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Sunday, January 3, 2010

A New Year, New Goals

Happy New Year!! With the dawn of 2010 here, if you turn on the television, the first thing you will likely hear about are good resolutions to make: I absolutely hate making New Year Resolutions, because to me it is a way of saying, I am going to do what I didn't want to do or was not motivated to do the last 20+ years of my life, so BAM, I am starting tomorrow! But guess what, tomorrow usually doesn't come, or it may begin, but does not last.
I am a faithful follower of Hearts at Home (www.hearts-at-home.org) and I received the New Year's newsletter the other day. As I was reading through it, I was almost holding my breath hoping the fine ladies writing in this addition would not begin pounding on good New Year's Resolutions to make. And to my great delight, they did not, but they did provide me with a profound thought. Setting goals...reachable, realistic, attainable...SHORT TERM goals! In the newsletter, Mary Steinke talks about listing 5-10 of your priorities, then making one goal for each of those areas for the months of January, February and March. For example, one of the ones I listed was home management, with the change of seasons, 5 kids, one coming in the next three months and Christmas (and a few birthdays) just getting over, the kids have clothes hanging out of their closets, drawers and floors! It has been very overwhelming for me! So, rather than making my New Year's Resolution that I will tidy my house and keep it that way, or saying, I will clean up the clothes issue, I made specific, short term goals:

January - I will go through the three oldest kids closets and dressers, retaining the in-season clothes and providing them with a satisfactory amount of clothes, but not so many they will not be able to wear them all! Then I will sort through the bins in the spare room, keeping those clothes that will be used again and will give away any unneeded or unwanted clothes.

February - I will organize my home office and fix the front storm door springs.

March - Since the baby is due April 2nd, I will put up the needed baby furniture that is stored in the spare room right now, get the clothes ready for the baby and rearrange the younger two boys clothes so that all fit appropriately.

Just writing those simple goals down, I no longer feel so very overwhelmed by the thought of having to deal with all the clothes! I have the month of January to peck away at the oldest three, February to get the office back on track and the month of March to get ready for the baby!
This morning in Sunday school I passed out a blank short-term goal list to the ladies in class, I hope and pray it will assist them in making this a productive time of year and not a time of roller-coaster need-to-resolute time of year!
Happy Goal Setting!

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