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Last week I was restless. I spent far too much time moving around between my laptop upstairs and my desktop downstairs trying to find the motivation and the groove for writing this month’s goals post.
The truth is, March was a GREAT month. I feel as though I found my stride a with this goal setting thing – picking the right monthly goals to challenge myself to do just a bit more than I think I am capable of completing, keeping myself motivated by thinking a lot about how I can use both my focused time and downtime to accomplish these goals and also being okay to give myself grace when I don’t quite complete everything I had set out to do.
I think part of my restlessness came because I really want April to be as successful in my eyes as March was and it didn’t start off feeling as quite as focused as I would have liked. The gift of giving myself grace over seeking perfection helped me recover from my restlessness and brought back my focus and motivation to embrace April’s opportunities with new life just as spring does after a long cold winter.
Before I dive into my new goals, here’s a recap of my March goals to show the progress I’ve made. I hope this will help you to see that when you are intentional about choosing where to focus your heart and your mind you can really glean true growth and progress.
– read: 168 Hours: You Have More Time than You Think and The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers – I began the month by reading 168 Hours. This book set the stage for such a successful month. If you haven’t read this and are interested in time management/thinking about your schedule differently I highly recommend this read. Although I didn’t quite complete the 10 Habits of Happy Mothers (I’ve only got a couple of chapters left) I did spend more time learning about using my time more wisely to fulfill my goals and passions by reading The Fringe Hours and Living Well, Spending Less. I was really impacted by all three of these books so I hope to share more of my learning from them in future posts.
– complete 2014 personal photos – Done and done! I can’t wait to get these into photo books next!
– blog one personal post; two business posts – As I thought more carefully this month about my passions and where I find my creative energy I learned that writing is a bit of an outlet for me. However, where I struggled this month again was finding quiet moments where I could think out my posts and then to sit down to do the actual writing. I’m hoping that by tweaking our current schedule and giving another practice run to a working schedule that I will find improvement in this area in April.
– submit two weddings to blogs – this was one of those lofty goals; one I had hoped I could push myself to accomplish since I have a couple of weddings from last season that I would love to see on different wedding blogs. However, this month I chose to embrace the precious time I have left in my maternity leave more often than completing work related tasks since I know I will never get back these precious newborn days. And so instead of being disappointed and frustrated that I didn’t get this done I’m going to carry this goal over into April as well.
– complete Hey Sweet Pea classes – I’m half done! I completed Thriving on Instagram, now I’m slowly trying to implement my learning on that platform. Now I just need to carve out some time for Writing to Delight.
– limit mindless internet time to middle of the night feedings – I didn’t do this perfectly but on a scale of perfect to desperately needing grace I did a pretty good job; there really is only so much one can do during fussy time and sometimes a girl just has to surf/watch to survive.
– begin a light exercise routine – I’m so excited to be back working out again! This month as I read and learned I realized/remembered that one of my passions is to be active and fit. So this month as I have been seeking inspiration and intentional moments of rejuvenation I have spent some of my fringe hours filling my bucket sweating it out on our elliptical.
– edit Love Through the Seasons Spring – spring has officially arrived (well at least on the calendar) so I figured it was about time that I got around the editing this session. The pretty images you see here are just a little sneak peak of this second instalment of our photo series – Love Through the Seasons. Editing these photos really got me wanting to get out there and start shooting again …come on spring weather!
– go on a date with Tim – Although we didn’t get out of the house, we did carve out a couple of times sans kids (twins were sleeping and boys were away) to hang out, relax and just spend focused time together.
– continue focusing on potty training Noah – we’re slowly getting there…two steps forward, one step back.
After hitting my stride in March, I am so excited about what April’s possibilities. Here are my April goals:
What are you dreaming about, working towards or wanting to accomplish this month friends? Leave a comment below or on my Instagram photo of this post and I will check in on you to see how it is going.
Let’s do this April!
