2016 Goals and One Little Word: Enough

I’ve been thinking over a couple words for my ‘One Little Word’ for 2016 and finally settled on ‘Enough.’  The more I've rolled it around in my head, the more I've really felt it was the right word.  I particularly like it because it can cover so many different facets of life. Constantly reminding myself that I am doing enough, being enough, good enough.  Also that we have enough and the season of life that we are in is enough.  And I can also flip it on its head and remember to say Enough and let it go when something in my life is not serving me well. I like the idea of using our "one little word" as a lens for how we see the year.

And along with focusing my 2016 year on ‘Enough’ here are my other 2016 goals!

·      Complete my Gadanke “Home” Journal – Over the summer, I wrote this post about how special this little rental house is to me, and I really want to capture similar sentiments in my Gadanke Home Journal.  Check out Katie’s journals, they are amazing!

·      Organize our most used recipes in ONE place and come up with a system for them.  – Right now they are SO scattered. Some printed, some on Pinterest, some memorized.  Really planning to come up with a system and keep better track of stuff we try and like. I'd really like this to go along with better meal planning, grocery shopping and just simplifying food in general.

·      Read 30 Books – Considering I read 35 in 2015, 30 seems like a good goal for 2016! So many are already on my list!  Follow me on Goodreads for more book stuff.

·      Be more intentional about monthly date nights with Chris – As I mentioned yesterday, this year I’d really like to actually plan our dates better and maybe do some things we haven’t done before.  Not just the same old.

·      Learn to Knit – This is also on my 30 before 30 list.  I can do really basic crochet, but I really want to try out knitting since I tend to like finished knit projects better.

·      Finish Lactation Counselor and Childbirth Educator Certifications – On track for both of these by the end of the spring!

·      Publish Postpartum Year Anthology Book - (or at least have it on its way!) I am going to be looking into traditional publishing and hybrid publishing before going the self publishing route, so depending which direction it ends up going, I’m not sure how long this project will take to complete, but it’s one I’m very passionate about, so I am excited to work on it!

·      Continue Mom’s One Line a Day Journal and 5-Minute Journal, but also do the 52 List Journal – I got this journal a few months ago and decided to start it in January, I like the idea of spending a little bit of time every Sunday writing out a different creative list. And still love my One Line and 5-Minute journals.

·      Go to a Yoga Class at LEAST twice every week, preferably 3 times, or even more. – When I don’t have Zumba and the Lactation counselor classes at ARC going on 3 times is TOTALLY doable…but with the above in Feb-May, I'm going to tell myself that two is... enough. 

·      Complete the Zuda Yoga Assistant Program – Registered for this in February!

·      Meditate everyday, but shoot for 5+ minutes – Continuing the habit from 2015, but trying to up the length.

·      Publish a blog post once per month – a lot less from 2015, but with everything else going on, I think this is a reasonable goal!

·      Podcast – 3 Full Episodes per month (36 for the year - up from 2 per week and 25 for the year in 2015)

·      Eat Less Sugar – I’m not sure how I’ll quantify this one…but I know that I get into ruts of eating WAY too much sugar and it makes me feel like crap.  Everything in moderation and all that jazz, but I need the even the moderate amount to be lots smaller. And of course this also can be filed under the header of 'enough.' 

2015 brought a lot of growth, and finding a good groove. 2016 is sure to bring even more and I'm excited to see where it takes us. 

Happy New Year to all!

2015 Was A Very Good Year

2015 was a very good year. This time last year I was just starting to come out of the crazy baby fog. I had a 10 month old and I was finally starting to feel like myself again…do the things that made me feel like me.  So I set out with a list of goals for 2015, because honestly, goal-setting makes me feel like me.  It helps my frame of mind to always know I’m working towards something.  That’s also why I just posted a 30 before 30 list as well. 

So now that the christmas decorations have made their way back to the garage and as we get ready to sip the champagne and ring in 2016, here are some reflections on my 2015 goals and how they panned out:

Meditate Everyday – This has been really good.  I think for multiple reasons – One, I said any amount of time counted even if it was only 2 min. (Hoping to up that next year) and two, I promised myself I would never miss more than one day in a row.  Also using Coach.Me and Elise’s Goal Tracker helped too! Visual reminders are the best. I have meditated 319 out of 365 days this year.  Pretty darn good!

Read 25 Books – Completely surpassed this goal and read 36!  Two of these were very short, and 8 were audiobooks. But still. Super proud! For sure planning to up my reading goal in 2016.  Especially now that the husband has decided he wants to battle it out for who can read the most... 

Learn to Sew a Quilt  - Yeah. Didn’t happen.  I started to take a class locally and the teacher was terrible so I quit going.  I have a bunch of squares cut out and sitting in the closet but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.  Eventually…

Blog once per week – With the exception of a few weeks here and there, this mostly did happen.  It helped me be consistent with writing but it also made me try to find filler posts to meet that quota.  I’m backing off this goal quite a bit for next year since I’m going to have my hands very full with some other projects and certifications.

Date nights with Chris each month – So I’m pretty sure you could say we did go on 12 dates over the course of the year, but they weren’t planned out, intentional and much more than dinner or a movie.  (Which is still something of course) But I am hoping in 2016 we can be more intentional about planning 12 dates that are maybe a little bit different from our norm.

Do the 5-minute Journal Daily – So according to Coach.Me, I think I did this about 220 times? Certainly not everyday, but a lot.  I really like this exercise, and plan to keep it up in 2016.

Try 2 new recipes per month – Again, we probably did this…but not with much intention behind it.  Hoping to get better organized with our recipes and meal plans in 2016.

Produce 25 Podcast Episodes – Success, my last episode of 2015 was #25 where Kelsey interviewed ME. :)

ICEA Childbirth Teaching Series & Prep for early 2016 test – I passed my evaluated teaching series just a few weeks ago and am submitting the paperwork to schedule my test for February 5th! Ahh! 

Do the Couch-to-5K – I did this last March.  And I’m glad I did it, but it also reminded me that I am not a ‘runner’ – that is to say, I don’t enjoy running like I enjoy Zumba and Yoga.  Zumba and Yoga make my soul happy.  Running is just a means to an end for me. 

My “One Little Word” for 2015 was Presence. I think because meditation and yoga were such big aspects of 2015, and reading  several mindful/Buddhist parenting books…my view of the year was definitely zeroed in on Presence.  But I like what another blogger had said about the one little word, it’s not that picking a new word for 2016 makes Presence null en void, it means that I take that word with me and also have a new one to focus on.  More on that and 2016 goals tomorrow. 

30 before 30: A List of Goals

Well I’ve been remiss on the blog front lately.  As usual, the holidays have taken over this time of year, and on top of that, I’ve been finishing up my childbirth class series for evaluation for my certification (which I passed last week! Woo!) and something just had to give.  Looking into 2016, I likely will be blogging less just because other things are going to take priority.

But before we get into 2016 I do have some ‘end of the year’ posts planned, starting today with my ’30 Before 30’ list!

I’ve seen so many of these lists floating around the Internet. My friend Katie recently completed hers, so it got me to thinking, what would I like to accomplish in the next 2 years and some change? (I turn 28 in January) Here’s what I came up with. I think it is a pretty balanced list, though the education piece is probably a little bit ambitious.  But do remember, I’m nearly done with both the childbirth educator certification and the lactation educator certification.

Creative:

1.     Learn to Sew more proficiently (I only know basics)

2.     Learn to Knit (I kind of can crochet…)

3.     Take a Pottery Class (Like the kind with an actual wheel)

4.     Learn to take better photos (I think I may be relying on my friend Elizabeth with this one!)

5.     Learn a new song on the piano just for fun (For as many years as I’ve taught piano, I very, very rarely sit down and just play for myself)

6.     Learn to play some on the guitar (Chris wants to do this too, so maybe we’ll do this together?)

7.     Keep up a project life album of photos each year (I’ve been pretty good about this over the last year, though the last few months have been a little crazy and I need to catch up.  I like her “mini” albums for a more simplistic layout.)

8.     Learn to garden (Chris and I ALWAYS say we are gonna do this every spring…it’s time to actually make it happen)

Trips:

1.     Visit Las Vegas (April 2016!)

2.     Visit the Pacific Northwest (Oregon/Seattle) Probably a 2017 trip…

3.     Go to a MLB game – Seriously, I’ve never been. Even though one of my best friends from high school used to work for the Giants!

4.     Go to a NFL game – Especially now that the 49er stadium is on the Amtrak line!

5.     Take a trip to see Christmas lights in a limo (Marcie, I’m looking at you with this one – we’ve been talking about this forever)

Certifications/Education:

1.     Complete Childbirth Educator Certification (Early 2016)

2.     Complete Lactation Educator Certification (Early 2016)

3.     Complete Doula Certification (2017?)

4.     Complete Yoga Teacher Training….This is a big one…so I’m not sure when… but doing the Zuda assistant program in 2016 for sure!

5.    Take certification for another Zumba Specialty

The Practical:

1.     Learn to drive stick shift – My friend Curt said he’d teach me. 

2.     Make out a Will with Chris – Cause, you know, adulting.

3.     Pay off all of our credit card debt – More adulting!

4.     Learn to cook several meals well – Cause I can’t keep doing mac and cheese when Chris is out of town.

5.     Do consistent volunteering – Sutter Davis! Yoga Assisting! Yay!

6.     Minimize our stuff (ala Marie Kondo) – Read the book if you haven’t yet!

Other:

1.     Publish a Book – (Working on going through submissions for The Postpartum Year!)

2.     Get a Tattoo – Planning this for my 28th birthday next month

3.    Keep up my Podcast.

4.    Keep up my Meditation Practice.

5.     Regularly Journal (besides my One Line a Day and 5-minute Journal everyday ones)

6.    Write a letter to myself to open in 5 years

Do you have any big birthdays coming up with goals you’d like to complete? :)

Look for a Book Recap, 2015 recap and 2016 goals coming in the next week or so!

Happy Holidays to All!