Did you set goals for 2019? Here’s an update on how I did on my 2019 goals in February.
It’s March 3, 2019. And it’s time to check in on our goals! How are you doing on the goals you set for 2019?
I spent some time today reviewing February and reflecting on the blessings of the past month and the lessons I learned. I also looked at my goals and how I was doing in each area. (If you missed My Goals for 2019 post, read it here.)
In order to keep myself accountable (and because I know some of you really enjoy these posts) I’m sharing a goals update post at the beginning of each month. I hope that this will not only motivate me to be focused and intentional this year, but I hope it might also inspire you in the goals you set for 2019.
So here’s my goals update for March 3, 2019:
Personal Goals
1. Read 40 books I already own. (I’m using GoodReads to track my reading this year!)
Update: I finished 4 books in February — 3 were books I already own and 1 was free from the Libby app. Look for a Book Update post in the next few days where I share more about my thoughts on the books I finished.
2. Slowly read through the New Testament using the She Reads Truth Bible reading plans at the beginning of each chapter.
Update: I finished Mark and Luke in February
3. Listen to 2 audiobooks per month. (I use the Libby app to get these for free.)
Update: I listened 4 audiobooks in February, but I only finished two — because I ran out of time to finish two of them before I had to “return” them to the library.
4. Complete all of the Organize in 5 Diary tasks to get our home more organized and set up better organizational systems. (Psst! Did you get yours? It’s just $9 right now.)
Update: This has been going so well and I’m happy to report that I have been 100% keeping up with this. YAY! (You can see two posts I did on some of my organizing projects in January and February: Cleaning Out the Cookbooks & Organizing My Purse & Bathroom.)
5. Stay offline for 4 hours per day, 5 days per week. (I share more about why I chose this goal here.)
Update: I didn’t do this perfectly, but I hit this about 80% in February and with everything that went on and some extra work projects, I’m celebrating how much
6. Leave my phone in the basement every night. (I talk more about what inspired me to make this goal here.)
Update: I did this most every night in February but 3 nights when I accidentally fell asleep before putting my phone downstairs and the days I was traveling!
7. Go to bed before 10:30 p.m. 5 days per week. (I’m using this little spreadsheet I made to track most of my personal goals)
Update: I didn’t do this perfectly, but I did a MUCH better job of going to bed earlier and I’ve been a lot more consistent in my bedtimes and wake up times and it has definitely made a difference!
Marriage Goal
8. Go on an overnight trip with Jesse without the kids.
Update: We got a trip booked to Destin, FL at the end of April!! We’re renting an AirBNB with two other couples and are so excited about it! We also are looking at possibly doing one other weekend trip later in the year. We’ll see!
Motherhood Goal
9. One-on-one time with each child at least 3 times per week. (I am planning to dedicate 40 minutes per child after dinner each evening at least three nights per week to hang out and spend time with each child individually.)
Update: This has been going so well! And I’m thrilled to report that I hit this every week in February!
Family Goal
10. Take the kids to at least two continents and 4 states we haven’t traveled to. (We’re hoping to travel to Europe in the summer and South America at some other point during the year. I have travel alerts set up to track the best prices for flights and am hoping to find a great deal to snag in the next 4-6 months!)
Financial Goals
11. Pay cash to redo our room and renovate our bathroom (we have to pull out the shower and put in a new one because it was installed incorrectly and is leaking and ruining the floor/wall and we want to do a few renovations while we’re at it + we want to finally decorate our room — we left it really bare when we moved in and decided to wait to prioritize it in the budget).
Update: We had a few more contractors come over and give us estimates for our bathroom. We’re deciding which one to go with right now.
12. Pay cash to paint the walls in the main floor of our home.
13. Fully fund our Emergency Fund (This is a carry-over from 2018 and we are hoping to have this done in the next few months).
Business Goals
14. Redo/set up a much more intentional customer acquisition experience for all three of our email newsletters.
Update: We’ve been hard at work behind the scenes working on this and made some BIG progress in February already!
15. Finish launching the rest of our beginner Your Blogging University courses. (If you want to start a blog, be sure to check out my other site, Your Blogging Mentor.)
Update: I’m working on my next course, Monetize Your Blog, and it’s going to be a bigger/more comprehensive course than I’ve ever done but I made some good progress on it in February and am hoping to make some great progress on it in March!
16. Launch a Blog Coaching/Accountability Group membership. (I’ll be opening this up to a very limited number of people in January of 2019. Stay tuned!)
Update: We launched this to 100 people at the end of January and it is going SO WELL and I am just loving it already. We’ll be opening it up to more people in a few months!
For smaller jobs some people may be able to find someone who does painting on the side or kind of as a hobby for cheaper. My mom loves to paint and is quite good (and fast) but doesn’t have a business. Some people rearrange furniture, my mom paints the walls :). She’s also painted for her church and for other people that needed help. However, even she hired out getting their two story entry way painted. For someone that’s willing to risk asking someone that’s not a professional you might save some money by asking around at work or church if anyone paints on the side.
Our paint quote is over 10K to paint walls and trim. I want to cry. It’s 3500 sq ft though. Our living room also has 20 ft ceilings. I wish we had looked into this before we bought a house with 18 colors of paint from previous owners.
How does one find out about your blogging group? I never saw a post. And I looked daily!
I only shared about it a few times on Instagram and on my blogging email list because we only opened it up to 100 people the first time around. I’ll likely promote it a little more the next time around. Are you on my Your Blogging Mentor email list?
Those are some wonderful goals! I’m a new reader so this may have been explained previously, but do you use a journal or some kind of system to set your goals that helps you stay on track? Thanks! 🙂
Welcome! And I use daily checklists to help me, as well as these monthly check-ins!
I just did a major evaluation of my own goals for 2019. I really love the end of the month to see how things are going and setting March goals!
Some work goals I’ve reevaluated and adjusted, and some personal ones as well. I’m super happy with the progress I’m making with many of the goals I’ve set, but I have one thing that’s tripping me up. I am a hard-core paper planner girl, and have not found a working mom goal-planner that really has solid goal tracking sections. For the past few years I’ve just done my own thing on lined paper in my planner.
Does anyone have a good planner that has goal-setting sections they like?
I don’t know of one like that, but maybe someone else has seen one? Have you looked at Michael Hyatt’s and Chalene Johnson’s?
I just finished listening to Off the Clock. I enjoyed it.
I had some good takeaways from the book, and realize I have more time that I thought to do things. I have recommended it to my group at work to read.
Oh! I can’t wait to read it! I’m glad to hear you enjoyed it!
Appreciate your gracious response about why you aren’t painting yourself. We have painted rooms ourselves and did so for many years. We do not paint ourselves now that we can afford for a professional to do it. The quality of having people who paint for a living is different than when (most) people do it themselves. They’re also much faster than those of us who only occasionally paint. Being able to, in one day, keep working and come home to a freshly and beautifully painted room or rooms is well worth it to us!
Thanks so much for sharing this and for your encouragement!
I’m excited for your two trips and can’t wait to see what countries you choose to go to. 🙂
I’ve gone to Europe (pre-kids) and would love to do a family trip there some day. 3 years ago I was also able to visit a friend in Lima, Peru for a few days – a totally different experience than Europe but so, so good!
Jesse went to Peru last year and he really wants to take all of us there sometime!
I love your family goal for travel. We have gone to Europe and I keep telling my husband we need to go again so our son can go ( he was born a year later).
We are SO excited to see where we end up this year!
I didn’t set any goal for myself at the start of this year. The reason is that I found out that setting goals have a way of giving me anxiety attacks. So, what I do is visualize what I want to do for the month, write them down somewhere and make sure I commit all my resources to get it done. That way I, I have managed to reduce anxiety and achieve peace of mind.
Thanks so much for sharing!
Why don’t you save the cash your hoping to set aside to pay for someone to paint your walls and DIY? It’s so expensive to hire and not to hard to do yourself. Curious on your thoughts on this home project. Thx!
I know that for DIY-ers, it sounds super weird that we’d pay to have this done. But, there are two reasons we’re paying for this: 1) we have super, super high ceilings so it’s not a simple paint job and would definitely require professional equipment and ladders to do (our living room walls are more than two stories high!).
Secondly, we’ve never painted a room before and we’re not really DIY type people and have learned our limitations when it comes to stuff like this. 🙂
So we’ve found it’s better with these types of things to provide a job for someone else then to try to do it ourselves and end up ruining things and needing to hire out someone to fix our mistakes.
It’s all about figuring out where the best return on your investment is. For us, it’s better to focus our time and energy on where we’re gifted and save projects where we’re not gifted to those who are! 🙂 I hope that helps explain!