It may be my Type-A personality, or perhaps my college major of business, but I’m all about goals. Not so much New Year’s resolutions, but goals. Goals are my jam. They make me happy and help me to feel organized. My list of goals are outlined each year ’round about this time – post Christmas, pre-January and then I keep them within eyesight so I can actively work towards accomplishing them.
Now, first and foremost, I wanna say, I get it – you’re a mom with young kids. You’re juggling a lot. Goals and accomplishing things can seem daunting. Not really seem, they ARE. I know. So don’t be thinking you need to read a book a week, travel to Italy, or vacuum daily to have goals.
Nope, you’re the boss of you, you get to pick what you want to do to give yourself a little bit of stretch and accomplishment in the New Year. It might be as simple as, take 1 bath each week with wine, bubbles and a gossip magazine or maybe switch from mochas to americanos with a splash of chocolate milk. Of course, you can have bigger goals, but truly assess your current life and look for baby steps. No one eats an elephant in one sitting 🙂
When I’m brainstorming goals I usually think through these categories …
- Physical – health topics, food and exercise
- Professional – work things and home care
- Financial – savings and budgeting
- Mental – reading, classes and education
- Spiritual – classes and daily practices
- Social – nurturing friendships and new activities
Then, I get SMART …
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Realistic
- Timely
That’s the business girl in me. Whenever we discussed companies, campaigns or projects, my professors would drill into me, “Is it SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely?” Ten years later, I still ask myself that question. I rarely say something like, “I want to read a lot of books this year”. Instead I’ll morph that goal idea into a real SMART goal … I’ll make a list of 10 books (specific and measurable), assign each one to a month and commit to reading 3 evenings each week, Monday, Tuesday and Saturdays (realistic and timely).
As much as I’d like to say I’ll read 50 books this year … I know that’s a dream, not a goal. It just isn’t realistic for this phase in my life. And so, I’ll enjoy those 10 books this year … and the other simple, but SMART goals I make this year.
So, mamas, scratch those resolutions and take some time this week to create a list of SMART goals for your 2015! I’ll be sharing mine over on my blog in January and hopefully I can keep ya’ll posted on my progress through out the coming year.