Goals for 2013

When I was a working woman I had to set goals all. the. time.  Daily goals, weekly goals, monthly, quarterly, and on and on and on.  For everything.  Sales, professional development, staff, my students, every aspect of my job required me to think about and set goals.  I mention this statistic every year, and I think it is important to mention it again.

80% of all Americans have no goals, 16% do have goals, 4% have goals and write them down, 1% have goals, write them down, and read them on a regular basis. That 1% will make nine times more income in their lifetime than the other 99%.
And while setting my personal and household goals hasn't exactly made me a rich woman financially, I do believe it makes my life better to be working towards something rather than just muddling through.

So here goes, my 2013 goals.  Or at least my 2013 goals that I am sharing with the interweb! 

1.  Lose weight.  Duh.  However, since this goal is so easy to lose track of, I am setting quarterly goals this time around and will check back in three short months.  For the first quarter, I would like to complete a couch to 5k program.  Day one is already complete.  I am also going to make it my goal to drink more water.  I used to be very diligent about this and it is time to get back to it!  I figure if I accomplish those two things, weight loss will follow.  We'll see.

2.  Complete at least three days of school a week with Isabelle and Molly.  I don't feel a lot of pressure to do five days a week with the girls because technically neither of them would be in school anyway, but I do want to be more consistent in what we are calling school.

3.  Work on a monthly character trait as a family.  This month is obedience.  With the girls we will discuss obeying your parents, but for me this means learning more about being obedient to God.  Jason's mom bought us a book about character like forever ago and I am using it to pick our character trait for the month.  Some examples are truthfulness, self-control, boldness, hospitality, joyfulness, patience and dependability.

4.  Earn money to buy a camera.  I have literally no idea how I will find the extra money to do this.  And even if I do find the money, I am not sure how I will justify using it for a camera, but I do want to try.  If I manage to get a camera, my next goal will be to find the money to take an online course from one of my favorite bloggers/photographers.

5.  Learn to care more about what God thinks than what people think.  I have a hard time with worrying about what other people are thinking about me.  I worry when I have people over if they will think my house is too dirty, or too small, or too crowded.  I worry about what people in my family might say if we get pregnant again.  I worry about what I look like, how I dress, how I dress my kids, my decision to home school.  It is ridiculous.  Why do I care?  I really don't know.  What I do know is that it is crazy to worry about what people might think instead of being concerned with what God wants for my life.  So there it is, I want to spend more time in the Word, more time listening to sermons, more time reading books that help me grow closer to the Lord and I want to stop worrying about what people think about me!

6.  Read more.  I'd like to read at least two books a month.  I feel like I do that now, but I haven't really been keeping track, so for now 24 seems reasonable.  I will let you know what I am reading and what I think.  I am almost through with a book I got for Christmas about parenting.  It's good stuff.

Lastly,

7.  I would like to make 2013 the year I stop being so hard on myself.  Even typing that is difficult because what I am thinking is, "good grief, don't be such a moron."  Whether or not I think I am overly hard on myself, my family believes I am.  They tell me all the time, "stop being so hard on yourself."  So this year I am aiming to give myself a little credit.  I am not entirely sure how to do this, but I am going to attempt to find out. 

There you go, my goals for 2013!  What do you hope to accomplish in the next 12 months?  I'd love to hear.  Also, if you have any book recommendations I would love to hear those also.