The Life of Bon: March + April Goals

Monday, March 31, 2014

March + April Goals






23 weeks
Dress:  c/o Shabby Apple
Earrings: c/o JeweShop
Shoes: Thrifted
Photo cred: Aubrey Zaruba

If you haven't ever owned a dress from Shabby Apple, you need to.  Their selection for classy dresses is unbeatable, and they are comfortable and totally wearable.  I love the dress I am wearing because it is so versatile- I can wear it to school, to church, or just out and about.  Also, it isn't a maternity dress, but is the perfect cut and material to accommodate my growing belly.  I am saving up my money for this one next- I absolutely love white dresses in the summer.

It's March 31 which means it's time to examine my monthly goals.  If you haven't been following along, at the beginning of 2014 instead of setting resolutions, I set one monthly goal for every month of the year.  I figured by focusing on one thing at a time I would be more successful.  Here are my post evaluations of my January goals and my February goals as well.  Ah, yah!

MY MARCH GOAL:  BE A BETTER WIFE
Sometimes I just think Greg deserves a kinder, happier, less insane woman.  That's all.

Sub goals:
- No nagging.
- Do an act of service daily for Greg.
- Say thank you more often.
- Be more willing to do "his activities" and less pouty when we don't do "my activities."
- Tell him I love him and compliment him every day.

HOW IT WENT:
The first half of the month was a total success, whereas the past week or so I have kind of slacked with the acts of service, especially.  I was focused and in the groove and it was easy to remember to do something extra nice for Greg in the beginning, but then I suppose I just got a bit lazy.  I picked him up sodas on my way from school, left him notes, gave him back massages, put a towel in the dryer when he was showering so it was extra warm when it came out, etc.  I noticed something interesting which was that the more I focused on finding ways to serve Greg the more I noticed that he was constantly doing the same for me.  My guess is that Greg is always doing these extra little acts of service for me, but perhaps because that wasn't where my focus was I didn't notice.  He'd make a snack for me when we were watching a movie, or offer me a back massage (lots of those these days- my lower back is killing me!) or bring me home a treat from the grocery store.  It actually made me a little embarrassed to realize how good Greg is naturally at this while I had to make a more concentrated effort.

Along with the act of the service, there were three things I tried hard to do every single day:
1.  Thank Greg
2. Compliment Greg
3. Tell Greg I love him

 Greg's love language is words of affirmation, so I found that he seemed to appreciate me saying those three things every day more than my acts of service  They seem pretty basic, and by keeping it to three I could remember really easily what I was supposed to be doing every day.  Also, turns out it was really easy to do this, usually just a sentence or two in my daily speech and Greg always reacted extremely well to it.  For example "Thanks so much for going to dinner with me at my mom's tonight. (Thank him).  I really appreciate you being there and you are always so sweet and pleasant with my family. (Compliment Greg)  I love you. (Say I love you)."  

I also tried to be "less insane" which basically means no random emotional outbursts.  I think I only had one for the month, so I consider that a whopping success, all things considered!

Now, on to April!  

APRIL'S GOAL:

APRIL:  FOCUS ON FAITH
I try to make God a part of my daily life, but sometimes it all just gets so hustley and bustley that I feel like He about dang near gets crowded out completely.  In April I want to spend more time contemplating the spiritual and developing deeper connections with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

Sub goals:
- 30 minutes of "quiet time" a day- time to read scriptures, ponder, and write down spiritual impressions.  Tell Greg my plan so he is not trying to distract me while I am working on this.
- Attend the temple every week in April.
- Deeper focus during prayers.
- Be patient and loving.  Pray for help throughout the day when I feel like I am lacking.

I am so excited for this goal.  The past six weeks or so have really rocked me in a lot of different ways of my life, and I feel like I need to focus on what really matters.  I feel my dependence on my Heavenly Father more than ever and my need for Him.  I am so excited to try to prioritize everything else accordingly and really focus on the spiritual this month.

UPDATE ON PAST GOALS:
January's goal was to be better at blogging- I have continued to try to be better at responding to blog comments, at least responding to the comments on one post per week.  I have felt like I've done better at promoting Bon's Book Club (71 comments on Thursday's discussion on Divergent.  WAHOO!  I hope you are all reading for April The Night Circus- discussion is on April 24) and I have maintained a steady flow of traffic for my blog.  I am still trying to figure out ways to continue grow my blog and at this point I don't have a ton of ideas.  I am kind of over sponsoring. Ideas???

February's goal was to write a book.  In February, I wrote about 13,000 words in my novel, which wasn't great at all, and I was disappointed in myself.  In March, I wrote 34,000 words in my novel- much better!  I'm at 54,000 words now, about 200 pages.  Wowzers!  My goal is to have 75,000 words and very close to finished (if not finished) by the time I go to a writing conference at the end of April.  It is all very excited and very terrifying.

That's a wrap, folks!

12 comments:

  1. Love the idea of monthly goals!

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  2. I love setting goals! This dress is beautiful on your and your pics are so dreamy!

    xx
    http://alisialynn.blogspot.com

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  3. About the sponsoring thing, maybe if you tweaked it a bit, it might ring a little more true for you (and be less of a pain). As a blog reader, I personally am "over" giveaways and obvious sponsor posts where you introduce us to new blogs (and this coming from someone who has sponsored your blog!). I think I'd be much more inclined to check out a sponsor if you wrote a blog post inspired by one of your sponsor's blog posts and then included the link to the sponsored blog. Because we keep coming back again and again to your blog for YOUR writing, it makes more sense for me to be interested in something if YOU have become interested in it (or at least done a post inspired by it). I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I am ALWAYS much more likely to click over to a blog if it's in a list of weekly worthwhile reads (like a conglomeration of all that has rocked your world on the world wide web in the last seven days), or if you've found something on a blog that's strong enough to respond to with your own follow-up post.

    Personally, as a person who is planning on sponsoring your blog again, that's what I would like to see. Just some ideas :)

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  4. Your baby bump is just darling! Love the goals, I think I'll steal the 'say thank you more' and the 'stop nagging'. It's going to be tough though!!

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  5. You're the mom who makes all of us have been pregnant ladies jealous. With your perfect body :) you're going to teach your kids such healthy lifestyles. Love it.

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  6. Make sure you can still fit into your temple dress before you go! I went last week and had to ask someone to zip it up for me...next time, I'm going to have to rent a maternity one!

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  7. Can't wait for your book to be published! :)

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  8. I've only just found your blog but can tell I will love these monthly goals posts! The being a better wife month sounds like it was a beautiful chance to make you treasure your relationship more and remind you to make that person feel special :) As for the novel, keep going! I'm sure it will be brilliant :)

    Sophie
    http://what-sophie-said.blogspot.co.uk/
    xxx

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  9. Such a cute dress Bon, I'm excited to see how focusing on your faith this month will help you! :) <3

    guesswhathollie.blogspot.co.uk

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  10. I'm not the same type of blogger as you- and my goals are probably not as ambitious as yours (actually making money and getting schwaggggg!) but as a blogger of two totally different types of blogs, I've discovered that for me, the daily readership isn't as important as the archives of my blog. One of my blogs was just for a year (I posted a daily collection of my treasures with photos & interesting facts) and I get more hits on that blog nearly two years after it ended, than I get on my current blog. That's because people are looking for the types of things I shared on my blog. Most of my hits come from searches, and I get emails almost daily from people asking me about something or other I shared on my blog. To me, that's success. To blog about interesting things people search for. I'm sure, for a lifestyle blogger, that's not the goal. But it makes me happy!

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  11. You are doing excellent!! Go Bon! :)

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  12. Okay--Have you read The Happiness Project? Because this type of goal-setting is exactly what the whole book is about. I loved it. I just need to start living it . . . Haha :)

    ashleynicoleholmes.blogspot.com

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