going back to the start //

This past year has been the most eventful year of my life. 

A few highlights:

• I birthed a new little life into the world. He arrived two weeks earlier than expected, and has stolen my heart since his arrival. 
• I celebrated my first Mother's Day, Hubby celebrated his first Father's Day. 
• I turned 30. Hubby turned 30 {5 months before I did. Booyah.}Though it was rather uneventful, superseded by the birth of my son, I have enjoyed being 30.
• Hubby finished graduate school.
• Our little family moved to new apartment. We moved out of my family's home and into our own apartment again. 
• I learned to accept the balance of working motherhood. I can't have it all, but I can have quality time with my family and an engaging career.
• I updated my professional license, and will hopefully never have to take a standardized licensing exam. Ever. Again.

Goals for 2014:

• Blogging: I miss this part of my life. Where I share the things that are going on in my life with the cyber world. It was such a fun part of my life in years past, and I miss it. 
• Working out: like many things in my life, this has been on the back burner for most of 2013. I'd like to change that for 2014 and get back into my old, good habits of running and exercising regularly.
• Photography: Something else I miss from my "former" life -- taking photographs. Though I have thousands of my adorable child, I'd like to take another class and get some photo editing software to further develop this skill. 
• Being kind to myself. 
• Re-engaging myself and my family into our faith community.

List-maker

{a few of my lists from my daily planner: 2011 goals, 2010 goals/wishlist, various songs/musicians to check out}

I'm a list-maker by nature. I love making lists of all sorts of things: for the grocery store, my daily tasks, weekly goals, etc. In the back of my daily planner, I have a section with a list of baby names {yes, I admit this}, blogging ideas, and various songs I've heard on Pandora that I want to download. Often, this drives Hubby crazy because I insist on "making a list". I will say that over the years, my process of list-making has begun to rub off on him as he has taken to writing down lists and enjoys checking them off almost as much as I do.

Every year, I make a list of things that I hope to accomplish for the year.  I vary between significant goals {fitness, learning a new skill or hobby}, and small goals {baking 1x/month, reading a leisure book 1x/month}. I find that writing down my goals, carrying them with me each day, I'm much more motivated to make efforts to achieve my goals. I love this method of goal setting often referred to as "SMART goal setting":

• Specific: What, Why, Who, Where, Which


• Measurable: How much, How many, How will I know when I have accomplished it?


• Attainable: Realistic, How can the goal be accomplished?


• Relevant: Is this goal worthwhile? Is this something that I really want to do?


• Time-Bound: When will this be accomplished? What is a realistic timeframe for me to accomplish this goal?

This system really facilitates the process of goal-setting. This creates a much easier system for setting specific and measurable goals. As I head into the new year, I'm carving out time to reflect on the things that I accomplished, and also re-evaluating previous unmet goals.

Are you a list-maker? Do you set weekly/yearly/monthly goals? How do you track them?

xoxo,

PJ