A Few Goals for the New Year

Now that I'm all caught up on the events of our holidays, and its the end of January, I figure it's the perfect time to talk about goals for the new year.

To be honest, I didn't have these made at the beginning of the year. I was feeling kind of "eh" about goals. I was in a place where the only thing I really wanted was to love Jesus with everything, which is a good place to be, I think. I didn't want to add all kinds of goals to focus on to distract me.

**Sidebar - sometimes I really struggle with whether or not I think goals are a good thing. I wonder if it's just adding unneeded stress to our lives by writing down things we would like to do and then feeling like we have to accomplish them. But then there are other times when I feel like goals can be good, because they help us to keep from getting lazy and complacent.**

However, as the new year went on, I began to think of things I would like to do this year, and the more I think about it, the more I think a lot of these will help me to love Jesus with everything.

I like the format they have for goals over at Today's Letters and so I decided to lay some out and see how it goes. So here are my 2012 goals:

Individual:

• Spiritual - Be in the Word daily
• Physical - Exercise 3 times a week
• Relational - Write 1 encouraging letter to a friend each month and commit to praying for them, and get lunch/dinner/coffee with them.
• Professional - Start a Bible study at work.

Marital:

• Spiritual - Pray with Derek every night
• Physical - Do 2 physically active activities together every month (hike, canoe, etc.)
• Relational - Have dinner with another couple once a month.
• Financial - Pay cash for a kitchen update.

So there you have em. I feel like these are all pretty attainable, and don't put a whole lot of extra stress on me to do things that just add "stuff" to my life. 

So far I'm off to a pretty good start with a lot of these. We have an exercise challenge going on at work, which has been great motivation to get me exercising and I've been exceeding my 3 times a week goal there. I'm in the process of getting a Bible study started at work. Derek and I have been praying together most nights, and we started our year off with a great hike in Gatlinburg. We've also begun some work on kitchen, which I will be back soon to share.

 The biggest thing I probably need to work on right now is being in the Word daily. I read "My Utmost For His Highest" every morning, but I would like to be in the Bible more than just that every day. 

I think it is going to be a great year, we have lots to look forward to!