In the fellowship I am a part of, we take time at the beginning of each year to think and talk about goals we have for the new year. In addition to goals we find a word that we want to focus on and grow to embody throughout the year as well.
The topic of goals often resonates as "resolutions" for many. And for obvious reasons many people get turned off by the idea of resolutions, probably because they don't last the whole year through, for so many people. Or they don't consider themselves "goal" setting people. Or.... fill in the blank. I am not one of those people. Ever since the seed of setting goals was planted in my life, I have loved writing down goals for the year. For me it is incredibly inspiring to consider and then write down what I hope to accomplish in a given year. Even more powerful is when I take the time on December 31st to go back and look at the goals I had written down, and see where I succeeded and where I didn't get as far as I would have liked.
WHY set goals? Simply for the purpose of having direction for where you want to go and grow that year. Whatever we aim our life at, that is the direction our life will go. So if we don't have a goal in mind of the direction we want to go, then we will either stay stuck where we are or slide towards habits we would rather avoid.
Many goals are a matter of self improvement. A way to serve for making oneself better. That may not be a compelling enough reason to want to set any goals. If you are content where you are at, then who needs to make goals that will probably not last anyway? I challenge you to think about setting goals not for the better of your self. Set goals of adding GOOD things to your life, SO THAT you can offer them to to love and serve people in your life.
My WORD for 2016:
This word is the essence of every goal I have set for this year. I want to grow as a steward in every area of my life this year.
TIME: As a mother, with the opportunity to stay home with lady genevieve and lord Alastair, I hope to be a steward of the gift of TIME I have with them. My goal every year since 2009 has been to read a portion of God's Word each and every day. Some years have been more successful than others. Through
The Messianic Thread I can listen to a Daily Bible podcast, that reads me a portion of the Bible in chronological order each and every day. It's that easy. But due to the business of life, I still manage to not make it faithfully through the entire Bible in a given year. This reality doesn't prevent me from trying to do it again this year. But this year I have added to the goal. This year I am adding my children to the equation. I am not simply reading for my own betterment. My goal is to be faithful in building this habit into my own life, so that I can build it in my children's lives. I have decided to carve out a portion of time each day around 9am to do Bible reading time with lady genevieve. I want this to be such a part of her life, that she grows up knowing this is part of her every day. That she will have the habit instilled in her life, so that when she is grown she will carve out time to read the Word for herself- and love doing it.
HOME: I am setting to do a "Chore a Day". That habit lasted a while, but definitely got thrown off once I had lord Alastair enter into the picture. I have designated one simple chore for each day of the week. I noticed last week that though my house might be a little in disarray with toys everywhere, it felt cleaner overall every day because of knowing I cleaned one thing well. And because each chore gets done once a week, my house is overall cleaner than ever. Nothing has to get so bad that it takes forever to clean. My Weekly Chore-Line-Up looks like this:
SUNDAY- Refridgerator Clean Out (throughout left overs & spoiled food & wipe down shelves)
MONDAY- Take Recycling to Garage
TUESDAY- Bathroom
WEDNESDAY- Dust
THURSDAY- Vacuum
FRIDAY- Sweep/ Mop
SATURDAY- Dust/ Once every 10 weeks, take all recycling to Ecopark
FINANCES: As a person, I am hoping to redirect my way of thinking and be broken of the "Consumer" mindset. I want to be more mindful and considerate about everything we spend money on. With the barrage of coupons in my email inbox every day, trying to convince me of what I "need" or remind me of something I "want, it is a battle to live a simple life. We have always intended to keep a budget of our finances. We have been good about tracking each months spending, but it was "tracking" more than living within a budget. The Laird and I are both quite savvy in money matters, and know how to save and find deals. We thankfully have no debt outside of our mortgage and investment property. Good knowledge about money has been instilled in each of our lives. So we know how to make money serve us, rather than being a slave to money. However, even with this knowledge we have grown comfortable in "treating" ourselves to things we want whenever they come up. This year, I am hoping to live by a Budget and be more mindful about what we purchase. This goal is in hopes to gain more Financial Freedom in the next few years.
BODY: I have been a long distance runner since junior high. As an adult I have run a few 5ks and 2 half marathons. Though I am a runner, I don't run very often anymore. With 2 young children, my desires and personal time are low on the list of priorities in a given day. I hope to carve out a bit of time, even if it is only 1 time per week to run or engage in physical exercise. I want to be healthy and be a steward of the body I have been given. I am making it a goal to connect with my friend and neighbor (same person), and see how we can do this together. I hope to run one race with her this year- and actually run with her;)
ENVIRONMENTAL: I am growing to value our environment and desire to be a steward of the place we live. We already compost and recycle everything we possibly can. Our garbage output is just about 1 white kitchen trash bag each week. This is so much less than when we lived in the city and have automatic garbage pick up. Now that we are responsible for getting rid of our waste, we are quite aware of how much waste we create. In addition to what we are already doing with our waste, we are growing in gardening and consuming what we grow. This is all pesticide free. Adding Beekeeping to our hobbies this year, I hope will be giving just a little bit more back to the earth that sustains us. I had high hopes and intentions for all the honey and wax the bees were going to produce for our consumption. But my focus was more on what we could get from the bees, rather than a healthy balance of wanting to care for the bees. I am hoping to simply grow in a love and commitment to keeping bees this year, rather than get ahead of myself in "taking" what I can get from the bees.
This is the essence of what it may look like for me to grow as a STEWARD this year. I am sure I will learn and grow in more ways that I can picture right now.
Be inspired to set some goals for your 2016. And be sure to write them down. For bigger goals, find nano-habits that you can do each day, that will build up to help you reach your ultimate goals.
If you've read & followed this blog since the beginning of last year, you will remember that I chose the word STEWARDSHIP as my focus for the year. If you aren't familiar with that post, check the Stewardship post here.
