Setting Goals With Kids

My Life List

*Spend a summer in Italy with the kids

*Take each kid on one on one trips

*Start a getaway weekend with girlfriends

*Get family pictures taken by a photographer I really love

*Eat fresh vegetables all summer from own garden

Master the Technique

I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don't set goals in our lives and learn how to master the technique of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When you learn to master the principle of setting a goal, you will then be able to make a great difference in the results you attain in this life.

M. Russell Ballard

Half birthday and a few plans

Its my half birthday and soon I will be 30. I have a few things I plan on tackling in the next six months.

1. 30 new recipes attempted before 30

2. 30 pounds to shed before 30

3. 30 literary experiences before 30 (poem memorized or book read)

4. 30 pictures of me and my little family before 30

I am grandfathering in what I have already done in the month of April (feeble, but any help I can get)

No Plastic Bags Update

It is funny how goals go. My hardest goal was not to eat refined sugar and I have been 100% perfect and my easiest goal was not to use plastic bags and I have failed. Failed at my easy goal - really! I need a system to keep bags in the car and maybe a few really cute ones to make it all a little more fun.

moop bag

baggu bag

http://www.etsy.com/shop/DrikaB

January 2011

January Focus: Respect

Respect Self:

1. Only positive comments about self

2. No refined sugars

Respect Mike:

1. No assigning tasks (nagging)

2. Always assume the best

Respect Others:

1. Speak kindly of others

2. Remember important occasions

Respect Earth:

1. Recycle everything possible

2. No plastic bags

Respect God:

1. Pray on knees

2. No multitasking in church (aside from caring for little miss lucy)

Respect Marriage:

1. Pray together

The Happiness Project

I love this book. Of course any mention of goals gets me a little tingly. The author took one element of life to work on each month and set sub goals for each one. I am going to set up my 2011 this exact same way. I am toying with a month of quietness (listening better, meditating, etc.), a month of food awareness (vegetarian?), month of enlightenment (reading, writing, etc), nurture?, cherish?, remember (family history, personal history)?, limiting excess(weeding, no refined sugar)?

"It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously-and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but also wanted to wander, play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition."

Ben Franklin's List: temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, humility

Gretchen Rubin's List: marriage(quit nagging, don't expect praise or appreciation, fight right, no dumping, give proofs of love), parenthood(lighten up, be a treasure house of happy memories, acknowledge the reality of people's feelings, take time for projects), friends(remember birthdays, show up, be generous), eternity(gratitude notebook, read memoirs of catastrophe, imitate a spiritual master), attitude(give positive reviews, find an area of refuge), work, play(start a collection), passion(write a novel, master a new technology), energy(go to sleep earlier, exercise better, toss, restore, organize, tackle nagging task, act more energetic), money(spend out - use what you buy, don't save it), mindfulness (create True Rules, Stimulate the mind in new ways, keep a food diary)

Wisdom: Don't postpone any task that can be done in one minute or less. When the student is ready the teacher appears. For both men and women the most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women-time spent with men doesn't make a difference. Ben Franklin and 12 friends formed a club for "mutual improvement" and met weekly for 40 years. Read How to Talk so Kids Will Listen. Acknowledge the reality of peoples' feeling. The mere exposure effect: the more often you see a person, the more intelligent and attractive you'll find that person.

29

I'm 29 now. 29. It is a good age for getting some ducks lined up before the 30s start. But I have so many ducks. Instead of naming each quacking creature I am going to boil it all down to proactivity. Increasing my agency by acting on my world instead of reacting to it. The more I react to a stimulus the less agency I have to choose better the next time. I have to be more proactive in every area. Confident and proactive: this year's buzzwords.

2010 - twenty ten

20 things to work on 10 things to check off
1. Try new healthy recipes
2. Memorize more lines/poems/scriptures
3. Go to the temple frequently
4. Take pictures of a variety of subjects
5. Record little things from Lucy’s life
6. Write more
7. Worry less
8. Spend more time outdoors and in silence (heed my need for solitude)
9. See physical fitness as a practice, not a goal
10. Enjoy my body as it recovers from pregnancy and be patient with it’s changes
11. Be more aware of the choices I make every day that affect my health
12. Teach with more focus on objectives and connecting things to the student’s lives
13. Resist berating myself for not doing things perfect.
14. Appreciate the task I am doing and stop rushing to get on to some other task
15. Initiate more conversations
16. Drink more water
17. Rekindle the relationship I had with deity while on my mission
18. Keep a record of spending
19. Complain less
20. Be more patient
1. Run 10 miles
2. Lose 50 pounds
3. Read the Book of Mormon with virtue in mind
4. Host a fabulously planned party
5. Fill up a gratitude journal
6. Take a class on photography
7. Recreate the fruit smoothies I had on my mission
8. Read a book in Portuguese or Spanish
9. Finish Anna Karenina
10. Print out photobooks of 2009 and Lucy’s family history

Things To Do

1. Go for a walk. Draw or list things you find on the the sidewalk. 2. Write a letter to yourself in the future. 3. Buy something inexpensive as a symbol for your need to create, (new pen, a tea cup, journal). Use it everyday. 4. Draw your dinner. 5. Find a piece of poetry you respond to. Rewrite it and glue it into your journal. 6. Glue an envelope into your journal. For one week collect items you find on the street. 7. Expose yourself to a new artist, (go to a gallery, or in a book.) Write about what moves you about it. 8. Find a photo of a person you do not know. Write a brief bio about them. 9. Spend a day drawing only red things. 10. Draw your bike. 11. Make a list of everything you buy in the next week. 12. Make a map of everywhere you went in one day. 13. Draw a map of the creases on your hand, (knuckles, palm) 14. Trace your footsteps with chalk. 15. Record an overheard conversation. 16. Trace the path of the moon in relation to where you live. 17. Go to a paint store. Collect 'chips' of all your favorite colors. 18. Draw your favorite tree. 19. Take 15 minutes to eat an orange. 20. Write a haiku. 21. Hang upside down for five minutes. 22. Hang found objects from tree branches. 23. Make a puppet. 24. Create an outdoor room from things you find in nature. 25. Read a book in one day. 26. Illustrate your grocery list. 27. Read a story out loud to a friend. 28. Write a letter to someone you admire. 29. Study the face of someone you do not like. 30. Make a meal based on a color theme. (i.e. all white). 31. Creat a museum of very small things. 32. List the smells in your neighborhood. 33. List 100 uses for a tin can. 34. Fill an entire page in your jounral with small circles. Color them in. 35. Give away something you love. 36. Choose an object, draw the side you can't see. 37. List all of the places you've ever lived. 38. Describe your favourite room in detail. 39. Write about your relationship with your washing machine. 40. Draw all of the things in your purse/bag. 41. Make a mini book based on the theme, "my grocery list". 42. Create a character based on someone you know. Write a list of personality traits. 43. Recall your favorite childhood game. 44. Put postcards of art pieces/painting on the inside of your kitchen cupboard doors, so you can see them everyday (but not become deaf to them.) 45. Draw the same object every day for a week. 46. Write in your journal using a different medium (brush & ink, charcoal, old typewriter, crayons, fat markers. 47. Draw the individual items of your favorite outfit. 48. Make a useful item using only paper & tape. 49. Research a celebration or ritual from another culture. 50. Do a temporary art installation using a pad of post it notes & a pen. 51. Draw a map of your favorite sitting spots in your town/city. (photocopy it and give it to someone you like.) 52. Record all of the sounds you hear in the course of one hours. 53. Using a grid, collect various textures from magazine and play them off of each other. 54. Cut out all media for one day. Write about the effects. 55. Make pencil rubbings of six different surfaces. 56. Draw your garbage. 57. Do a morning collage. 58. List your ten most important things, (not including animals or people.) 59. List ten things you would like to do every day. 60. Glue a photo of yourself as a child into your journal. 61. Trasform some garbage. 62. Write an entry in your journal in really LARGE letters. 63. Collect some 'flat' things in nature (leaves, flowers). Glue or tape them into your journal. 64. Physically alter a page. (i.e. cut a hole, pour tea on it, burn it, fold it, etc.) 65. Find several color combinations you respond to in public. Document them using swatches, write where you found them. 66. Write a journal entry describing something "secret". Cut it up into several pieces and glue them back in scrambled. 67. Record descriptions or definitions of subjects or words you are interested in, found in encyclopedias or dictionaries. 68. Draw the outline of an object without looking at the page. (contour drawing). 69. What were you thinking just now? write it down. 70. Do nothing. 71. Write a list of ten things you could to do. Do the last thing on the list. 72. Create an image using dots. 73. Do 3 drawings at different speeds. 74. Put a small object in your left pocket (or in a bag), Put your left hand in the pocket. Draw it by feel. 75. Create a graph documenting or measuring something in your life. 76. Draw the sun. 77. Create instructions for a simple everyday task. 78. Make prints using food. (fruit and vegetables cut in half, fish, etc.) 79. Find a photo. Alter it by drawing over it. 80. Write a letter using an unconventional medium. 81. Draw one object for twenty minutes. 82. Combine two activities that have not been combined before. 83. Write about your day in an encyclopedic fashion. (i.e. organize by subject.) 84. Write a list of all the things you do to escape. 85. Cut a random shape out of several layers of a magazine. Make a collage out of the results. 86. Write an entry in code. 87. Make a painting using tools from the bathroom. 88. Work with a medium that is subtractive. 89. Write about or draw some of the doors in your life. 90. Make a postcard that has some kind of activity on it. 91. Divise a journal entry using "layers". 92. Divise an entry using "layers". 93. Write your own definition of one of the following concepts, sitting, waiting, sleeping (without using the actual word.) 94. List 10 of your habits. 95. Illustrate the concept of "simplicity".

November Goals

Knowledge:

Finish The Silent Cry and Ordinary Wolfs

Spirituality:

Read First and Second Nephi with virtue in mind

Talents:

Learn to use photoshop

Relationship:

Read to page 192 of the D&C with Mike

Health:

Work out at least three times every week

July To Do and To Be List

image from here

Visit a farmer's market

Take lots of pictures

Go on walking tours of the city

Build relationships

Plan the nursery

Study the gospel

Eat lots of fresh fruit and ice cream

Print out a photo book

Go for lots of bike rides

Experiment with makeup

No sweets for the month of May! (Except perhaps to celebrate the birthday of someone getting very old on the 27th)

I will notice the way the sky looks every day. 

I will spend time in silence.

I will not be hard on myself for not being the weight I wanted to be by summer. 

I will be aware of the choices I make every day that affect my health. 

I will think more about the objectives of each lesson I teach. 

I will connect the things I teach to my students lives. 

I will not berate myself for not doing things perfect.

I will appreciate the task I am doing and not rush it to get to some other task. 

I will initiate more conversations. 

I will stop feeling insecure I wasn't born a professional photographer and work on it. 

I will recreate the fruit smoothies I had on my mission.

I will rekindle the relationship I had with deity while on my mission. 

 

I picked a bad (or particularly good) time to stop worrying because there is so much to fret about with the un-salted snow around here.  First, our drive to Utah!  I hate snow driving.  Second, our trip to Cancun - they cancelled school all week and if we have to make it up after the last week in June, I will miss our trip to Cancun (which is to celebrate the bathing suit bodies we have been working so hard for).  Oh dear.  I can't stop worrying.  But what good does it do?   

Worry Less

I am setting a goal to worry less.  I am starting to worry all the time.  Life just seems too good all of the time - something must be about to go wrong.   But, it takes away from enjoying the present and it is giving me a lot of stress.  

"We can't predict all the struggles and storms in life, not even the ones just around the next corner, but as persons of faith and hope, we know beyond the shadow of any doubt that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and the best is yet to come."  Elder L. Tom Perry (quoting Robert Browing with "the best is yet to come") 

December

I am running behind on everything - including my celebration of the first of the month. I adore the first of the month and I feel like in the craziness that has been 'adjusting from Thanksgiving vacation', I haven't truly appreciated the arrival of December. The pleasure of starting fresh is slightly tainted by the fact that it is the 3rd already, but nevertheless I am still going to pretend I can start fresh with my goals.
December goals: Spiritual-finish the Pearl of Great Price with Mike; Professional-have a very specific objective for every class and be sure it is accomplished when they leave the room; Physical-run an 8:30 mile every week; Personal development-write a vignette of an experience with grandma; Interpersonal-write a note to a person a week