Monthly Goals : January 2021

Hello everyone! I won't go into my "thank goodness we made it through 2020" introduction (partially because I'm going to say it during my December Sentence a Day recap that'll be published tomorrow...ha!). 

I wanted to start out the year on my little online space by talking about my monthly goals. I know it sounds odd, but when I read other bloggers' monthly goal posts, I get inspired/motivated to work on goals of my own. I used to post about my own monthly goals but haven't done so in a while (and I can't find it on my messed up Wordpress blog to know the exact month), so I wanted to jump back into it. Hopefully by posting this, I'll not only inspire someone else to work on their goals, but I'll also give myself a little public "butt kicking" when I have to post my follow up next month and show how productive I have or haven't been!

January 2021 goals:

1. Read 13 books

I want to read 150 books this year. I have a couple of reading challenges I want to participate in (like Lauren and Lindsi's Read the Alphabet Challenge!) that will help me choose books to read this month. I'm already reading Anxious People as my A title! Half a book down - 12.5 more to go this month! 

2. Deep clean/declutter living room

Even though we were home basically 24/7 in 2020, our house is still a disaster area. I think that the uncertainty of 2020, plus our family's personal challenges made me shut down instead of being more productive. However, this year, I'm ready to change that! I've broken our house up into 12 rooms/areas so that I only need to focus on one per month. We'll still do all of the regular cleaning and home maintenance tasks that need to be done, but each month, we will really focus on that month's area and deep clean and declutter it. I decided to start with our living room since that's the first room you see when you come in our house, and I thought it would be nice to have a calm and clean space to come home to. We have a couple of flat surfaces in our living room that are dumping grounds for papers and random junk, so even just clearing those off will make a huge difference! Deep cleaning this space involves things like washing the curtains, cleaning the window tracks, and borrowing a rug cleaner in order to really freshen up the space. Those are things that we aren't doing consistently right now, so even doing them annually from now on will be an improvement.

(If you're a clean and organized person who does those things on a really regular basis, then I'd love to see your cleaning schedule. I probably won't follow it, but I'd like to know what else I need to work on improving!). 

A couple of pictures of our living room from last night. Yes, those are the Christmas decoration bins with things, such as decorations, planner stuff, and a few Christmas presents piled on top of them. Ugh. Also, the second picture is one of the two flat surfaces that is the catch all spot of doom. I know our letter board needs to be changed too. We're a hot mess around here...but not for much longer!

3. Finish putting away Christmas decorations/items

This one is the easiest goal of the month because I'm already almost finished with it! I figured I needed to put at least one guaranteed to finish goal on my list! I took our tree down yesterday (and the area where it was looks so empty and dark now), and all of our decorations are gathered in one spot to be put back into their bins. I see this one being finished this week! Phew!

4. Lose 4-5 pounds

I'm about 100 pounds over the weight I want to be at (and that's about 30 pounds more than the "suggested weight range" that BMI charts so helpfully provide people). I'm about 7 pounds heavier than I was when I gave birth to Char nearly five years ago. It's time for me to get serious about losing weight. However, I want it to be sustainable and realistic for me. I have jumped into restrictive eating plans in the past, and they have not been good for my mental health; obviously they haven't worked either, since I'm heavier than I've ever been! So, my new plan is to be slow, steady, and sustainable. This means that I'm looking at this 100 pound loss over the next couple of years. I may lose more quickly than that, but I'd rather exceed my slow goal than to set something unrealistic and fail spectacularly. 50 pounds in a year puts me needing to lose between 4 and 5 pounds per month or around a pound a week. Yeah, it's not glamorous or exciting like big, quick transformations are, but it's going to be what works for me. Also, I'm totally making a weight loss and rewards chart for my planner (nerd alert) so that I can stay motivated during this long process! I plan to talk about my weight loss plans more here, but I'm waiting to see if there is going to be a Wellness Weekend linkup this year or not so I know when to share!

 

Me in January 2015 (at my post 100 pounds weight loss goal weight) versus August 2019 (one of the most recent full-body pictures I had and probably around 10 pounds lighter than I am now). Also, I am wearing pants in that picture...they're not flattering, but they are there... 😂

5. Determine where we stand financially

I won't talk much about our finances or our debt free journey here since I have another blog dedicated to that, but I will say that we need to figure out what bills we are behind on, how much we are behind on them, and what our updated debt total is. Blah. This goal sucks, but it's a necessary evil. 

There you have it! I have a tendency to make really long to-do lists or think that I can accomplish 600 things in a week, and those thought patterns lead to failure. I'm going to keep my monthly goals between 3 and 7 items in order to make it realistic and manageable for myself. These aren't my only goals each month or for the year, but these are the ones that will help me achieve my bigger goals. For example, with my big goal of reading 150 books this year, I need to read 13 books per month to reach that goal. My goal of deep cleaning and decluttering our entire house can be done by the end of the year if I break it down to one space/area of the house per month. Plus, I can use the same room and area rotation next year to make sure we maintain a neat and clean home. 

Each thing I do monthly is another layer in achieving big goals, plus it helps me break it down into bite-sized pieces, rather than thinking, "I have to deep clean and declutter my whole house in a month, while I lose 50 pounds, and in between reading 150 books." Yeah, that may seem ridiculous to a lot of people, but my brain works that way! Also, you'll probably see some of these goals (like the books to read, decluttering, and weight loss ones) repeated each month. I'll try to mix it up a little with before, during, and after pictures, book reviews, etc, but it might get repetitive to read. Sorry in advance! However, life is repetitive sometimes, so maybe it will be good to see consistency. Possibly...

Do you make monthly goals? Share them with me so I can cheer you on!