2018 Goals: Action Over Perfection

Happy New Year everyone! What a whirlwind of a year 2017 was.  I’ve been having some computer issues lately so blogging has been extra difficult on top of everything else going on.  But I need to get this post up before it’s 2019.  I’m pretty sure I’ll end up buying a new computer this year.

January is one of my favorite times of the year  because it represents a fresh start.  I love making goals and I have quite a few for 2018.  When I started 2017 and shared my goals here, I had no clue I would get pregnant just a month later and welcome a little girl towards the end of the year.  Needless to say, some of my goals were thwarted…you know like losing weight 🙂  I did go back through them though and was pretty proud of the progress we made, especially on the house.  We did A LOT.

These were LAST year’s goals:

1. Implement a morning routine My goal was to brush teeth, wash face, make bed + put dishes away, make coffee + Bible study + get dressed and ready for day + work on Joyful Art Designs if time.  I was able to do this pretty regularly but never had time for working on Etsy in the morning, especially after Beckham started Kinder.

2. Sleep 7 hours a night.  I’ll let you take a guess. Lol

3. Lose weight.  Most definitely didn’t do this, but I sure did gain 30-something pounds.

4. Join a church (officially) and become part of a community group.  We did do this and found a community group too.  I love this bunch of people.  

5. Go on a 10 year anniversary with Ryan.  Well, we opted out of a big trip due to being pregnant, but we did enjoy Destin.

6. Re-decorate the living room.  You can see the transformation here.

7. Get my teeth fixed. I got a root canal done recently so that was good (after the most excruciating pain only second to labor). I now need 3 fillings!

8. Increase income from my Etsy shop.  I actually didn’t do this (but it didn’t decrease), but I didn’t put enough time into the shop from about summer-on.  

9. Blog – Use my new blog planner to stay organized. I ended up not using my planner at all.  And it’s still a hot mess to be honest.

11. Grow blog traffic and focus on email list and Pinterest strategies.  No 🙁

10. Teach Beckham how to read and teach Maddox his ABC’s.  Beckham did learn how to read, but primarily thanks to his Kindergarten teacher.  And Maddox has learned the alphabet song, along with a couple of letters (and let’s just say, I count that as a win).

In addition to those goals, I made over Maddox’s old room into the nursery.  I definitely need to do a reveal of that too.

The planner I talked about in my 2017 goals post, I ended up not liking at all.  I never used the hourly slots and the spiral binding, came loose and my papers started to fall out.  I spent good money on that, but reverted back to Plum Paper Planner in August, even though I had 5 months left on my old planner…PP is the best planner ever…and I’ve tried them all!  My plan is to film a video of this planner and how I use it for you guys to see.

Now on to my 2018 Goals:

Okay, so my motto for this year is “Action Over Perfection.”  I am a perfectionist to a fault.  If I can’t find a perfect time to do it, then I don’t.  Which often leads me to procrastinate and/or never do it.  I’m so tired of that and think it’s better to get stuff done than sit around and make lists.  This will definitely be a struggle for me, but that’s what’s great about goals!

Another big theme for me (and often correlates to my perfectionism) is to care less what people think of me.  There are a lot of things I don’t post or share because of fear of what others might think.  I think being self aware is important, but I’ve realized those who are successful, just go for it and don’t worry so much what people might think.  And I’m not talking about being rude and shrugging off other’s feelings, but it’s more about taking risks that I’m passionate about vs. wondering how I’ll be viewed or judged.

With that said, here are some specific goals I’ve written down for the new year.

1. Drink more water.  My main motivation for this is to increase my milk supply as it is dwindling fast.  I’ve never had a problem with supply, but I can only make 2/3 of what Brielle needs daily right now.  In addition to supply, there is 1 million reasons to drink more water!
2. Get back to prebaby #2 weight – this would mean losing 40 pounds y’all!  And that wouldn’t even take me back to my ideal weight, just the weight I think is healthy and realistic…and I’m totally fine with that.
3. Eat less sugar and fast food.  I’ve definitely become addicted to sugar lately and I’ve simply got to cut it down drastically…this will in turn help with goal #2.
4. Make Ryan feel more appreciated. I asked him to fill in the blank with that last word and that’s what he came up with.  Ouch.  I wanted to know what did he need most from me.  It can be so easy to look at how much he’s gone vs. why he’s gone doing what he does.  He’s a great provider and ultimately does it for myself to be home with the kids.  He also mentioned joy.  Me being joyful about this season of life.  Definitely two things I can do for him (and the kids).
5. Read my Bible more consistently.  I would love to sit down for an hour and dive into the Word, studying it piece by piece, but you guys, that is not realistic right now, and that’s okay!  Like I mentioned above, I’m an all or nothing perfectionist, so if I can’t do that ideal situation, I just don’t do it at all.  My Bible app is going to have to be my best friend.
6. Paint our entry way, dining room, hallway.  I have some big plans for this area (they’re all connected and in need of an update).  I’ll keep you updated in my monthly goals posts.
7. Simplify my house and my systems.  I don’t even know where to begin with this, but life seems so out of control when it comes to organization and just daily tasks.  I feel like I’m rushing all the time and/or physically exhausted way too much (despite having a newborn).  My motto of “action over perfection” has to kick in and I just have to get it done instead of finding the perfect cleaning routine, the perfect daily schedule, the perfect night routine, the perfect filing system, etc.  My goal is to get rid of clutter, both physically and emotionally, that stands in the way of simple systems.  As far as my house goes, my decor and all the stuff inside, just has to be somewhat minimal and easy to clean.  I’m too busy taking care of 3 tiny humans and I can’t harp on all the extras right now.
8. Implement a good budgeting system and spend wisely.  Yes, this coming from a blogger who posts about frugal living.  The truth is, I did a horrible job budgeting our expenses since last June.  It got away from me in June and my “all or nothing perfectionism” said “well, forget it.”  Not good.  I had a hard time budgeting in Excel like I’ve done in the past, so I’m trying out an app to see if that works better.  I’ll start with the Every Dollar app by Dave Ramsey.
9. Make more money that I did last year.  I feel stupid typing that as isn’t that everyone’s goal, but I’d love to grow my Etsy shop and blog to profit more as I spend a good amount of time on each and want to justify that time.  I have a specific number that Ryan and I talked about that I’d like to reach.
10. Dress up more.  I feel like I did a good job of this last year, but I want to put more time in my appearance, especially for Ryan.  I’m not a fancy clothes person AT ALL, but at least have my hair and makeup done as much as possible.  I know that may sound vain, but I think it’s important to make that effort, not only for myself, but especially for my husband.
11. Take more pictures.  You would think I would take a ton of pictures as a blogger, but I don’t.  I found myself often leaving an event and having taken zero pictures. Or blogging about something and having no pictures for it.  I love pictures and I’m going to take more this year.
12. Now, this last one, I’m afraid to even type. But here it goes.  I want to start a YouTube channel…well, kind of.  I’d like to incorporate more videos into my blog posts.  I have wanted to do this for over a year now.  My only reservation is the editing of videos.  I don’t really have a clue and I know it’s a lot of work.   But #actionoverperfection!  I’m going to try it out this year and see how it goes.  Would you guys like to see videos of things like motherhood, Day in the Life, cleaning, etc?

I am going to soak up my favorite little baby this year and enjoy all her goodness as the newborn stage is “officially” over and Miss Brielle is owning being a baby 🙂 I love 6 months to about 18 months the most and I can’t wait to experience it with her!

My absolute world right here!

Let me know any topics or videos you’d like to see this year.  Thanks for being so kind to me and making this a great community to be a part of.

And P.S. I was going to wait until tomorrow to post this so I could find some good pictures to use within this post, but I went ahead and just did it.  #actionoverperfection

I’m linking up with Erika and Shay for this post.  Check out the other link ups for New Year goals.