Goal Digger

So I finally got all of my six month goals squared away. It’s important to make sure they are concrete and to add in the ways to accomplish them, Goals and Objectives we call it in the therapy world (again I’m basically making a treatment plan for myself).

It took longer than I thought to decide what my goals would be. In the past I have just let them flow out of me and filled a paper full of wonderful (mostly unattainable) goals which sat largely unaccomplished. At the end of 6 months I would be able to cross off 2 or 3 of the 18 and feel very defeated. I had set myself up for failure by not really thinking them through or setting up a plan.

They were lovely thoughts, but that’s where it ended. I’m not making the same mistake this time!

So without further ado, here they are:

1. Honoring the Sabbath

2. Minimizing technology use

3. Memorizing Scripture

4. Sticking to our budget

5. Implementing an exercise routine

that doesn’t take away from

family time.

6. Developing a meal plan that helps

me stay on budget and takes

some of the stress out of grocery

shopping.

7. Continuing to declutter the house.

8. Making an effort to reach out to

people who may slip through the

cracks.

I plan on blogging a detailed description of each goal because I’m sure some of you are like…”mmmmmm I’m not completely sure what that means.”

I’m going to start with laying out my plan for minimizing technology use.

“But Joy, that’s number 2 on your list. Why would you start with that?”

Because I’m a monster out to destroy all you type A people. Deal with it.

I’ll start with my reasoning. I believe many times it’s more important to know why you are working toward a goal than how you will attain it.

The long and short of it is I’m sick and tired of seeing phones in people’s faces. I’m sick of seeing it in my own hand and in my own face. Most importantly though, I don’t want my daughter to associate my time with her as having a phone in my hand. To give myself some credit I don’t believe that she does and I’m very careful to put my phone away around her and certainly don’t use it as much as others I’ve seen.

However, I don’t want to measure myself against others. It’s a dangerous and judgmental road when we start measuring ourselves against others. We either drop our expectations too low, set them too high or carve out negative opinions about other people that are more than likely not true.

Spending time worrying about what other people are doing is wasting time you could be using to work on yourself.

So what do I expect of myself? I expect myself to enjoy life, to not exacerbate my anxiety by constantly checking my phone, to use my time to give to others and more than anything to be present.

However, as much as I hate technology sometimes I am well aware of the benefits and advantages of technology. Obviously without technology I would not be writing a blog so there’s that. Accessibility to the internet has provided a world of information, connects us with others and allows us to accomplish tasks that used to be very time consuming.

I get it. It’s not all bad.

But too much of it is. So here is how I am cutting back.

1. Wear a watch.

I pick up my phone 53 times a day just to see what time it is. That’s dumb. Time to wear a watch.

I tried to take action on this last week and of course I have a drawer full of watches with dead batteries. I fought for an entire nap time trying to get the back off of multiple watches so that I could see what kind of battery to buy but I could not get the back off of one of those suckers! I was later informed that Fossil will change the battery for free and all but one of them is a Fossil watch. However, getting to the Fossil store is not a super easy thing for me to do so I decided to take my only non Fossil watch to the mall and have them change it at a jewelry store.

Sounds like a great idea right?

Wrong.

I took little j to the mall where we met up with her best neighbor buds and we played on the play ground and then went to “Chicken fil e” and after her best neighbor buds went home we went to a jewelry store for a quick battery change. My watch was an anniversary gift from Jacob and I really love it. I wore it all the time when I worked but after the battery died it sat in a drawer. I hand it over to the lady behind the counter and she says let me check if I have the right tools for this…30 minutes (30 minutes of entertaining a 2 year old in a jewelry store) later I realize she did not have the right tools for this.

This is what she brought back out.

However I was assured that it would be fixed for free. I am not sure I will ever see that watch again.

So starting objective number 1 may be a bit delayed, but I am pressing on!

2. Removing social media from my phone and only checking 1 time a day, at night for a 15 minute period.

More than that is a waste of my time. I will be setting a timer! Otherwise 1 hour will go by and I will think it’s only been 15 minutes.

3. Putting my phone in one designated place and not carrying it around the house with me.

I am not that important. That many people don’t need to be in touch with me. You would think I was the president waiting to hear how a CIA mission went by the way I carry my phone around. So if there is a delay in my response to a text and you need me then just pick that phone up and call me. I will answer a call!

I don’t really spend too much time watching tv so that’s why it’s not an objective, but I will limit my tv, especially at night. I need to spend time with my family and then go to bed!

Now it’s time to do the work! Starting now!

Don’t miss out on the present because your face is stuck in a phone, on a tablet, playing a video game or watching tv. There is nothing wrong with zoning out for a bit, but you may miss out on a lot of wonderful things if you take it too far.

Remember, life isn’t the big things. It’s all the little things that happen in between the big things. Don’t miss them because you were too busy on your phone.

I will keep you updated. I know this will be a challenge, but I feel I’m up to the task!

Have you set your 6 month goals? I would love to hear what they are and how you plan on accomplishing them!