New Year, New Goals

In all the excitement of going on our cruise, planning our next one, and having FOUR SNOW DAYS (I wish they'd just cancel Friday too instead of doing this day-by-day thing... Definitely getting old by now), I have neglected to share our Goals for 2011. For some reason sharing them to anyone who could possibly read makes me feel more accountable and thus I think I'll have a higher likelihood of achieving them. Justin and I made a huge list with goals for lots of things (physical, financial, spiritual, homemaking (me not him), spouse, personal, professional, and "other"). Since it's a pretty detailed list, I'll share the most important/difficult ones.

1. If you've ever been my roommate, you know that I can sit on a couch and watch tv with the best of them. Really, I love to veg. I don't know or care about Kim and Khloe, but as soon as I flip on E!, I get sucked in and can't cut it off. Please say that this happens to some of you? My husband calls it mindless television, and that's exactly what it is.

Recently I've been reading this talk called "Reflections on a Consecrated Life" by one of the big leaders of our Church. Whether or not you belong to our church, I highly recommend this talk! In it, Elder Christofferson talks about how a consecrated life is a life of purity (as demonstrated by Jesus Christ), a life of labor (again, we have a perfect example in Christ), a life that respects the gift of one's physical body, a life of service (Christ = example), and a life of integrity.

Anyways, coming back to my love to veg. While reading this talk, I stumbled across the following quote (in the "life of labor" section):

"Having spoken in praise of labor, I must also add a kind word for leisure. Just as honest toil gives rest its sweetness, wholesome recreation is the friend and steadying companion of work. Music, literature, art, dance, drama, athletics - all can provide entertainment to enrich one's life and further consecrate it. At the same time, it hardly needs to be said that much of what passes for entertainment today is coarse, degrading, violent, mind-numbing, and time wasting. Ironically, it sometimes takes hard work to find wholesome leisure. When entertainment turns from virtue to vice, it becomes a destroyer of the consecrated life. "Wherefore, take heed...that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God" (Moroni 7:14)"

I italicized the part that stood out to me. He was talking to me!!! It's amazing how every time our church leaders talk, they talk to me as an individual. So cool. Anyways, it hardly goes without saying that I am resolved to spend my time more wisely. In the same talk, Elder Christofferson quoted Richard L. Evans by saying "Life offers you two precious gifts - one is time, the other freedom of choice, the freedom to buy with your time what you will." I'm not exactly maximizing either choice when I choose mind-numbing and time wasting television over more productive alternatives. So, this year I will be using my time more wisely and come December will let you know how it goes. And feel free to ask/prod/give ideas on how to do this. My ideas: cook more new things, finally finish the 2 quilts I started last year, learn how to do other crafty things, be a better housekeeper so it's always 100% straight, read more books, blog more, keep in touch with friends, read scriptures/journal (I count blogging as a journal), exercise/learn tennis, etc...

2. Other than using my time more wisely, I would like to be more healthy. Eventually, I would like to enjoy running. My friend from high school LA did this and I really admire her for it - she's even done a 1/2 marathon. Another friend did a 10K. I'm thinking maybe I'll set a goal to run next year, but for this year I'd like to get back to eating healthier (for a few months in the fall I ate 100% veggies for lunch and I felt SO good) and just good old exercising. Justin and I bought P90X in November. I started it and lasted a few days, but allow myself to whine and take a few days off... I'm still on that little break and feel the athletic angel on my shoulder saying to buck up and just do it. I love exercising, really I do, but I don't like hurting and boy does P90X hurt :) So my goals were to eat healthy and do P90X twice this year. Maybe not in 180 days, but to just get through the program to where the push-up/pull-up workout doesn't make me cry anymore and I can honest to goodness do EVERYTHING in the workout 100% like they do.

3. Build a better relationship with Christ. In church on Sunday I taught the 14-15 year old young women for the 3rd hour (it's like another Sunday School but the youth split up for this one). The topic was on Building a Relationship with Christ.

This picture was part of the lesson. Something compelling is that the outside of the door has no handle. Reminds me of Matthew 7:7 "...knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Of course Christ wants to be in our lives, but it's US who has to invite him in. It's ME who has to work to cultivate that relationship. I can do SUCH a better job of this, and so one of my resolutions is to improve in all of those things that can build a better relationship with Him. This is definitely the one I'm most excited about.

*I'm super pumped about my major goals this year. I feel like they all tie in together really well. As I build a better relationship with my Savior, I will naturally choose more uplifting leisure activities. and vice-versa. As I do a better job taking care of this wonderful gift of a body, I will fill my free time and come closer to Christ, etc... How fun will this be?!?*

Wish me luck! And ps - I'd like to point out that I have already surpassed the total number of blogs we posted in all of 2009 and I'm one short of 2008. I guess it's easy to improve when you have SO MUCH improvement to make. Hopefully that's how I'll look back at this year when all is said and done :)

What were your New Years Goals?