The Last Three Months
Since I listened to the audiobook of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, I have been taking a day every few months to reflect on the previous months and to plan for the next few months. You can read about my previous one on the MY PERSONAL QUARTERLY OFFSITE post. In it, I shared my focus for the fall…
My TOP THREE priorities for the fall were the following:
1. Adjusting to life changes – settling into a new church ministry as a family and helping the kids adjust to middle school and third grade
2. Focusing on my personal fitness – exercise and nutrition
3. Focusing on financially profitable business opportunities – including new product creation
Hits and Misses
1. Number one was great. My family is happily settled into our new church home and the kids are both doing extremely well in school. One life change that I had not anticipated adjusting to though was the passing of my mother-in-law. That was challenging but I was so impressed how our family and friends pulled together to make that transition go as smoothly as possible.
2. Number two was awful. It is now my top priority. Exercising five days a week, eating clean 90% of the time, and drinking half of my body weight in water each day are the three things that I plan on doing in order to meet my fitness goals. Since I already get enough sleep and keep stress at a minimum, focusing on those three areas should be enough. I hope so, because I’m really not willing to do (much) more!
3. Number three was good. Although I decided that I didn’t have the mental space to create a new product, I made more money in the last quarter of 2015 than I did in any of the previous quarters of 2015. I’ll take it. 🙂
2015 Year in Review (Overall)
While I now break down my annual goals into quarterly goals (thanks in part to Todd Herman), I still choose seven to ten goals to focus on for the entire year (thanks in part to Michael Hyatt). I chose ten goals for 2015 and accomplished eight. I joked with my girlfriend that it means I received a “B” for 2015. Then, I gave myself extra credit for things that were not on my list but were meaningful like planning a funeral in three days (not easy!), finally finding a speech therapist who helped my son (instead of saying that he would “grow out of it”) and such. At the very least, that should bring me up to a “B+/A-“. [Look for those “extra credit” things that come from challenges and/or unexpected great things that pop up. Many of you are moms…I know that you should get extra credit for something!
Hits
–Read the entire Bible. I hadn’t done that in a while so it was great to read it from cover to cover.)
–Settle on a church home. It was super-hard to leave the Manhattan ministry that I was a part of for 21 years – since I was a campus student. The Queens ministry that we are settling into was the best family decision though.
–Date my husband. Before, my husband Reggie and I went on weekly “in-home” dates on Saturday nights once the kids were in bed and we just had outside of the home dates when they fit in. Being deliberate about having an outside of the home date at least once a month was great fun in 2015. We will keep doing this going forward.)
–“Date” my family. Don’t tell my sons that I call it a “date” though or they will say, “Ewwww”. Whatever. Although we already spent a lot of time together as a family, there was something extra special about specifically planning various monthly outside of the home family times. We will continue this also.
–Go on a cruise with my mom. I had such a wonderful time cruising with my mom. For our next mother-daughter adventure we’re planning on going on an Agatha Christie London tour within the next couple of years.
–Earn enough to remain a work from home mom. Contrary to what I thought, kids get more expensive each year. Every year that I can afford to remain a work-from-home mom is a gift!
(-The other two hits were especially personal, so I won’t write about them.)
Misses
–Reach pre-children physical fitness level.
-Earn “x” amount from web development and blogging clients.
Overall 2015 was really great. I can’t complain. The areas that I focused on went really well and vice versa. My two “misses” are now at the top of my 2016 Goals List. I’ll write more about that tomorrow.
Meanwhile, what were some of YOUR 2015 hits and misses?