As 2017 comes to a close and 2018 begins I find myself looking back on the last year with a sense of accomplishment at how far my family and I have come. After two years of merely surviving each day as I waded through the immense guilt and grief of loosing Ellie, we had fallen into some really bad patterns. At the beginning of 2017 I was extremely unhappy with who I had become and was ready to once again take control of my life. I was inspired by a quote I read from M. Russell Ballard that stated:
I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don't set goals in our life and learn how to master the techniques of living to reach goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that reached but a small part of our full potential when one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, she will then be able to make a great difference in the results she attains in this life."
I decided to set some very specific personal and family goals for 2017 and set smaller goals each month to help me attain what I wanted to accomplish.
My personal goal for 2017 was to ‘Be purposeful and deliberate with my time each day.’
Our Family Goal for 2017 was to ‘Increase Love and Kindness in our home.’
Each month we set a spiritual, health, and family improvement goal to work toward throughout the month. We had a set reward at the end of the month if we reached our goal. I was pleased with how effective it was. Even when we fell short of some of our specific goals and didn’t earn the set reward, we still felt that we had made improvement and seen growth in the area we were working on. We were consistent with it until summertime and then we started to slip a little and we became less structured with our goals, but I felt like we were still making a concerted effort at improving our family and bringing more love and kindness into our home.
I found a lot of satisfaction in accomplishing a variety of personal goals I set for myself throughout the year. I didn’t accomplish them all, but “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become while achieving your goals.” - Zig Ziglar. While I still have a long way to go, I am extremely proud of the progress I have made this year.
My focus for 2018 comes down to one word - Simplify!!
A week or so ago, I happened upon the talk “Good, Better, Best” by Elder Dallin H. Oaks from Oct 2007 conference and as I read his inspired words I knew this would be my motto for the year. “We have to forgo some good things in order to choose others that are better or best because they develop faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and strengthen our families.”
Our family focus for 2018 will be ‘Working together to build a happy home.’ as I hope to continue teaching my kids responsibility, hard work, and discipline. As I tell my kids every time we are working together to complete a job, "Many hands make light work -- and a slightly less crazy mom."
I am feeling optimistic and excited to see what twists and turns 2018 has in store for our family.
