Happy New Year, friends! I’ve finally resigned myself to the fact that I’m in the middle of recovering from a cold, which doesn’t help with the “fresh start” feeling, but we’re laying low and making the best of it. I really enjoyed looking back at 2013 a few days ago, and now it’s time to look ahead! Y’all know I love me some goals, but let’s back up for a moment. The reason that I set goals — big goals, small goals — is to help me move closer to the person I want to be and the life I want to lead. In the past few years, I’ve used a combination of goal types in this pursuit: Daily goals. You can see my daily goals for 2013 here and 2012 here. The basic idea is that I make a list of daily practices that I want to become habits by the end of the year. In January, February, and March, I promise myself I’ll do at least three of the practices every day. In April, May, and June, five. In July, August, and September, seven. In October, November, and December, nine. The thing I love most about this system is that it doesn’t expect me to do everything every day, or all at once. I’m able to gradually incorporate the changes into my life over a year, and if I slip up a few times, that’s okay. I use this to track my daily progress. I prefer this type of system/habit building to setting one-off goals because it shifts the focus from checking things off and moving on to moving forward in a sustainable way. Monthly goals. See here or here for examples. John thinks these are more similar to “to do” lists rather than lists of goals, but

Oh my word, we’re in the second half of the year! And I feel pretty good about that! I didn’t do particularly well with my June goals (completed about half), so you’ll see many of them on my July list. One thing we did complete — by the skin of our teeth — was the raised bed. We got it in in between two waves of storms on Thursday, finishing after dark. But when we woke up in the morning, it still looked good! This month I will… – Organize the loft – Sharpen knives – Hang some art downstairs – Get a rain barrel – Take our bikes in for a tune-up – Enroll in life insurance for me (John already has it through his job) For the rest of my July goals, please see this post :) You can see all of my 101 in 1001 goals here and my 2013 daily goals here. If you’d like to share your goals for July, I’d love for you to either list them in the comments or leave a link, and I promise I’ll check them out!

February was such a good month — I was able to share our wedding from start to finish with you all, and we capped things off with my birthday yesterday. Thank you again for the well wishes! Ryan Ray I did pretty well with my February goals despite a busier than anticipated month — I got to everything but the Valentine’s Day packages, though I will admit I ticked off several last night! Just in the nick of time. This month, I will: — Photograph our apartment to share on EFM — Read another biography (for no. 61) — Investigate eBates, and possibly sign up — Finish the Gospel of John (reading along with COR) — Decorate some eggies for Easter You can see all of my 101 in 1001 goals here and my 2013 daily goals here. If you’d like to share your goals for March, I’d love for you to either list them in the comments or leave a link, and I promise I’ll check them out!

Since I’m in the final year of my 101 in 1001 challenge, I’ve decided that I’m going to focus on completing as many items as possible off of that list in lieu of separate 2013 goals. I’ll also be continuing with the daily goal system I implemented in 2012! As you may recall, I introduced the concept last January, and though I briefly reported in with progress in February, we never touched on it again! I’m happy to say that the system worked marvelously for me. To recap, I made a list of ten daily practices that I wanted to become habits by the end of 2012. They included: wake up at or before 8am, go to sleep by 11pm, go for a walk, floss, read the Bible, eat breakfast, do the dinner dishes before I go to bed, and make the bed in the morning, among other things. In January, February, and March, I promised myself I’d do at least four of the practices every day. In April, May, and June, six. In July, August, and September, eight. In October, November, and December, ten. The thing I loved — and still love — most about this system is that it didn’t expect me to do everything every day, or all at once. I was able to gradually incorporate the changes into my life over a year, and if I slipped up a few times, that was alright. Grace not perfection was definitely applicable here! So here we are after 12 months, and I’m ready for another set! I can confidently say that four of the ten practices I outlined have become complete habits, so I will no longer be tracking them every day in 2013 (but still doing them, of course — they are habits, after all!). I did