Goals for the Future

I have never been one to make resolutions for the New Year. Resolutions have always been like empty promises that get broken a day or two after the New Year begins. Most people are quick to give up when a resolution is broken. They have nothing to strive for the rest of the year. I prefer to set personals goals. With a goal, you strive all year long to accomplish it. You are freer to go about your day, week, month, and even the year with each goal in mind rather than the resolution looming over your head. Some people are quick to break their resolutions so that they do not have the extra added pressure on themselves to keep up with something that is next to impossible to do. The advantage with a goal versus resolution is you give yourself an entire year to accomplish it and if you do not make it on the first day then there is always the next day. There is even the next week and month for you to try and achieve the goal. A goal takes time to accomplish and there is a great feeling attached to it when you have finally reached your goal. The key is to set a modest goal. Set goals that you can reach within the year. Set goal that you can even reach within 6 months so as you start to slack off as the year drudges on you can still hit them by the time December 31st comes sneaking up on you. And who says that you have to wait until January 1st to start working on your goals? If you set them early, then you can start them right away. By the time you get to February, you can be 1/3 of the way to reaching your goal and then you can relax a bit before you have to go at it full force again.

In November 2008, I set pretty lofty goals for 2009. They might have seemed unattainable at the time but my life was going in an upward swing and I wanted to set some pretty high goals to strive for throughout the year. I started them before 2008 ended and even as unattainable the goals seemed, I managed to accomplish them all before the year was even half over. The one goal I thought would be the hardest to attain was to find the one person I was going to marry. I did not have to be married or even engaged by the end of the year. I just wanted to find the person that I could say “He’s the one.” Not only did I find him (he had actually been right there all along) we were engaged on May 29 and the year was not even half over. I had so much to look forward to the rest of the year.

With a wedding set for April, the goals for 2010 were set naturally through planning. Moving to a new town helped to set a few more goals. I wanted the wedding to go off without a hitch. Things went pretty smoothly. There were a few things that could have been done differently but for the most part it was a great wedding. Everyone all around had a good time. Adjusting to a new town and a new life was not such an easy task. I did not know anyone here and finding new friends was not so easy. I missed my old friends and activities in Orlando. There was always something going on at least once a week to keep me busy. There was always someone to call or close by to cheer me up when I was feeling a bit down. Adjusting to a new role as full time wife was harder than I thought. It took a while to get into the swing of weekly versus daily house chores.  Eventually we were able to find a Church that we both could agree we could grow. A parish we could be active parishioners and raise our kids. I was able to find two prayer groups I can go to once a week and feel like a larger family. I am still adjusting to my new role as wife but I am happy to have found a nice young adult group with other young families I can look to as examples of a good Catholic home. There is still a lot of adjustments to be made but I would say that the goals that were set for 2010 all have been met just in time to ring in the New Year.

Setting goals for 2011 has been different than previous years. I am used to setting my own personal goals. I did not have to think about what anyone else wanted or was trying to accomplish. For this New Year, I not only had to set personal goals but family goals. I had to think about what goals we wanted to accomplish together as a family. Kris and I decided to set a few goals together so that we can try to encourage one another to stick to them. We have already decided on a few goals. We want to read a book a month. Twelve books to enlighten us and make us wiser. We want to exercise – walk or ride our bikes – 2 to 3 times a week. We want to increase our faith and become more involved in our Church. We want to stick to a tight budget and work on paying off our debt. We will encourage each other throughout the New Year to keep up with the goals that we have decided on as a family for 2011.