Goals...

I'm learning once again the power of setting goals. I've often "thought" of goals but they thought usually ends there before ever making it into action. It hasn't been until recently that I've started to change that habit... slowly. Here are some success stories and while I know I'm nowhere near perfect I feel the need to compliment myself and encouragement to keep going. Maybe you'll feel inspired too.

FAMILY HOME EVENING
For the first time in our married life we have Family Home Evening every Monday night. It was a real struggle to get started because we didn't know how to connect with our little boys in a "spiritual" way since they couldn't sit still for hardly a moment. Through our perserverance and practice we're getting better each week. We've gone from our initial FHE's of trying to look at the Friend together as G and B fought over who held it and who's turn it was to turn the page... to a more organized, reverent, and brief lesson with songs, prayers, and treats. The results have been staggering to say the least. Their reverence in church has GREATLY improved, they get SO excited for Family Home Evening, they stay sitting in their individual chairs for all of FHE, and they LOVE the treats and activities. My favorite part is that they actually remember what we talk about and show excitement about it. The two most memorable lessons were about temples and prophets. Garrett gets so excited at a picture of any temple and says with great determination "I go to the temple." He can recognize and say "President Monson" and often looks for him in the Ensign and Friend.

When I tell Garrett it is FHE time he excitedly runs through the house in an effort to gather everyone in the family room as he screams "It's Family Home Evening TIME!" Then we pull over two kitchen chairs to put in front of the couch. The boys sit in the chairs while Jared and I sit on the couch. We sing, pray, have lesson, bear testimony, sing, and pray. We always have a treat and sometimes have a game or activity. I LOVE the power of FHE and the power of bearing simple testimony even to small toddlers.

GOAL: Hold FHE every Monday night for the next 3 months.


COMPUTER TIME:
I may be the only one like this but I suppose I kind of got "addicted" to my computer time checking emails, blogs, facebook, craigslist, etc. Initially I would find myself doing this in the morning and completely shutting out my kids and getting frustrated when they wouldn't leave me alone. Then I progressed and made sure I only did it during their nap time. But even then I would get on the computer for the sole purpose of checking the email and then getting on to other important duties I had: laundry, dishes, cleaning, meal planning, sewing projects, ________ (fill in the blank with any other needful/good thing). But once I started I would conveniently start blog hopping, or google searching, or craigslist surfing until I'd wasted away all of nap time. This happened nearly every day and while I enjoyed it I didn't feel good about it. So what did I do? I set a goal.

GOAL: I will allow myself daily computer time to check emails but will reserve time for blogs, facebook, etc for Mondays and Thursdays and as a reward when I actually update my own. (e.g. I updated my blog last Friday so I got to check blogs that day too). If you look back you can see this pattern of Mondays and Thursdays :)

It may sound silly, but life as a stay-at-home mom is still kind of a challenge for me since it's not structured like the life of a student. There aren't teachers that tell me what my assignments are and when they're due, no one to evaluate me and give me a grade. It's up to me now. I'm still figuring out how to manage my time effectively to ensure that I am a good housekeeper, mother, and wife. Since I've made this goal my house is cleaner, I read from good books (Ensign) more, I play with my kids a more, and I'm happy more.


EXERCISE :
As I mentioned in a recent post, I went running for the first time last Thursday morning. I never really made it a goal but the thought had crossed my mind that I should do something to burn some calories because even a small something would be far more than the nothing I had been doing. So that small thought turned into action. But still I had no goals or real drive to continue a pattern of running. After posting to the world my courageous effort to run (because for me it took a LOT of courage), I felt obligated and motivated to do it again. It was kind of strange how I couldn't not run on Friday. I can happily say that I have worked up a serious sweat EVERY day since then with the exception of Sunday. Already it's getting easier, not any more fun yet, but easier in the sense that I know I'm capable of pushing myself, capable of having my mind and determination win out over my mortal body.

GOAL: Work up a good sweat at least 5 days a week for the next month.


Take a moment to set a goal for yourself. Make sure it's realistic, measureable and has an end. For me the goal has got to have an end so that I can say "I finished" because really if I made a goal that said I would work up a good sweat at least 5 days a week for the REST of my life I KNOW I would fail. You have to believe that you can do it. At the end you can reevaluate, see if you want to make some changes, work on something totally different, or extend the same goal for a longer duration of time. Share your goal with someone and report back to them regularly. (Every day I tell Jared how far I ran with specific landmarks so that he can celebrate my success with me).