2019… what a year!
In 2018 we learned our family would be growing. Over the past year much more than my family has grown … I have grown so much more than I had anticipated.
I have grown so much as a mom and a person in the last year, facing more fear, challenge, and exhaustion than I ever anticipated.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned in 2019:
Give yourself a little grace.
All of the times this year that I felt like I was falling behind, like a failure, like I was something less than (and sometimes still creep up to make me feel that way), I was looking past all of the successes, the effort, the challenges I have overcome. I am only one person, with only so much time, and so many resources (physical, mental, financial, and [again] time…).
Time for Grace in 2020
I spent the last week pondering over my goals for 2020. Write 1 blog a week. Read 1 book a month. Submit 5 photos a month. Exercise 3 times per week. …
It was only yesterday when I sat down and began truly reflecting on 2019 that I began to see how I was setting myself up for failure in 2020. While this type of planning works within my professional life and my 8-5 (because the time is strictly devoted to these tasks), in the midst of making bottles, doing laundry, changing diapers and baths (amongst all of the other daily tasks for myself, my family and our home), these types of goals are very easy to ‘fall behind’ and ‘fail’ to do.
This year, I want to continue to give myself some grace and give myself reasonable expectations. In lieu of looking at my goals in forms of achievements that can be counted and checked off of lists (despite how much I LOVE crossing things off of lists), I am going to start the year by gaining control of my calendar and time management in my personal life. I will be looking at my goals in the form of time.
Goals in 30 minutes a Day or Less
As I embark on 2020, I will look to devote 15-30 minutes a day to myself.
I am a list person at heart (really….lists for EVERYTHING), so I cannot help but write up a list of goals, but this list has no numbers. Instead, it is a list of activities that I’d like to spend my time doing.
Blogging (journal or recipe)
Reading
Yoga
Photography
NICU support projects (a healing perfect for me)
Why so little time?
15-30 minutes is easy to find. I can actually take my lunch at work and bring along my computer and edit some photos. Instead of mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or Instagram in the evening, I can pick up my kindle and make it through a few pages. Most importantly, it’s an amount of time I can EASILY take without mom-guilt setting in.
Individually all of the results-driven goals I give myself are manageable, but together it’s a completely unrealistic time commitment. Believing that you will succeed in implementing several new (and somewhat unrelated) habits and behavior changes all at once is also extremely naive.
As I go through the year, I expect that I find several chunks of time throughout the day where I can expand into some of my loftier goals such as website redesign, expanding my jam business, and taking on my own clients for restaurant marketing with routine time frames nearly every day dedicated to this professional development in my own time without taking away from the tasks I take on as a wife and mother or letting any mom guilt creep up on me.
Yes, I know this goes against all goal-setting advice. But sometimes you need to take a moment to focus on and rediscover yourself.
Sometimes you need a little grace.
thefarmerstableblog.wordpress.com 