12 BEFORE 28

For the last 4 years Nate and I have both created lists every year on our birthdays of things we want to accomplish in the upcoming year. I love goal making- I chalk it up to my love of list making and the sense of accomplishment of crossing things off. This worked for awhile but this past year my list looked pretty sad with only a handful of items crossed off. After looking over my goals I realized that most of them seemed important and worthwhile a year ago when I created them, but I had lost interest in them as time went on. So this year I wanted to create a system that I felt I could complete and stay motivated about- this is what I decided to do ...

I decided to split my year into 4 sections and limit it to 12 goals instead of the 27 before 28. Its not that I don't think I could complete 27 goals ... its just I don't want to lose steam and a lot of my goals are more time consuming these days. So every 3 months I will choose 3 more goals so that I am making them throughout the year and they stay in line with my interests! I am pretty excited about the coming months- my first three goals are to:

1. Practice yoga 6 days a week (78 days total): I want to seriously improve my yoga practice so by committing 6 days a week for three months I want to manifest this habit into my daily routine. Obviously I wan to continue this beyond the three months but I want to focus here in the beginning on honing my practice, see what works for me and my schedule, and study the poses and broaden my knowledge.
2. Make special Holiday moments and traditions: I have worked retail for the past decade so this is my first holiday season that I won't have to work really hard to keep my spirits high in the midst of late night shifts, Black Friday madness, and the stress of crazy customers. I can breath this year! I am so excited to be home on Christmas eve, not work New Years and in general have less stress in my life this time of year so I want to celebrate it with taking more time to really capture moments.
3. Study the Macrobiotic Path to Total Health by Michio Kushi: I found a copy of this book for $7 at the half price book store a month or so ago and have yet to crack it open despite my interest in it. I have heard such amazing things about the Macrobiotic diet that I really want to learn about this way of eating.

So there are my first set of goals all in black and white for you. I am sure I will mention them again from time to time here. What are some of your current goals? ♥