2015 Goals

I spent my days off around Christmas, like many others, reviewing 2014 and thinking about what I want to accomplish during 2015 and the years to come. While doing so I utilized a variety of resources I had collected at various times from numerous bloggers including Living Well Spending Less, The Peaceful Mom, and The Passion Planner. I had hoped to publish my goals last week, but life interfered with that happening.

Using The Peaceful Mom's Inspired Word of the Day and Joyful Life Planner I selected GENEROSITY for My Inspired Word of the Year. The dictionary defines generosity as 1. readiness or liberality in giving and 2. freedom from meanness or smallness of mind or character. I want to be generous with my time, talents, money, and possessions to others, my family, and my self. The definition reminded me that being generous includes my thoughts and being non-judgmental and affirming to others. I considered several other words but found that generosity will allow me to pursue the other words or qualities I want to embody as well. Practicing generosity will provide more joy and peace, require me to be present to those around me, and mean less for me so that I can give more to others.

Both The Peaceful Mom and Living Well Spending Less provided resources to help readers contemplate the past year, envision their dreams for the years to come, and focuse their goals. I enjoyed working through the suggested exercises of envisioning life in five years and creating an inspiration board, life portrait, and other exercises. While doing multiple exercises may seem a bit overboard, these resources helped to confirm my plans. The Passion Planner took a bit of a different focus in asking to users to envision what you would like to do in three months, one year, three years, and a lifetime and then return to the list to pick the one thing under each heading "that would have the MOST positive impact in your life." This slight twist helped me to focus on both immediate and long-term goals. So below are my 2015 goals:

House: I will minimize (AKA declutter) our possessions significantly. The house will be clean enough to be able to have feel comfortable having friends over which is my three month goal.

Health: I struggle with several health issues as I like to eat and enjoy tasty foods. I will control my diabetes by eating healthy and taking my medicine. I will exercise at least 4 times a week. I have a certain weight goal in mind which is my one year goal.

Family: I will spend one on one time with each family member at least once each month. We will also continue to spend time as a family pursuing activities together both inside and outside of the house.

Spiritual life: This year I am using the One Year Bible to read through God's Word and praying with Operation World, Patterns of Prayer, and other resources I've collected and found. I also located my copy of Search the Scriptures and am embarking on it's three year study through the Bible plan for my three plus year goal. I envision it may take four years though after I subtract time for mission trips, vacations, conferences, and other times where a more in-depth daily study is not possible.

Learning: I like to read and learn so of course a reading goal has to be on my list. This year I plan to read, or re-read, classic literature as well as read non-fiction on a variety of topics. I also like to indulge in just for fun fiction reading as well which I find is important for my well-being. Goodreads challenged me to set a reading goal for 2015 so I optimistically set my goal as 52 books.

Lifetime goal:Using The Passion Planner, one of my lifetime goal's is to visit all 50 states and each continent.

Each month will see more specific short-term goals of how I am going to fulfill these goals as well as reports on how I am meeting or missing the mark on each one. I must admit my first week back to work was tough in accomplishing everything but that's another day's post.

2015 Adventures: Besides the goals listed above, 2015 is going to be a year of adventures. In February I am traveling to a country in West Africa for a mission trip. While there we will be learning about the country, encouraging our partners who live and minister in that country, and praying for a specific unreached people group. As this trip is coming up very quickly, much of my time these next few weeks is devoted to preparing for the trip and having everything set up for my family for while I'm gone.