Christmas is my favorite holiday, and I love that the new year starts right in the middle of the Christmas season. Fresh starts, new goals, a clean slate. Diving into a new year is like taking that first deep breath of fresh air after a long car ride. Call me a sap, an idealist, or a dreamer, but it's the best.
This year is a little different, what with there being a babe in the house. I'm not feeling as ambitious as I usually do--and that's probably a good thing, because babies tend to sabotage even the best-laid plans (in the best way possible, of course). So no big projects this new year. Instead, my focus is set on simpler things.
Powersheets & January goals
I did a thing this year, y'all. I ordered my very first set of Powersheets. Before October, I'd never even heard of these things. Then I stumbled across all the buzz on launch day and made the best impulse purchase ever. (Powersheets are an intentional goal planner. That sounds like a bunch of buzzwords, but it's actually incredible. The prep work in the beginning helps you do a sort of life inventory and clearly identify your priorities. Then you set goals. Then you break them down and track them month by month, adjusting as needed throughout the year.)These things are gold.Going through all the prep work in the beginning, I was surprised by how true everything felt--normally this sort of exercise leaves me feeling like I made a bunch of stuff up just to have something to write down. But this was different, and I really enjoyed the process. The whole idea is to get you to "cultivate what matters," rather than setting arbitrary goals that aren't connected to what you really want out of life. There's a page that asks you to write down what matters most to you, and I wrote three things:
1) Building a home and family culture that honors God, nurtures strong bonds, creates memories, provides my family with a strong foundation and a safe haven. Loving and serving my family well.
2) Following Jesus
3) Not staying stuck. I want to see growth.
From that, I picked several areas of life I want to tend to little by little and see growth or improvement in this year. I then broke each of these categories down into several more concrete and measurable items.
- nourish my SOUL
- nourish my PEOPLE
- nourish my MARRIAGE
- nourish my HEART
- nourish my MIND AND BODY
- nourish our ATMOSPHERE
- nourish FINANCIAL HEALTH
- nourish my TRIBE
- nourish MY CHILD'S MIND
(For the record, "nourish" is my word of the year, also part of the prep work.) Of these nine, my top three areas at the moment are soul (faith), people (family), and financial health. I just filled out my first tending list (January's), and I'm excited to put it all in action as the calendar rolls over. A lot of my focus right now is on putting habits in place that will feed into each of the areas I identified previously.
Monthly goals:
- set aside focused family time (a family date to the zoo) (people)
- do a Blessed is She study (soul)
- finish and order annual family yearbook (heart)
- finish a book (Hands Free Mama) (heart)
- go to confession (soul)
- get an eye exam (mind & body)
- organize the hall closet (atmosphere)
- get lawyer recommendations for a will (financial health)
- return G's tupperware (tribe)
- send C a new baby gift (not my husband, a friend) (tribe)
Weekly goals:
- budget meetings with C (financial health)
- say a rosary decade as a family (soul, people)
- exercise 3x per week (mind & body)
- meal plan (at least dinners) (mind & body, financial health)
Daily goals:
- read to E (people, child's mind)
- gratitude at dinner (people, soul)
- E up from nap before C gets home (people, atmosphere)
- laundry (atmosphere)
- unload/load dishwasher (atmosphere)
My tending list is even color-coded. I'm so ready.
Reading update:
In other news: I somehow managed to continue reading (very slowly) over the last couple months even with a newborn and a toddler. Go me.
The Simplified Planner was on my Christmas list, and I was super excited when my mom said she was getting it for me (drool-worthy, y'all). I was also pretty excited to read Emily's newest book. I like her (Christ-centered) perspective on simple living, and the book made me feel motivated to dig in and do the hard work of simplifying and streamlining. That being said, the content of the book, while relevant and practical and worth reading, wasn't truly all that unique. You could find much of what she discussed for free online. The benefit of having the book is probably most felt in the reminder I get every time I see it sitting on my shelf. You don't get that with information you read online--out of sight, out of mind. And this particular topic is really easy to ignore, so the visual reminder is great.
This book fell so flat for me. I saw Sheila speak at a Women of Faith conference a few years ago--I remember being super disappointed by the lack of depth in the talks and the contrived feeling of the whole event. Reading this book wasn't quite the same--Sheila shares a lot of herself and her personal struggles here, and that comes across as raw and honest--but it was still strangely reminiscent of that conference experience. I felt like I was reading something that didn't apply to me, just like I'd felt like I was missing something at the conference that would make it all connect in the "right" way. The takeaways she offered were so off for me that I found myself eventually skimming whole pages and chapters at a time.
I think that this book would have been a LOT better if I were in a different place mentally. Sheila has dealt with deep depression and some serious issues resulting from that. I've dealt with anxiety and some childhood hurts, but true depression and the kind of shame and hurt Sheila talks about aren't my burden. And that's likely why her takeaways don't feel like some kind of balm to my soul--because her wounds are different. Everyone's wounds are different. I don't identify with Sheila's story, but you might.
All in all, a solid start to 2018. Merry Christmas, and happy new year!
P.S. I received both of these books in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
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