I am so excited and fired up about my 2018 + January-specific goals!! My goals list hasn't been this full in a LONG time. I know that January 1 is just a made up day on the calendar (or the significance is made up, I should say), and in general I try not to buy into the "new year, new me" mentality. I also am so not into the "ugh, 2016/2017/whatever was the worst, I can't wait for 2018" griping that I see so much on social media. But all of that said, this year's start has coincided with me finally having time to rest and reflect on the direction I want to go in, and so I'm finding myself really invigorated by all of the white space the year's calendar holds.
I didn't post my January goals on the first of the month (instead I wrote this post about how we spent our New Year's Eve), because I wanted to take my time on honing my focus for the year and for January specifically. I think I really dug deep and I'm proud and excited about what I'm aiming for this year and this month. One thing that's crystalized for me in the past few weeks is the value in partially-completed goals. I think in the last year I got stuck when I set a goal for a particular month and then realized I wasn't going to reach it. I would just scrap it entirely, because I couldn't fully cross it off my list, so what's the point? I've now realized how much this mentality was holding me back. For example, one of my December goals was to finish unpacking the whole house and have everything organized and perfect. By about December 18th, I had made zero progress on this goal. I was ready to give up and just push it off til later--but then I realized I COULD still make meaningful progress. I spent 1 hour doing a "power unpack" and it made such a huge difference! No, I didn't 100% complete my goal (I still have a couple of suitcases to unpack), but I did make real progress that I'm reaping the benefits of.
One of my overall goals for 2018 is to create a life-giving home. To me that means having a clean, organized, beautiful, and useful space, and it also means filling it with light and life and good times with the people we love. I want to be better hosts and to be a refuge for people in our lives who might need to vent, have a good meal, or a place to stay. I love our little house so much, and I'm really excited to share more about it on HDWD. It's not totally ready for a full house tour yet, so in this post I'm sharing some detail shots I took around the house last weekend! More to come soon.
To recap my December goals progress, here's that list:
- Blog five times! Yes!
- Finish unpacking from our move (yes, we moved in October. And yet this is still one of the heaviest things on my to-do list, and one of the things I will be proudest about if I actually get it done!) Not totally, but I made progress!
- Successfully split the Christmas holiday between Grace's family and mine. This will be our fifth Christmas we've been dating (or engaged), but our FIRST Christmas we'll see each other on the actual holiday! We've always spent it separately with our respective families in years past. This year, both of our families will be in North Carolina, and we'll be spending time with both. I can't wait to go to my hometown church's Christmas Eve service together, go to our family friends' Christmas Eve dinner, hang out under the Christmas tree on Christmas morning, and start to make our own little family's traditions. Yes, and it was really sweet! Too short.
- Take our photos for our save the date invitations Yes, our good friend Molly took them for us and I'm so happy with how they turned out!
- Design and order a photobook of our Alaska trip Not yet.
And my January goals:
- Book our wedding caterer
- Book our wedding band
- Send out our save-the-date cards
- Register for gifts
- Secure group rates for our wedding at hotels near the venue
- Get organized with finances and start tracking spending again
- Brainstorm for a getaway to celebrate the first quarter of 2018 in about three months
- Blog 2x a week on Have Dog, Will Drive
- Finish unpacking our house, buy an entryway chair, and hang up some more frames
- Try running with Bean (he has that puppy energy and I could use the exercise, too!)
This is a big goals list, but I've actually already made progress on the majority of these! I am really trying to use this motivation and energy I've had lately to knock out some goals. If you set goals for January or 2018, I'd love to read them!
Hope you enjoyed these pics of our house! I can't wait to share more.