Are you a goal, resolution setter when the New Year comes around? Every time the new year comes around I love looking back at what I had accomplished, reviewing my goals for the previous year and focusing on how I can improve for the year to come. I love to push myself and try things I never thought I could accomplish. I love the definition in Webster’s Dictionary “Goal; the end toward which effort is directed.” I feel like this year my goals had a lot of effort directed towards them. Some were accomplished, some were blown out of the water and some are still being worked on.
I love being able to look at my life in every aspect and focusing on improvement. What are my priorities going to be for the year? That’s what I think every time. I try to set a variety each year but they are typically themed physical, family, financial, spiritual and personal. At the end of the year the assessment of my goals is what I really love the most. Isn’t it the best when you can look and see that you did it-you finished what you wanted so badly to work on? That is the best reward of all!
Susan Peterson, CEO and Owner of Freshly Picked, once told me that if I don’t write down my goals that they are just wishes and they won’t be accomplished. Susan is the definition of success. She is so determined and focused on achieving her goals. I decided to purchase her goal workshop and work harder at writing down my goals and really thinking about what I want my future to become.
One of the goals I had set for myself last year was to read more. Reading was never a thing that I had enjoyed doing, I just read because I was assigned to it in college or wanted to know more about the lives of certain celebrities. I felt like it was time for me to finally start reading more often and finding books that I really enjoyed. Plus I wanted my son to gain a love for reading and seeing my example as a reader would be the best way to instill that love in him. So I set the goal to try to read a book a month, but when I got stuck on the Ellen Degeneres book Seriously…I’m Kidding I realized I wasn’t going to be getting to that certain number of books I wanted to have read. All I wanted was to read more and I did it. My bookshelf is filling up with my reads and I am loving my time spent in books. As a matter of fact, for Christmas I received three new books that I have already dove into.
This year has been very rewarding, challenging and pushed me to grow in many ways because of the goals I set for myself. I am excited for what goals I have set for 2016 and thought I would share them with you because when you share your goals you are opening yourself up for support and encouragement.
The year of 2016 is going to focus on five different things:
- Control:Being a guy, you probably think that I am meaning be more controlling in my relationship. Well, you’re completely wrong. What I need is to control my body. It is time to control myself when it comes to eating. I always feel 100% when I eat healthier and portion control. But lately I have been more of a binge eater and it’s time to control that and say no to myself. As I control my appetite, I will be able to control my weight, my energy and my confidence. I actually am going to go into more detail on this one in tomorrow’s post, so get ready for that.
- Listen:Personally, I think a lot of us think we are doing great spiritually, and you probably are. I on the other hand know that I can be doing a lot better at this. I now I have two kids, a small family that I am the provider for. I need to listen more to the spirit on how I can be a better father/parent/leader. It’s time for me to be spending more time on my knees, in my scriptures, in the temple with my spouse and more time with God.
- Serve:Too many times I joke around with people and probably put them down, but it’s time to stop and start lifting others up. It’s time for me to reach out and lift up. I want to strengthen the friendships that I have. We get so busy and caught up in life, but forget about the relationships that we have made with some amazing friends and family members. This year I want to serve them by having them over and strengthening our friendships over dinners and play dates with our kids. It takes effort but nothing is more important to me than those relationships.
- Write:This blog has been such a blessing to me. I have been able to share my personal life and the stories of others and I absolutely love it. I think during 2015 I was losing my focus, wanting too badly to make money off the blog than to stay true to my voice. Well, I am going to come back to my original intent for this blog which was to share products that I have found as a father that I love, stories of what it’s like being a father, family life, fashion (either myself, my family or my kids), and if I find simple things to cook that I love I will share them here too. I love writing and sharing life the way I see it and I hope you will join me on this journey.
- Save:Money always seems to be a goal in my life. Well, 2015 blessed me with great job opportunities and I’m excited for the work I will be doing in 2016. With a start of a new career I think I have been blessed because our goals to keep ourselves out of debt and saving for a house and car that better suit our family’s needs. If that means that we have to be minivan people for a while than I guess that is what we need (I’m not excited about it, but I am sure I will write about the experience at a later date).
We were talking new year’s resolutions the other day with our family and heard of a woman, a millionaire to be exact, that set a goal to not purchase one thing for herself throughout the year. She could receive gifts, but did not make one purchase of clothing, jewelry, shoes or gadgets during that year. We were amazed but really what do we need? We have our closets stocked with clothing and our home filled with gadgets. So this year we are following her lead, I’ll let you know how I do. This may be the hardest thing I will ever do!
Hopefully now you have decided that maybe you can set some goals and make 2016 a better year than you ever thought possible.
