Progress Update on My Goals for 2018

How are you making progress on your goals for 2018? Since starting solidly is important, I wanted to share a progress update on my goals for 2018.  There has been some great successes, a positive mind shift and a surprising shortcoming.  Hopefully, you are enjoying some wins yourself!

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It is so true that there is more power when you write down your goals.  It accomplishes several things.  One it solidifies in your mind that you are serious.  It allows you to create a plan and see it fleshed out on paper.  And thirdly, you have the huge advantage of being able to go back and reread your goals, getting refocused on what you desired to accomplish.  It is crazy how quickly we can lose sight of our goals or drop some of the smaller goals as they fall off our radar. Plus, it is re-energizing to see progress made toward our goals,

Progress Update on My Goals for 2018

My focus word for 2018 is Strengthen.  Thankfully, I am so much stronger physically than last year, so that is wonderful.  I still bump into my physical limitations, but the boundary line has moved way out!

Strengthen seems to fit this year well so far.  The only thing I would like to do differently going forward is look up some quotes about Strengthening to put around the house to encourage myself.  Honestly, I am struggling physically today (typical SCAD fatigue stuff) so I think it would be motivating to have some truths to hold onto.  Plus, when the going gets tough with the blog or my other goals it will be great to keep forward focused.

Family Goals

We have been making progress on our meals together goal.  While we don’t eat together every night, it is nice to have those times I know I can count on happening.  And we have also been able to have some birthday celebration dinners and met together a couple of times with our boys and daughter-in-law for dinner. 

Little Red is becoming more and more capable in the kitchen.  We tried out 4 Mary Berry, of The British Baking Show, recipes, plus made some familiar and new recipes (including these Chocolate Covered Cherries) so we exceeded out goals in that regard.  Two of the recipes were smashing successes.  However, though the Swiss Cake Roll was quite tasty, Little Red said we would have had a lot of points docked due to the presentation.

I have been proud of her progress.  And it has been good for me to have the time together with her, “helping” her but not taking over and rescuing her. 

It is a balancing act as a parent as our kids become older.

I have known for years that I shouldn’t try to do it all for my kids.  But I have had to learn that when I do jump in too quickly to rescue I send that message that I don’t think my kids are capable of the completing the task.

And I also risk conveying that failure is a bad thing, which it shouldn’t be a bad word in our households!   It’s hard though not taking over- #sittingonmyhands 🙂

Health/ Wellness Goals

Happy to say that I have been hitting my exercising goals of working out/ walking 3-4 times a week.  I printed off a walking chart and have also been tracking my exercise on my habit tracker sheet in my Brilliant Life Planner.  It really does help to see the weeks all together to get a better idea of my actual progress.

One mind shift I have had about exercising goes back to my Trim Healthy Mama lifestyle.  I started asking myself why I could jump on and off the Trim Healthy Mama plan.  Why did it work for me to take a day or two off from Trim Healthy Mama and then jump right back on plan?

Two things occurred to me.  One, I don’t look out too far into the future when it comes to healthy eating.  I just decide that I wanted to be more on plan for the next few weeks and I go forward.  I don’t freak myself out by thinking that I am going to have to eat this way for the next 30 years of my life.  And sometimes, when it comes to exercise, I think, “Now, how long do I have to do this?”.

Next, I don’t make it too big of a deal if I don’t eat perfectly.  If I get side-tracked or miss a few days, I just jump back on plan.  I don’t beat myself up about it or tell myself I’ll have to completely start over since I messed up.

I want to examine and clear away any roadblocks I am setting down myself when it comes to exercise.

And the best way to do this is to look at what is going well in life and why does that seem to work.

Read 2 books a month.  This should have been easy!  As I have mentioned, before blogging, I would read a lot of books.  I was at the library once or twice a week or borrowing books online. So getting back into reading by setting a 2 books a month goal should have been easy!

This goal did NOT go so well.

I finished one book, Murder in Cheslea by Victoria Thompson. The Gaslight Mysteries by Victoria Thompson are so good!  All her mysteries cover a social issue at the time.  Murder in Chelsea discussed how actors and actresses were viewed at the time.  Plus if you enjoy this series, you’ll love the ending as there was a surprise twist in the main character’s relationship!

Did you watch The Bletchley Circle on Netflix?  So fascinating.  It covered a group of 1950’s English housewives that get caught in solving a mystery.  The women had all known one another years before during WWII as code breakers in England.  That was why the book Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II caught my eye.  I was interested to learning more about the women in the United States that served as code breakers during World War II.

The book Code Girls had a wealth of information and behind the scene stories.  But it did jump around a lot from character to character making it hard to really get into the story.  There was also a heavy dose of commentary about the limitation on women due to sexism at the time.  Some of it was interesting but at times it felt a little heavy handed and again distracted from getting into the story.

And I only managed to read half of Code Girls. Unfortunately, I am part of the way into February, and I’m also not on target to complete my 2 books this month either!

A couple problems that I discovered I will need to rethink.

Reading at least 2 books a month is only going to work if I take time to peruse and pick out the books at the beginning of the month.  I only have a few minutes to read in the middle of the day and in the evening.  So if I don’t already have the books picked out, well then I waste reading time thinking, “Oh, I need to pick out this month’s books”

Now, I did notice that another blogger included some of the books that she and her kids read together during their homeschool day.  In which case that would bump up my books:)  We have been reading George Washington’s World by Joanna and Genevieve Foster as part of history class. The book talks about all of the important events and people that were living at the time of George Washington to give a student a much broader scope.

We have also been reading Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Volume 3: Early Modern Times by Susan Wise Bauer.  I have enjoyed all the Story of the World books as they really make history come alive and feel relateable.

How are You Doing?

So how are things going for you?  If you are like me, you may need to even take a few minutes to reread your goals.

Any successes?  What seems to be going well.  Is this a new area for you?

How about setbacks?  Any goals have you driving off into the ditch for lack of a plan?

And finally, have you changed your mind or has your family had some priority changes that have caused you to have to remap out your goals for the next few months?

So tell me in the comments below:)