The Year of Connect

Happy 2018, Happy Monday, and Happy New Goal Setting Season!

This time of year is so inspiring and a teeny tiny bit overwhelming. I’m always excited for the week after Christmas when I get to celebrate victories of the previous year and uncover new goals for the next. Over the last week, I’ve been mulling over it slowly and praying the Lord’s guidance over the next year of my life. Just like last year, I coupled this reflection and prayer with Lara Casey’s Powersheets and I couldn’t have been more pleased with how things are looking for 2018.

I’m taking action on what matters.

I evaluated my life in terms of a couple different categories – Health/Wellness, Personal Growth, Spirituality, Self-care, Romance/Significant Other, Friends/Family, Finances and Career – rating them on a satisfaction scale from 1-10. It can be difficult when using this strategy because a lot of the areas over lap, but doing this exercise helped me to narrow down places of strength and places of weakness. Of these sections, I choose the three with the lowest scores to focus on next year. As I was reflecting on the numbers, I made a huge discovery: my goals last year resulted in those areas being the highest rated! I felt so validated about making progress even though my efforts and the outcomes weren’t perfect.

On the other hand, last year I struggled with in my goal setting last year is that I added a lot of “fluff” to my monthly, weekly, and daily goals – things like reading a certain number of books, completing Project Life, or taking a photo every single day. These things are all valuable, but setting specific numbers and timeframes for things like these won’t have a positive impact on my life right now even though I like doing them! I found that by adding these things and being able to check them off, I was less likely to spend time focusing on things that were more challenging or new to my routine.

As the goals began to unfold, I considered how these goals would impact me and the people around me and what measures I would use to determine if the goals had been met or not. This really helps me when it comes to motivation.

As I considered these categories and wrapped up my journey with the word thrive, I considered a myriad of new words to choose from. For the longest time, I thought it was going to be whole or brave, but I think those are going to end up being companion words to the one I eventually settled on – connect.

Connect | verb

to bring together, associate or relate

to form a relationships or feel an affinity

synonyms: unite, attach, join, secure, combine

So here we are, my goals for 2018:

1. This year I’m prioritizing my connection with God. I want to do a deep study in prayer and intercession as well as read the Bible in a year.
2. This year I’m connecting with my body by focusing on the foods I eat and investing in time moving. I also want to explore more natural household and beauty products.
3. This year I’m connecting more intentionally online, in friendships and in my marriage. I want to be silly and spontaneous and flexible to trying new things
4. This year I want to do a better job of connecting with myself. I want to consider my need for simplifying and perfection. I want to create space for vulnerability and being open. I want to explore new ways of saving money and reducing the temptation of the shopping high.

For each of these goals, I’ve created smaller action items that I’m going to be working on throughout the year in hopes of overcoming burnout and the typical slow down that I start feeling halfway through the year.

I don’t plan on participating in the official One Little Word project like I have in the past, but I am going to keep a journal and follow some of the prompts Ali Edwards has provided through the class in the past. I know that showing up to my word is really going to be the pinnacle on whether or not connect makes a difference in my life.