2019 Thoughts & My Goal

We're in the third week of January, so maybe it's finally time I share my thoughts on the new year and goals. 
Truth be told, January 1st came around and I had some anxiety about it. Everyone was dreaming about and writing out their goals and here I was, someone who normally likes doing goal-related things, feeling so pressured to do the same and pretty overwhelmed about it. When I reflect honestly, I know I don't like change. It makes me nervous and fearful. Anyone else? So a new year can often represent fear because of the unknown in what's to come. Being an Enneagram 3, I do love to set goals! The problem is, if I set a goal and then fail at it, I am very hard on myself. When I set too many goals, I can get overwhelmed, feeling like I can never accomplish all these things at the standard in which I want to! One of the things I love about the Enneagram is that it helps me identify these things about my personality, so I can then put boundaries in place to help myself.

To some a new year can be really exciting, a fresh start! And it is. I'm thankful for a new year; it's a gift, of course. I usually get really into the goals and make tons of them, then by March I notice I haven't even made a dent and start getting defeated. So this year I decided to do a couple different things. First, I wanted to make my goals more about the person I want to become and my identity in Christ, instead of all these things I want to do and change. Next, I wanted to identify a main thing I struggle with and then work to see how I could retrain myself on that thing. The thing I identified in talking with my husband is my need for approval. I hope some of you can relate to this struggle!

I wanted to take this struggle and remind myself that God's approval is the only approval I need, so I came up with a phrase that I want to be at the top of my mind all year long:

In Christ Alone.

I'm hoping this phrase will dictate any goals I come up with this year and any decisions we make!

My husband and I went to coffee (well, hot chocolate for me) two weekends ago and did Jennie Allen's Dream Guide. It's a very open-ended walkthrough of how 2018 went and how we could improve or things we want to focus on in 2019. It was fun to talk about things we did well in our work, relationships, and spiritual lives while also making a couple goals (nothing too overwhelming!) for the upcoming year. I wasn't freaking out while doing it, so I think it went well ;)

A couple things we want to do more of this year:

- be more generous with our time, energy and money
- make more conversation with the people who serve us at restaurants, grocery stores, etc. (personal goal for me is to never be on my phone while checking out at the store, so I can use that 5 minutes to talk to the person! I'm starting to know the Trader Joe's employees by name by doing this for a couple months!)
- be more intentional with each other: go on more dates, pray more at night together, ask each other more questions, have bi-weekly financial meetings to make sure we're making our financial goals happen.
- be more active in order to be more healthy and create good habits. So proud of my husband for this already! (He's also been drinking a gallon of water every day since Christmas, which is amazing!)
- enjoying our jobs! We each have a couple work-related goals.
- gratitude

A couple of things we want to do less of this year:

- I am working on NOT reaching for my phone when I wake up. I'm not scrolling or checking any social media before spending time with God in the morning! So far, it's going really well and I see a difference in how my attitude is throughout the day when I do this.
- comparison, plain and simple!
- looking to others for approval and putting too much weight on other's opinions of us.
- spending

Anyways, I'd love to hear from you ladies! How does the new year make you feel? Do you like setting lots of goals, or what's your tactic this year? Can any of you relate to anything I described? I hope if you can, this helps you feel less alone in the struggle and less pressure to come up with tons of goals to accomplish this year. Lets be gentle on ourselves, while still setting out to do good things! xoxo

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