My Goals and Word for 2016

I remember around this time last year, reading blog posts about choosing a word to live by for the year, instead of focusing on just goals/resolutions. I loved that idea and knew I wanted to do the same for the following year. I've been thinking a lot about my word for 2016, I wanted a word that encompassed all my goals for the year, but one that wasn't too limiting either. I needed my word to work for me, my current lifestyle, and my new goals and dreams for the upcoming year.

I want my goals to be realistic and achievable. I don't want to forget all about them (like I did last year), and I want to work on self-growth and becoming a better version of myself. I don't want to continue complaining to my friends and family about how I want to lose weight, run more, eat healthier, etc,  when I'm doing nothing to actually put these ideas into motion. No more wanting, just doing. But HOW am I going to do these things? For me, that's where wishes and wants turn into goals. What do I really want to achieve this year? What is going to make me a happy, healthier, better version of myself, a mom, and a wife? And most importantly, how am I going to achieve these things?

It's too easy to say: I want to lose weight, I want to be more flexible, I want to be more active. I want to eat better, I want to meal plan, I want to cook more. I want to be a better friend, a better mother, a better wife. In theory, all these things are great, but I need actual ways to execute them.

With that being said, and before we get to my specific goals for the year, my WORD for 2016 is:

This might seem like a silly word, but hear me out. With all the thinking I have been doing these past few months, the main thing I started to notice in my life is the lack of organization going on. Somewhere between becoming a mother and not going back to my day job, I started to just fly by the seat of my pants on a day to day basis. I've learned now, that that is a horrible way to live life if you want any sort of order in it.

Most days, dinner is decided on only hours before it needs to be ready, which means a lot of half-assed meals are thrown together, or if we're being honest, take out is ordered. I've missed appointments and scheduled activities. I'm often doing ten loads of laundry in one day to play catch up. I find myself blogging well into the middle of the night because that's the only time I can find to do so. Birthday cards are mailed out late, or not at all. I've stopped working out because I declare I don't have the time. I go to bed way too late, despite being a night owl, sometimes just because, not because I'm actually doing anything.

Something has to change.

As I looked over my list of goals, it dawned on me that my best chance at success to achieving my goals was if I became more ORGANIZED. Light bulb moment! Everything started to make sense to me. There is no way I am going to achieve anything in 2016 if I don't organize my life. This doesn't mean I expect to do it all, or become super mom. Far from it. It just means that what my life has been lacking, and what I have essentially been craving, is some form of order. Pre-baby days, heck, even pre-husband days, I craved organization. I loved my day planner and lived for writing in it. I'm not sure if I feel like becoming a mom didn't warrant having a day planner (can't I just keep track of playdates in my phone!?), but somewhere along the line I just started winging it instead of maintaining some sense of organization.

I feel like, no, I'm confident that, if I can bring my life back to a more organized state, then things will start to fall into place. I'm the queen of wasting time or not utilizing the time I have to accomplish things I want to accomplish. I'm hoping 2016 will see a big change in how I choose to use my time.

My Goals for 2016

These are my overall goals for the year. They are a bit more vague in nature. In order to remain accountable and hopefully, successful, I plan to break these down into smaller goals month by month. I believe it's easier to make lifestyle changes with baby steps.


FITNESS GOALS

1. Incorporate working out into my daily life. Aim for 3 days of active activity a week (such as running, strength training, workout video). I need to make this a habit and my plan is to actually schedule my workouts into my daytimer.

2. Walk 10,000 steps a day. I started wearing my fitbit again and I forgot how motivating it is to keep moving! I'm hoping this will be the motivation I need to get out of the house more often for walks.

3. Take up Yoga again. Whether through at-home workouts or at a studio, I need to bring Yoga back into my life.

4. PR a 10K. I ended up running way more than I ever imagined I would last year, and now this year I want to get more serious about my running and beat my 10K time of 1:06:13.

5. Try something new. Like snowshoeing, or cross country skiing.


NUTRITION GOALS

1. Make meal planning a weekly event. Everyone in my household suffers from my lack of meal planning. I want to spend less time in grocery stores and less money. I want to know ahead of time what's for dinner the next night.

2. Drink more water and tea, and less coffee and pop. I'm a horrible water drinker, and while I have no intentions of giving up coffee, I would like to cut down. Unfortunately, I just cannot drink coffee black, and those "little bits" of cream and sugar definitely add up over the week! Luckily, I enjoy tea with nothing added. I've been pretty good with my pop intake, but I too often sneak it back into my life here and there.

3. Drink less alcohol. My intake has gone way up over the holidays and as much as I enjoy a nice, cold beer, or a glass of wine once Sully goes to bed, it is doing absolutely nothing for my waistline! Limiting it to special occasions or weekends will be my first step.


BLOG GOALS

1. Utilize a blogging schedule. Almost all of my posts are churned out the night before they are published. I keep track in my head of upcoming posts to write and blog post ideas. This is a horrible, horrible system and definitely accounts for 99% of my inconsistent posting. I'd like to aim for posting consistently three times a week, but I'd also like to have an outline for the month ahead on what I'm going to post about.

2. Get a new blog design. I've seen so many I love on etsy and while I'm sure I could upload a new design myself, it's not very expensive to pay the designer to do it for me.

3. Add an About Me Page. I keep putting this off because it seems like the hardest thing ever to write. I've started and stopped about a hundred times. Time to finally cross this one off the list.

PERSONAL GOALS

1. Utilize my day planner daily. Schedule everything from appointments, outings, activities and workouts.

2. Go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. I'm a night-owl, it's no secret, but it doesn't always work for me. While I like to think I'm accomplishing things late into the evening, often that isn't the case, and I'm just up and awake for the sake of being awake. If we don't have to be anywhere in the morning, Sully and I waste a good portion of the morning lounging in bed, which then gives me less time to accomplish things during the day. It's a vicious cycle I desperately want to stop.

3. Read 30 books. That's two and a half books a month. More than doable when I consciously choose reading over social media.

4. Travel somewhere new this year. A city, a province, a state or a country we have never been to.

5. Work on my overall wellness. Learn to enjoy bubble baths again. Take better care of my skin. Take my vitamins. Go to the chiropractor and massage therapist regularly, not just when a problem arises or I'm trying to use up my benefits.

Phew! I think that's it. In summary, my overall goal is to organize my life in such a way that my more specific goals start to easily fall into place. If I get up earlier, get a workout in, then my whole day is set up for success - I will want to make better food choices and drink more water. I will have more energy and won't turn to coffee to get through the day. If meal planning is consistent, I won't waste time everyday running to the grocery store for items, and the daily stress of what to have for dinner will be eliminated. This in turn should provide me with not only more "free" time in the day, but a more calmness during the day. (Or as much as is possible with a toddler running around!) I don't want to always feel frazzled, and like I'm always "go-go-go!".

Sounds like perfect plan, doesn't it? We shall see! Baby steps, my friends. Baby steps.



Do you pick a word for the year? 

What are some things you want to work on, goal wise, this year?



**Linking up with Jill for Living a Life of Fitness, Health and Happiness!

Looking Back at 2015

2015 has been a fabulous year. Of course, it wasn't without it's ups or downs, but whose life isn't? Myself and my family went through a lot of changes this year, and sometimes I forget that these things happened in just this past year alone. The biggest change was our move to Calgary beginning in February. But things didn't go as planned, and after living in two different temporary accommodations, Sully and I went back to Edmonton to live in our house there until it sold. It was the first time Jim and I had ever spent so much time apart, and while it was tough at the time, it was worth it in the end.

Because with that move, I was introduced to the world of Southern Alberta Bloggers, and little did I know at the time, that some of those girls would become really good friends of mine. I'd even go as far as to call them my tribe. They are supportive, insightful, inspiring, and fun! I signed up to run my first race of the year - a 10K! - and I truly feel like that race was the beginning of it all. I continued to meet new people, continued running, and pushed myself physically more than I ever had before. It's weird, and non-blogging people might not get it, but it's hard not to wonder how much lonelier my life would be here if I hadn't met these women.

2015 also brought some fun travel. In May, I went to New York City with my best friend (kid-free!!), and we spent a week together there, exploring a place I can't wait to return to. My sister visited me for a week in August, and we ran our very first race together (the Spartan Sprint). I travelled to Wateron, Alberta, in September as part of a blogger retreat with some of the most inspiring and amazing women I know, and in November, I spent two weeks in Florida with my family and in-laws.

We also celebrated Sully's first birthday, watched him learn to walk and talk, experienced the Calgary Stampede for the first time ever and visited Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. We took mini road trips to Edmonton to see my mom, to meet friends at Kraay Family Farm, and went to the zoo several times. We explored our new city, went on hikes, and lots of bike rides.

2015, you were alright.

I've been reading a bunch of my favourite blogger's 2015 goal recap posts and the whole time I was thinking to myself, I wish I had posted my goals for the year. Well I can wish no more, because it turns out I did in fact publish my goals for this past year. How's that for mommy brain?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again here: I love making goals (I no longer use the word resolution because that sounds too definite and a good chance for failing), but goals I can get behind. To me, it means you are going to make a conscious effort to work on a few, or several aspects and areas of your life. With goals, it's not black or white: no I MUST accomplish this, I MUST get better at that. Instead, I'm saying, this is what I want to work on in order to be a better, happier, healthier version of myself. Less room for failure, more room for growth. All growth is good, and sometimes, certain things take longer to learn or even master…like learning to be kind to oneself. Learning patience. Becoming a faster runner. Becoming a better cook. Etc, etc. We never stop growing, just like we can never stop learning.

It's far too easy to get caught up in the busyness of day to day life, and I'm finding now, that as I get older, time is passing much too quickly for my liking. Which means not only do days just fly by, but so do weeks and months. This is why I think it's important to not only make new goals, but to reflect on your past goals. Were they good goals in the first place? Were they even achievable? Why did I make 'x, y, z' a goal in the first place? Do I still have some work to do on said goal? Do I want to continue with a particular goal or are there other areas of my life I want to focus on?

I'm very excited and feeling very passionate about my goals for 2016, but first I want to look at the goals I made for myself at the beginning of 2015.

1. Simplify My Belongings

When I made this goal, I had just finished reading Marie Kondo's book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and I was inspired. It also worked out well that we were preparing for our next greatest adventure, our big move from Edmonton to Calgary. Jim and I purged our belongings like it was no body's business (it wasn't - that's such a weird analogy, isn't it?). Anyway, contrary to what the book says about how people rarely regret things they get rid of, I would have to say that we may have gone over board on a few things. We got rid of things that we have wished during the year that we had held on to. Like fishing poles, old camping chairs, extra extension cords - things that seemed needless at the time, but have found ourselves wanting throughout the year, but don't necessarily want to spend money on again. But such is life. I did purge about 75% of my closet, and I would honestly get rid or more of it if I didn't actually have to get dressed in the morning. While I'm starting to feel like my home is becoming cluttered again, I think we did a great job at executing this goal this year.

2. Buy Only Things That Spark Joy in Me

This goes hand in hand with the book mentioned above. No sense in purging if you are only going to continue bringing useless crap into your home. I don't feel as good about this one. I definitely made impulse purchases and have purchased clothing that I don't love, but needed to dress a body shape that I'm hoping I don't have forever.

3. Make a Smoothie Everyday

I definitely didn't make a smoothie every single day, but our vitamix is without a doubt, the number one used appliance in our kitchen next to my coffee machine. The beginning of the year started out on a stronger note with smoothie making, and I definitely notice a difference in my energy levels and digestion when I go long periods without having a smoothie. This is something I will for sure want to keep going into the next year.

4. Take 5-10 Minutes to Clean Up the Kitchen Every Night

A clean kitchen in the morning makes me SO happy, yet I wasn't able to execute this goal every night. Sometimes I was too tired, or I told myself I just didn't care, or I knew that the mess would take much longer than 5-10 minutes to clean up. In order to keep my sanity, I will definitely continue to work on this one.

5. Get Outside More

My goal was to get outside for a walk 3 x a week (I become a bit of a house hermit when the cold weather permits). There were definitely months (like in the summer and fall), where I got outside, either with Sully during the day, or by myself in the evenings, but I know there were weeks where it didn't happen as often. I feel like a goal like this needs to be more specific in order for me to be more successful. Or I need to find a way to make regular walks outside a part of my daily life. And no, I'm not getting a dog.

6. Read 20 Books

Done and done! I think I'm at 37 books read this year. If I can power through my current read in the next 24 hours, I'll hit 38. This was a huge improvement from the year before, so I'm happy with this one.

7. Run One 5K and One 10K

At the beginning of the year, when I made this goal, I really had no idea that I would find a love with running again and that because of it, I would meet and make some really awesome friends. I didn't just run one 5K and one 10K. I ran three 5K races, two 10K races, and two obstacle course races (a 5K and a 13+K). I don't like to register for races too far in advance, but I'm looking forward to racing again in 2016!

And that was it. Some of these, or versions of these may end up on my 2016 goals. I also think I will start breaking down my yearly goals into smaller, monthly goals. For one thing, that way I won't completely forget about my goals. And sometimes breaking things down makes it easier to accomplish in the long run. Baby steps. Or maybe it will just make me more aware and more accountable and there is nothing wrong with that!


Do you make goals for yourself? At the beginning of the year, throughout the year, or both?

Do you like specific goals or more broad ones?

Looking Ahead to 2015

I always find the start of a new year so inspiring. I don't care if most resolutions or goals don't get met, it's the feeling of hope, motivation and inspiration to do better that I love so much about it. It's also a time to reflect on the year behind us, and often, it can be a fresh start. The possibilities a new year can bring is such a wonderful feeling.

2014 will always be one of the best years of my life. It's the year I became a mother for the first time, and while navigating the paths of motherhood can be challenging and trying at times, it was still a great year. Much of 2014 was spent learning all about my new role as a mom and figuring out how to care for a newborn. This year though, as Sully gets older and I've become more comfortable and confident as a mother, I feel I can focus a little bit more on things I want to do and accomplish.

This post took me a while to write because I really had to think about what it is I want to happen in 2015, the things I have some control over anyway. And I wanted to have more specific goals, not just "lose the last bit of baby weight", "read more",  "be more active", "stop biting my thumb nails", etc. Sure, those are all things I want to happen, but I need to know how I am going to make these things happen.

So in the spirit of new years resolutions, here are my goals for 2015 (in no particular order):

1. Simplify my belongings: These past few months, I've really felt the strain and weight of all the clutter in our home. I'm so tired of things not having a "home", and I'm equally as tired of the boxes upon boxes of old memorabilia in the basement that I just can't bear to get rid of. Inspired by a few blogs, this one in particularly, and by this book I just read, the journey to decluttering my home and life has begun.

2. Buy only things that spark joy in me: I'm not a big shopper, but I am bad for buying mediocre things that just end up cluttering my home further and then even worse, being donated a few months later. I want to be more selective and thoughtful in the items I choose to spend our money on and bring into our home. If I don't love it in the store, how can I expect to love it once it's in my home?

3. Make a smoothie everyday: Usually, this is when I vow to clean up my diet, eat more healthy, eat less take-out, etc. And while I hope to do all those things, they are too vague in the grand scheme of goals. But smoothies every day? THAT is something I can do. When Jim and I got our vitamix a few months back, we were making 1-2 smoothies a day and felt so much better in a short amount of time. My stomach was digesting fruits and veggies so much easier than if I were to try eating them (I have a history of Ulcerative Colitis and IBS). I lost the last bit of baby-weight (which has since crept back on), and we were making better choices in the rest of our diet because I believe that when you eat healthier foods, you crave more healthy foods. We still make a lot of smoothies, but not consistently. Sully also loves smoothies, so this goal is really a no-brainer: everyone eats better and everyone feels better.

{mommy and baby smoothies}

4. Take 10-15 minutes to cleanup the kitchen every night: I can't stand coming down to a messy kitchen in the mornings. And it doesn't help that we live in a home with an open floor plan so the mess in the kitchen just seems to take over the whole main floor. In the evenings, once supper is done and Sully is finally in bed, tidying up the kitchen just seems too exhausting. Jim recently told me he feels the same way when he comes home from work, that walking into the home when the kitchen is a mess is a bit deflating. So, we have agreed to work on this. I will do my best to have the kitchen tidied for when he comes home, if he will help me in the evenings with it. Apparently, happy kitchen = happy life!

{this makes me happy}

5. Get outside more: I find it so hard in the winter months to bundle up the baby and go for a walk. In the summer and fall, I tried to get outside every day, even if it was for a quick 10-15 minutes. I'm embarrassed to admit that we almost never go outside anymore unless you count from the car into the store. I know fresh air is a vital part of life and it's not fair to Sully to be cooped up. My goal is to get outside for a walk at least 3 times a week, weather permitting.

6. Read 20 books: You can read about my bookish goals for 2015 here. This means I have to choose reading over other things such as mindless scrolling through instagram, perusing Facebook, pinning things on Pinterest, etc. I used to always read before bed, even if it was just a few pages, but lately my phone is the last thing I read before turning out the light.

and lastly…

7. Run one 5K and one 10K this year: I used to quite enjoy running, although I'm not sure you could have ever called me a "runner", despite how much I wanted to be one. But, I've ran a few races, including a 10K, in the past few years, and I want this year to be the year I start running again. I love the atmosphere of running in a race and I loved that feeling of accomplishing something as exhilarating as running 10K.

{the only race I ran last year - the edMUDton 5K obstacle race - 6 months postpartum}

Do you make resolutions or goals for the new year? 

What is something your hoping to accomplish in 2015?

Here's Looking at You, 2013!

Throughout the year, I always hear people saying how you don't, and even shouldn't, wait until January to make a change or set some goals. While I get what they are trying to say, for me, there's something really exciting and re-energizing about starting a new year. It's like a fresh slate, a blank page in your book. Maybe the previous year wasn't such a great one, or maybe it was your best year yet. Either way, it's always exciting for me to start that next chapter in my life. That doesn't mean I save all my goals for January. If I want to start eating healthy or working out regularly, I won't wait for months to start. But I find the fall months leading up to the holidays always pass by quickly and before I know it, January is right around the corner and I've let a lot of things in my regular life fall to the way-side. Like eating well, exercising regularly, keeping documents from work organized, meal planning, staying on top of household clutter, etc, etc, etc! For me, January has always been a quiet month. There are no holidays in January, very few birthdays and overall it's just a cold, slow month. Which means I find it the perfect month to re-evaluate all the things in my life that I've been neglecting and decide what's important to me to work on for the new year.

While in the past (pre-blog), I've never written down my goals and resolutions, (because then I might feel more inclined to follow-through with them!), I think it's time I started. And putting them somewhere public and somewhere where I can easily refer back to, has encouraged me to be more thoughtful and thorough in the goals I decide on.

Things I'd like to work on in 2013, in no particular order:

My Bible

1. Get Back to Basics: A few years ago, around this time, I discovered Tosca Reno and her Eat-Clean Diet. I purchased The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged book and read it cover to cover in a matter of days. I loved everything about Tosca's philosophy to eat clean, wholesome foods. It clicked. It made sense. I was obsessed. I started paying attention to nutrition labels and actually cared about what I put into my body. I made a lot of healthy changes in a short period of time, and I stuck with the basic principles for a long time. But then, with a move from another province, coupled with wedding preparations and buying a home, I lost my way. Now that we are settled (more or less), I can no longer make excuses. Eating well, meal-planning and cooking healthful foods make me happy. I will resume meal-planning on Sundays, grocery shopping with a purpose, cooking more suppers and packing lunches (instead of always buying something on the run).

2. Get Off My Butt: It's very easy to become house-bound and sedentary during the winter months in Alberta. It's bloody cold out there for months on end and it's hard to leave the house when it's all warm and cozy inside. But exercise, like eating well, make me happy. And for me, the two go hand in hand. When I'm regularly active, my body craves healthful foods. I already play soccer and Ultimate Frisbee once a week, but often these sports are followed by a beer at the pub. Which I've been told, sort of negates the whole exercise component of each. So in addition to the sports, I will start including other neglected activities such as yoga, running and fitness classes at the gym (bodypump!). Once I get going, I'm pretty good at keeping it up! It's just building it into my routine those first few times that's tough for me.

3. Walk the Dog: Don't get me wrong, Saigon gets walked regularly, sometimes even twice a day. But there's no routine with when he gets his walks, and sometimes I feel this is unfair to him. In BC, I was really good at walking Saigon first thing in the morning. Now, the majority of his outings are in the evenings, even on my days off. My goal, on my days off, is to walk Saigon first thing - before I sit down at the computer, before I catch up on a show or do a few chores. That way I can go about my day without feeling guilty for not having walked him yet. On the days Jim and I both work, we will start walking Saigon together in the evenings, rather than trading off like we are often inclined to do.

4.  Cook-Book Scrap-Booking: On the last day I could use my book-store staff discount, I purchased this recipe binder. All my recipes that I've copied from friends, family or from on-line are on scrap pieces of paper held together by one big paperclip. It's a horrible, ugly system and I'd love to start a scrap-book for all of my favorite recipes.

5. Abolish Clutter: Clutter is my nemesis. I can't stand it, yet it constantly has a presence in my life. It's on our counters, on our kitchen table, but the worst of it resides in our second spare bedroom upstairs. I not-so-lovingly refer to it as our shit room. It's an abyss of things that don't really have a place in our home but we can't bear to part with (yet), boxes that still haven't been fully unpacked since moving in, and the place where clutter from downstairs gets thrown when we're tidying up the main floor. I usually keep the door to this room closed so I don't have to acknowledge it, but I hope that by posting a picture, I'll be shamed into tackling this room once and for all.

For Shame!

6. Write: Before Christmas, I bought myself this Q & A journal. A different question every day for the entire year. Repeat x 5 years. Simple yet brilliant. It's not overwhelming, it's not time consuming yet it still provokes thought. Is it realistic to think I can keep it up for 5 years? Probably not. But I desperately want to try my hardest. I started the journal on January 1 and make a point of taking a few (literally) minutes to answer the question of the day.

7. Finish Unfinished Projects: In the summer I started on a few furniture projects. But before I knew it, cold-weather was upon us and the projects got moved from the garage down to the basement, where they have sat, unfinished, since. These projects include the repainting/refinishing of two small bookshelves, an end-table and a small chest of drawers that I plan to use as a jewelry cupboard.  Our basement is unfinished, so there's really no reason why I can't finish these projects before summer rolls around. I mean, other than my sheer laziness.

Future Home to all my jewels.

8. Catch Up: It's no secret that I fell behind in blogging sometime last year. I struggled to find my groove, and in feeling pressured to post more often, I ended up just not posting at all. 2013 is a new year and while I'm not going to dwell on last year, I do want to write about the books I read but didn't blog about. These posts will most likely be shorter posts and more for "me", but it's something I need to do or it will always bother me.

9. Read:  Duh. More specifically though, read 50 books this year. It shouldn't be that hard, yet I didn't make it in 2012. I really want to hit that number this year.

10. Stop Biting my Nails: Self-explanatory. It's on my "resolution" list every flippin' year and it never happens. And no, that gross-tasting polish does not work. But I'm open to other suggestions!

Tell me: What are your resolutions for 2013?