2016 Resolutions- it's going to be a good year!

Making good on two of my new year's goals- family activities 

and take more pictures!

It's 2016!

Now that we've officially booted 2015 out the door and declared "good riddance, see you later, nobody likes you!" it's time to think about some good old fashioned goals for 2016.  I admit I get freakily excited about goals.  Goals?  GOALS!??!  Yes!  LET'S SET ALL THE GOALS!!!!!!

The term resolution kind of scares me because it feels so... well... long term.  I mean, don't like to jump in to my goals before I'm sure I like them, after all.  So with the new year I'm all about setting some goals and then if those goals are really lucky I might think about turning them into resolutions.  But I make no promises!

I've tried a lot of different ways of doing goals/ resolutions with the new year, all with varied levels of success.  Last year I just chose one word- that word was kind.  Which was a really nice idea.  But the problem with choosing a word for the year at the beginning of the year is you have no idea what the year will bring you.  It didn't take me too long to realize that 2015's word maybe should have been "survive" instead of "kind", but sheesh, what can you do?

In 2014 I chose a goal for each month, much like Gretchen Rubin's take in The Happiness Project.  I still really love this way and contemplated doing it for this year.  But the problem is there are more than one areas of my life I want to work on at what time.  There are a lot of things I'm really excited about changing here in January- I think it'd totally slow my momentum to let myself only work on one.  (Also setting goals a year out can be tricky... I remember my goal for May was to "save" but then we had the opportunity to buy a home... so yah that goal wasn't good for much.

This year I am dividing my goals by category.  I want to be a healthy person in 2016.  I want to be healthy spiritually, physically, emotionally.  I want to have a healthy marriage, a healthy family, healthy friendships, healthy relationships with my students.  So here we go... some goals to achieving healthiness in 2016

SPIRITUAL GOALS
- attend temple once a month
- have 10 minutes of "quiet time" to ponder, read, study, pray each day
- make more effort to comment and participate in Sunday classes
- be more purposeful about recognizing blessings and where they are coming from.  Be more grateful.
- write in a journal each night one or two sentences about the day
- more heartfelt prayers morning and night

PERSONAL GOALS
- read more- at least two books a month (If this is one of your goals too you should Join Bon's Book Club! January's book is These is My Words and the discussion will be January 28 on the blog.  Join us!)
- spend less time farting around on my phone
- delete facebook app on my phone
- be nicer to myself
- complain less

BLOG GOALS
- more real, honest posts
- blog for me more- enjoy blogging more
- respond to more comments on blog, instagram, and facebook- CREATE A SAFE COMMUNITY WHERE PEOPLE CAN CONNECT
- don't read gomi
(I am so grateful for the sponsored content that I get to do on this blog.  I do enjoy doing "real life" posts more though, so I am hoping that as our business grows and can sustain us financially more than I can do less and less sponsored posts.)

BUSINESS GOALS
- collaborate with one small business each week
- collaborate with one blogger each week
- get into 10 local markets for the year
- get the business to a place where it can financially sustain our family by the end of 2016.
-under promise and over deliver on orders

EMOTIONAL GOALS
- say no more
- one act of service a week
- allow myself to take "time outs" when I'm feeling frustrated, stressed, sad, or overwhelmed
- send a hand written thank you note to someone once a week--- write this on Sunday and send it on Monday
- stop feeling upset for things I can't control

MARITAL & FAMILY GOALS
- HAVE MORE FUN AND STOP STRESSIN
- family activities with Greg and June once a week
- date night once a week
- take more quality pictures of family and spending time with family.
- read with June at night
- go on a family vacation this summer

FINANCIAL GOALS
- get to a place financially where we can start paying extra on our mortgage each month
- use credit cards only for business expenses
- start putting money into retirement- preferably 15% of our earnings
- GET HEALTH INSURANCE