be in the Word everyday. By, "the Word", I mean God's Word. And, by "everyday", I do mean everyday. But, as opposed to other years, I am giving myself grace in this. In the past I have resolved to stick to a certain daily reading plan or to read through the whole Bible in a year. But, when I would get behind, I would feel as if I failed somehow, get discouraged and days, even weeks would go by without really reading my Bible. To read God's Word is to get to know Him better, to hear from Him, to find purpose in life. In the end, it doesn't matter how much I've read each day, just that I've spent time with my Heavenly Father. Please note, I applaud those who have the discipline to stick to a reading plan, I even recommend them. I am praying God will continue to grow me in this area, and for now, I am taking baby steps in that direction.

Pray. Ok, I'm not really sure how to make this a measurable goal. But, I have been more convinced in the past year that God hears our prayers, that He is waiting to answer them if we just ask, and perhaps His greatest answer is simply His presence. When I say "I will pray for you" I want to really mean it, and, if possible to do it right then and there. I want prayer to be my first thought instead of my last.

Relational:

Seek to serve. Seek to surprise. I'm keeping this simple, yet I think it will be profound. I posted a couple of months ago about feeling a bit overwhelmed. I took a day to regroup and pray through my priorities, especially in my relationships. One of the resources I used was C.J. Mahaney's series on Biblical Productivity. In it, C.J. states that our goals for relationships should be to serve and surprise, or in other words, to seek another's good above our own and to HAVE FUN and bless in unexpected ways! I like that and I want to keep these 2 things in mind this year. I definitely have sub-goals in regard to my roles as wife, mother, etc. that I may share in a different post.

Health/Nutrition:

Eat fish twice a week. Ok, this one is definitely measurable. As a family, we've been on a journey towards eating more and more real food. In my journey of study, I've also been convinced to reintroduce meat back into my diet (you may remember this post). Fish is chock full of really good fats, especially for women (see why here). So far my favorite is tuna steak, but salmon cakes are pretty tasty too.

Reduce my sugar intake. This one is going to be hard, but the more I read, the more I realize that sugar is NOT GOOD FOR US. Duh, right? But seriously, it's really NOT GOOD FOR US. I'm not going to be a diet-Nazi on this, but do want to consciously reduce the amount of sweet stuff that goes into so much of our food.

Workout 3x/week. After quitting my Y membership in October to try to cut down our budget, I tried to stay fit in creative ways - mall walking (it's hard to keep your heart rate up dodging retirees (no offense to retirees) and lines of other moms pushing strollers), exercise videos at home (I kept running into furniture - ouch!) and just sitting on my duff (mmm, not very effective). So, I renewed my Y membership - needless to say, I am excited to have my Cybex and weight machines again.

Miscellaneous:

Cut down Internet time. Part of my problem of feeling overwhelmed and "busy" has been the amount of screen time I've been taking - Facebook, e-mails, blog-writing, reading blogs, click-after-click...While it definitely has its benefits and life-enriching qualities, after a certain amount of time, it is just a time-waster, especially when it takes time away from the things, and, most importantly, people, that I should be spending that time with (see below). I'm still in process of figuring out how to keep a tight reign on this.

Get back on budget. We used to be really good about this, keeping track of spending down to the cent (ok, maybe a bit OCD). Since Nora was born, we've gotten lazy and just aren't telling our money what to do like we should be. So time to reevaluate where our money is going and dust off the ol' budget spreadsheet.

Have a reading list and stick to it. I like to read, but I have a hard time staying focused on one book at a time. The result - I am usually reading about 5 books at a time, of which I rarely finish 1, or, when I finish it, I can hardly remember what the beginning was about. So, I am developing a list of books to read one-at-a-time. I may even throw in a fiction book this year! Any recommendations?

I know I have more goals/changes swimming around in my mind 2010, but for now these are what I can remember. It is so good to have them written out and to share them with you all (because that means I can't pretend I didn't make them). What are your goals for 2010? How do you want to grow?

Indeed, in all of this, I know it will be God's work that does the changing, God's work that does the growing!