Happy new year everyone! I know, I’m pretty late, but I don’t know about you, but my holidays and new year have been crazy! We have had bone chilling temps here and a blizzard. Happy 2018! I hope this isn’t a sign of what the weather will be like for the rest of winter.
I don’t know about you, but I loved having the holidays on Monday – it was so nice to have a full weekend before the actual day – very relaxing. The only thing that might be better than a Monday holiday would be a Tuesday holiday – assuming that you get (or can take) Monday off. Now that will be great this year, but that’s a long ways off.
If you are one of those people who take down your tree and decorations on December 26, I am in awe! After spending four weeks endlessly shopping and cooking and cleaning and wrapping and decorating and shopping and and cleaning and entertaining, the last thing I want to do is take everything down the next day. I need a break! The thing is, prepping for the holidays is a full time job in itself, add working and routine chores to all you have to do, and it is a bit overwhelming. I was putting a load of laundry in on Christmas morning, and I realized that, just because it’s Christmas, it doesn’t mean that all the regular chores stop. And, if you have school age children, you also have them home making more mess than usual!
So, I don’t take down the lights and decorations until Epiphany. Really, you can take them down whenever it makes sense to you to do so, but I like the excuse of the 12 days of Christmas so that I don’t have to feel guilty for still having them up. Let’s face it, it does make the cold, dark winter much prettier. Once the decorations are down, it’s downhill from there (and I don’t mean skiing).
Due to all of the activity above, I am a bit behind on my New Years planning and organizing. I don’t do resolutions, but I do think that the new year provides an opportunity to revisit your values and priorities. After that, I review my goals and make sure that they still fit with my values and priorities as well as check in to see my progress towards my goals. It might be necessary to add some and take some away.
Once you have your goals set, make sure to write them down. There’s some study or some such – honestly, it might be an urban myth like drinking 8 glasses of water – but it’s one of those things that just makes sense. Writing your goals down makes it more likely (the myth says 42% more likely) that you’ll actually achieve them.
Why? Well, think about it – there’s something about the act of writing them – seeing them in black and white helps you to refine them and make sure that they are realistic. Plus when you have 
them written down, you can go back and refer to them. Finally, I think there’s brain activity that happens when you write something. Have you ever had to give a public speech? Did you practice? If you practice in your head, you think you have it down. But then you practice outloud, and all of a sudden you are tripping over the words. Writing down goals is like that – practice.
One of my new goals is to do more writing. Both in my blog and continue with the fiction that I have been writing. I joined a writing club towards the end of last year, and I am hoping that will keep me honest. Which brings me to my other new goal – setting a schedule and sticking to it.
Ever since I have been unemployed, life has taken the lead on my day. Of course, looking for a job was always high on the priority list, and because you cannot 
control when someone is going to want to interview you, it often messed up my day. I’ve decided to cut back on the job search (mainly because it appears that I cannot get one), and focus on all the other stuff that needs to be done around here. I won’t completely stop – more like put limits on it. Like, one job seeking activity a day, and only for 30 minutes or something like that. I’m still working on the details.
I’m excited about this decision because it will allow me to focus on something. My life has been on hold ever since I was laid off. I’ve been just waiting until I was working again to get started, but life is too short to be on hold forever. I’ll add value to my family, friends, and home in a different way.
That doesn’t mean that I will be abandoning the blog. Sure, I’m not a working mom anymore, but I still have 21 years of experience to share with you all.
Have you done your goal setting for 2018?
