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How to Spring Clean Your Life

March 3, 2016 by Selena Robinson 1 Comment

Spring is nearly here, which means that spring cleaning is nearly here. I’m not a fan of housework, but I love spring cleaning. The weather is warming, the air is fresher, and it’s a great time to declutter and simplify. I’ve been decluttering my house for the past month and it’s starting to look…somewhat like a house again.

But, this year, I thought: I really need to give my whole life a good spring cleaning and that’s what I’m going to do! In this month’s edition of the Monthly Goals linkup, read how you can spring clean your life!

How to Spring Clean Your Life

How to Spring Clean Your Life

I started reading the book Simple: 30 Ways to Declutter Your Life a few weeks back and it’s been a really great reminder of why it’s worth it to make your home into an actual place where humans can relax and live. (Mine had pretty much become a diner/storage unit.)

That’s when I realized that my life itself has kind of become a hoarder’s paradise too. My email inbox is super dee duper full. (Actually, all three of them are full.) My housework schedule is too hectic, since I do have four children who can help. And I’m training for a marathon, but I’ve been filling my belly with actual junk. Mostly because I’m too busy to plan a good meal.

So it’s time to simplify and declutter every part of my life, which is what I’m doing this month! If you want to spring clean your life (simplify it and remove the junk), check out my goals for March!

My Life Goals for March 2016

As I did in January and February this year, I’m setting a new list of life goals for the month of March. And, like in those previous months, I’ll be setting one for each part of my life.

Setting Goals for March 2016 - Look! We're Learning!

  • Family: This month, I’ll be working on teaching my kids to cook. I’ve outsourced almost all the housework, except this. Now’s the time.
  • Finances: I need to develop a solid budget for our necessities and include a fixed amount for “fun” stuff. “Nickel and dime” spending really adds up if you’re not careful.
  • Fitness: I’ve started eating wayyyy too many carbs lately – and not the healthy ones either. Time to go back to eating clean at least once a week.
  • Work: This one is going to be the hardest of all. I’m actually going to attempt to empty my work email inbox. As of today, there are 1,665 messages in it. Yikes.
  • Home: Kids just grow like weeds, don’t they! One week, you buy them new clothes. Then you have to do it again the next month and before you know it, you have clothes they haven’t been able to wear in years! All of the kids’ clothes that don’t fit are getting out of my house THIS MONTH.

Get more home decor and maintenance ideas from my Taking Care of Home board on Pinterest!

Spring Clean Your Life

An InLinkz Link-up



Filed Under: Parenting, Taking Care of Home Tagged With: goal setting, goals, life improvement, lifestyle, motherhood, parenting

Are You Setting Goals Too High?

January 30, 2016 by Selena Robinson 3 Comments

Well, it’s almost February. Also known as “the month where goals go to die”.

I really think that we should move the start of the year to a different month. One that’s not followed by the abyss of bleakness that is February. March would probably be good, don’t you think?

Until then, we have to find a way to keep our goals for the year alive past this month. And that means taking a hard look at them to find out if they’re even reachable in the first place. We talked about how to set reachable goals last month, but what if you’re still setting goals too high?

Are You Setting Goals Too High

Are You Setting Goals Too High?

Here’s how you know you’re setting goals that are too high:

You don’t reach them.

It’s as simple as that. A goal that is reachable is generally one you will reach.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Selena, some of these goals are ones I can reach. I just don’t put in the effort.” And my response to that is: Then that goal is too high for you right now.

If you’re a parent who works outside the home, for example, you might set a goal of eating dinner with your children at night. But if your boss comes into your office with an urgent project that’s due at 7 pm, you’re not going to reach that goal that night. Period.

Depending on the kind of work you do, that goal may not be reachable for you right now.

If you’re a person who hates the taste of water, you might set a “reachable” goal of drinking 8 glasses of water a day. Sure, you should drink 8 glasses of water a day. But are you going to reach that goal if you hate water? Almost certainly not.

So what can you do?

What to Do If Your Goals are Unreachable

Have you ever stood underneath a regulation-sized basketball goal? It’s pretty high. Way higher than the Little Tikes one my kids play with in our backyard.

Naturally, when they want to play basketball at the park, it doesn’t go as smoothly as it does in our yard. But we work on one thing at a time: learning to dribble, how to hold the ball, how to develop a jumpshot, how to use the “Granny” shot to get the ball high enough to reach the goal, how to block.

As they learn those things, something major happens. They get older and they grow. Before they know it, they’ll be tall enough to make those shots and they’ll never notice what they “couldn’t” do.

And that’s how it is when we set goals that are too high. We can usually still reach them. It just takes longer. And in the meantime, we can keep our focus by setting little “stepping stone” goals to accomplish along the way.

Going back to our working parent example earlier: You might not be able to have dinner with your kids every night, but can you read them a bedtime story each night?  Can you have breakfast with them in the morning? Those things totally count as connecting with them too!

What about the person who hates water? The first goal has to be: Learn to love water! If you find ways to like it, drinking 8 glasses a day will come easily.

So if you realize your goals for this year were a little too ambitious, don’t scale them down. Break them! Split them into small goals you can reach sooner that will motivate you to keep going.


My Goals for February 2016

Here are my goals for February 2016. As I mentioned last month, they’re set up in categories. One parenting goal, one financial goal, one blogging goal, one fitness goal, and one homemaking goal.

Setting Goals for February 2016 - Look! We're Learning!

Parenting: As a mom of four, it’s tough to have one-on-one time with each one. But I really need to find a way to get it done. So look for a post about that soon.

Finances: I’m on a mission to save money this year and I’m continuing with a flat amount to save this month. It’s ambitious, but it’s doable.

Fitness: Tigger and I are running each week, but only twice. If I’m going to do a marathon in a year, I need to up that to three times ASAP.

Blogging: I’ve been blogging professionally for nearly three years. And I just realized something: I have a lot of posts that need work! When I look at some of my earlier stuff, I shudder. It’s time to dust those posts off and make them work for me.

Homemaking: Books, books, and more books. I have so many books, you guys. I love them all, but some of them are ones my kids (and I) have outgrown. There’s a consignment sale coming up and I’m planning to sort through them ALL before then.

Do your goals tend to…fall off during February? If not, how do you keep from setting goals too high? Share your tips in the comments!

Setting Goals Too High? Try This!

This post is part of the Monthly Goals linky – a blog hop featuring bloggers who share their hopes and goals each month! Click over and read the goals of some of my fellow bloggers for this month!

An InLinkz Link-up



Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: goal setting, goals, life improvement, resolutions

Hi! I'm Selena, a teacher and a veteran homeschool mom to four. I'm so glad you're here!
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