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You might recall some of my plans for the year 2021 that I wrote about back in January. I shared about using each week to set goals, breaking down our big projects into smaller, manageable chunks -- instead of setting big annual goals that often seem unattainable. We are making good progress on several of our goals for the year, by taking an hour or two each week to work on them. Our detached garage/canning kitchen/man cave is almost finished. It's been a long process, but by knocking out a few tasks here and there each week, we're closing in on the finishing touches. We've done a lot of outdoor clean-up this year, by working for one Saturday a month or so to knock out some big areas of the property.
I wrote daily through March 8th and have 22,179 words in my first draft. My goal is to get to 60,000 words by the end of the year. I think that's still doable. I have six chapters finished, so far. 3. Blog Each Week. Well. This is only my 10th blog post of the year, so as you can see -- I'm a little behind on that. After spring break, school became a whirlwind and I just had to put something on the back burner. Unfortunately, it was blogging. I've got some catching up to do! :) 4. Lose 15 pounds. Following my experience with COVID-19 in September, I realized I had developed an allergy to dairy and sensitivity to gluten. Changing my diet to not include those things helped me to lose 15 pounds with no problem. I have slowly started introducing these things back into my diet and I will admit -- I don't feel as well. So I probably need to remove those things again. Whole30 coming again in August! 5. Read 40 books. As of last week, I had finished my 21st book and am almost finished with my 22nd and 23rd. So I'm right on schedule for the challenge.
Happy Almost August, Friends!
Taking in the last few days of summer break here at the farmhouse, Hannah ♥️🏡♥️
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It's the first day of 2020.
When the clock struck midnight in the wee hours of this morning, we moved into a new day, a new month, a new year, and a new decade. If you read my post about brainstorming for the new year, you have probably already printed and filled in the 2020 dream sheet I created. If not, grab one of your own here. Now that you have identified some of your dreams and goals for 2020, let's move into being a little more specific in our goal-setting. I created another printable to help us get specific about the things we want to accomplish in 2020. Because January 1st is on a Wednesday this year, I am giving myself the next four days to plan and get organized to dive into another 12-week challenge. Today, let's identify our goals for the year and get organized in our plan for accomplishing those goals. Remember...less is more! Don't create some elaborate plan to do 1,500 different tasks in 2020 or you'll burn out by January 11th. Instead, create some manageable and measurable goals that you can stick to! Thanks so much for keeping up with life at the farmhouse in 2019. I'm looking forward to growing together over the next 365 days. Happy 2020 from the farmhouse, friends. Hannah ❤️🏡❤️ Print your goal sheet to write out your goals or type them out to print! Editable 2020 Goal Sheet In 2017, I started this blog when we bought the farmhouse. I so enjoyed sharing with my readers the transformation of certain rooms, as we moved in, painted, and even added a bathroom upstairs. I loved to share parenting stories, marriage joys & struggles, and decorating ideas. There were some weeks during the last year and a half that I was blogging every single day. Every. Single. Day. And yet, when I opened the blog today...my last post was in June. JUNE. That's SIX months ago.
However, a few days ago, I wrote a blog post to share as a guest writer on our minister's blog.
And it sparked something in me. I realized how much I had missed sharing in this way. Blogging feeds my soul. So in 2020, I'm committing to a weekly blog post. Not only to pour into my readers' lives...but for myself. Happy Last-Week-of-the-Decade, friends. Love from the Farmhouse, Hannah ❤️🏡❤️
Well, friends.
We made it. 2019. It sounds crazy to say that. I just keep thinking, "Wasn't 1996 like a few years ago?" Anyway, for so many of us, waking up on January 1st brings a renewed sense of motivation and excitement for what can happen in this fresh new year. Over 2018, I read several books to work towards becoming the best version of myself that I can be. Almost every single one of them spoke in the beginning about the importance of having a vision for your life.
"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others." ~ Jonathan Swift
Your vision has to be yours alone. Picture the life you want and decide TODAY to take steps to get there. I'm hosting a "Twelve-Week Challenge" group here on the blog and over on Facebook.
So that's my one non-negotiable daily habit.
However, I have some other habits that will definitely help our days run more smoothly, so I have listed nine other daily habits that I would like to track each day. I love using a habit-tracker for things like this, so I created one on Google Docs to track my progress. You can view MY January habit-tracker HERE and follow along, if you'd like. If you would like a printable BLANK copy of my habit-tracker, click the image below.
Using the insight I gleaned from these authors, I have set up a 12-week challenge to set goals for the first twelve weeks of 2019, to keep myself accountable, and to check my progress throughout the next three months.
After setting up my goals and weekly challenges, I thought to myself that maybe you all would want to join me!
Excited for the new year here at the farmhouse,
Hannah ❤️?❤️
Near the middle of December, I begin to think about my goals for the new year.
In the past, I have written down my annual goals on paper or typed into a document. To be quite honest, it just wasn't too effective. I wrote the goals out, sometimes shared the goals with a few close friends, and then I taped the paper in the back of my planner...never to be looked at again. The intentions were good, but there was no inspiration in a checklist of "things to accomplish in the year ____". No inspiration. No long-term motivation. No real accountability. So although my resolutions were good ones that would have helped me to become more organized, more healthy, and more financially fit...there was often not as much follow-through as I would have liked. In December of 2017, I was introduced to the concept of the "vision board". I was intrigued and started seeking out inspiration online.
These are three of the images I saved at the time because they just "spoke to me".
THIS. This was inspiring to me! I started to think about where I would keep a vision board and realized that I might want to have a separate one for the different areas of my life because I had very specific goals for each part...home, faith, school, photography...the list goes on and on. However, making fourteen different vision boards sure didn't seem practical.
We have worked hard to pay down our car debt and the truck is now paid off, with the Yukon coming soon.
Mr. Farmhouse is still working towards being a full-time farmer, but we are on the right track. I have pages like this in my vision book about many subjects...
When December 2017 came around, I looked back through my vision book and took stock of all the things we had accomplished that year. I added a few new goals for 2018, but I decided not to start a new book...just continued right on with a refreshing perspective. And I'll do the same thing this week as I dream, plan, and prepare for 2019. Doing some goal-setting at the farmhouse to celebrate Christmas break, Hannah ❤️?❤️ There are 56 days left in 2018. A few friends and I have been following along with Rachel Hollis's "Last 90 Days", where she has challenged people to make the last 90 days of the year count. Well, I was successful in following her "Five to Thrive" for about 15 out of 31 days in October.
And now...that 90 days has dwindled down to 56 days.
So this weekend, I've taken some time to regroup and do some planning for the next two months. The girls and I did some deep-cleaning in our bedrooms and the rest of the house. I planned out our meals for the next few weeks. We set some goals for ourselves and made a commitment to make these last few months of the year meaningful. If you're feeling like things have gotten out-of-control and you just want to gain some peace and calm in the near future, feel free to join me in building some habits in the next 56 days that will help us to enjoy the holiday season. More info to come in the morning. ❤️🏡❤️
Back in January, I made the goal to read 30 books in 2018.
Well, it's mid-April and I am in the middle of books number SIX and SEVEN. Book number six is The 7 Experiment (Jen Hatmaker). And book number seven is The Principal: Three Keys to Maximizing Impact (Michael Fullan). I will post a completed list at year-end, but for today, I would love to talk to you about the book I finished just last week, The 12-Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks Than Others Get Done in 12 Months (Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington).
I immediately downloaded it and started listening to it that night.
Wow. The concepts in the book were so obvious and yet, I needed to hear them so badly. How many of us wake up on January 1st every single year with so many hopes and dreams for the year? We make goals (New Years' Resolutions, if you will), whether on paper or in our heads. There are so many things we want to accomplish by December 31st, and yet by the time February hits, adequate progress towards most of our goals has not been made. We don't have to work too hard in January and February because December is still SO...FAR...AWAY. We push through March and April, making excuses as to why we are not moving towards our goals. It's so cold. When it warms up, I will get to work on those goals. I promise! When the school year ends, I'll have so much more time to focus on my plans. There's still PLENTY of time to meet my goals before the end of the year! We're not even halfway through the year! May, June, and July come and go. The summer is just so busy. When school starts, I'll be able to focus more. It's too hot! Summer is for rest and relaxation. By the time we hit August and September, we are ready to get the kids back into the routine of school and get to work on those "New Years' resolutions"! But it's just crazy when everyone is trying to get back into the grind of school. On October 1st, it hits us...we only have three more months to reach our goals. We start to get a glimpse of the urgency that is needed if we're going to hit our goals before January 1st, but by this point...it feels like it's too late. We'll try again next year. I knew I couldn't continue this cycle forever.
With all of the changes coming in our life over the next six months, I knew that I needed to get it together.
I'll be starting a new job on August 1st and life will be different at the farmhouse at that time if we don't start to mark some things off of our giant to-do list. The basic premise of the 12-week year is that we get rid of our "annualized" thinking when it comes to goal-setting and working towards making our vision for our life a reality. We start to think of each 12-week section of time as a year. Instead of putting off tasks until the end of the year when the urgency starts to take over, we keep that sense of urgency year-round, while setting realistic goals and focusing on the execution of daily tasks to help us reach our desired result.
"If you want to know what your future holds, look at your current daily actions. Those are the best predictor of your future. Not your hopes and dreams and visions. Your daily action. Because daily action is what moves a person forward."
We can have the most well thought-out vision and the most wonderful plan in the world. However, if we don't execute well...none of that matters. So remember as you think about your vision, your goals, and your plan that we need to also think about the effectiveness of our execution. We have to DO the hard work every stinking day. Even when we don't feel like it. Just do it.
We are in Week 2 of our first 12-week year and we are LOVING the results we are seeing.
I'm going to take you through the process of how Mr. Farmhouse and I set up our first 12 weeks. This is, in no way, a substitution for you reading the actual book and following the plan. But I'm hoping it can at least inspire you to get started! 1. Write out your personal vision for your life 10 or 15 years down the road. Be specific! Close your eyes and picture the life you've always dreamed about! There's no goal too lofty. Just write it all down!
2. Based on that vision, think about what parts of that vision you could work towards for the next three years.
We are zooming in at this point. We're taking that lifelong vision and breaking it into more measurable and attainable chunks. We went through our vision and wrote some attainable goals. I'm not going to share every single part of our personal family vision because your vision should be your own. However, on our long-term vision, we wrote that we want to be completely debt-free in ten years. So for our three-year plan, we want to work towards having everything paid off except for the farmhouse and my student loans. 3. Based on your three-year goals, set goals for the next 12 weeks. We are zooming in even farther at this point. What can we do to move ourselves closer to meeting that long-term vision and that three-year goal in the next three months? At this point, we broke down our 12-week plan into fourteen very specific, small, and attainable goals.
It includes blogging goals, a plan to get my classroom completely cleaned out before I move into an office next year, and a plan for our first garden here at the farmhouse.
On this step, be specific. Be detailed. And be realistic. 4. Create a weekly plan including activity that needs to be completed every week to help you reach your goals. We did this on the Sunday evening before we started into our first week. These are very specific tasks that will move you toward your 12-week goals. Here's an example of this from our 12-week year. We want to finish the wall and closet for the fourth bedroom. During week 1, we needed to measure the closet and wall space and make a materials list. We needed to order the supplies from Sutherland's. These are the only two tasks for that goal that we could realistically finish in Week 1. But we finished those two tasks and moved farther along in the process than we have in the last six weeks. We aren't putting that task it off any longer because now it seems manageable. It seems attainable. We can do this! 5. Every single week, check your progress from the previous week and plan the next week. This part is crucial to the success of the 12-week year. What daily action did you carry out regarding each goal? How much progress did you make towards your goals? Were you diligent in doing the hard work every single day? If not...OWN IT and vow to do better this week! After checking your progress, make a new weekly plan! In the book, Moran talks about three different blocks of time we need to religiously schedule each week. Strategic Blocks - 3 hours of protected time early in the week where you knock out a lot of your weekly activity work (1 time per week) Buffer Blocks - 30 minutes to one hour blocks of time where you do those mundane yet necessary daily tasks like checking emails and social media (1-2 times per day) Breakout Blocks - 3 hours of time later in the week where you BREAKOUT of the work cycle and focus on pouring back into yourself (1 time per week) I tried this schedule this week and could not believe how much more I was able to accomplish during that first strategic block when I wasn't distracted by emails, my phone, or other daily (sometimes meaningless) tasks that I spend so much time on each week. Week 13.
Week 13 in the 12-week year is for reflection and celebration!
Because you're not thinking about the annual goals that are looming over you, you are able to be more focused on a few attainable goals and the tasks that will get you to the end result you desire. I would encourage you to grab the book or at the very least, try to plan your own 12-week year soon. You won't be sorry. Happy Windy Saturday from the farmhouse, friends. Week 2...here we come! ❤️?❤️ Every single year, I take pictures of the girls and purchase Christmas cards in the beginning of December. Every single year, I don't send them on time. Like really... Every. Single. Year. In fact, when we moved out to the farmhouse, I literally kept three prints from the last several years' of cards and threw the rest away. 😫
And in mid-December, I mailed some!
I mailed a whole SIX cards, in fact! I also handed out some cards at church and even gave some to a few of our family members! That is a definite improvement from years past. However, come January 31st, the rest of them were still in a pile in my office...ready to be mailed out. So I set a goal for myself to mail them by Valentine's Day. And this morning, I am dropping them off to the post office. I didn't order as many cards as I did in the past and didn't even get to some of the people on my Christmas card list...so I still wouldn't call it a success. But it was an adequate effort. Maybe 2018 will be the year that I get my Christmas card life together. We'll see. Merry Valentine's Day from the Farmhouse, friends. 'Tis the Season! ❤️🎁🏡🎄❤️ Sigh. New. It's such a great word. So fresh. So promising. So full of hope. Happy New Year, friends. Here we are. January 1st. I used to set goals for the new year in several different categories.
I made these big elaborate lists and sometimes I stuck to one or two of my "resolutions". A few years ago, however, I began trying to really focus in on one word or phrase each new year. One year it was "balance", another year it was "no". "Intentional." "Peace." This year, I've had three words and/or phrases running through my mind over the last few weeks, so I think I'll use them all as my focus for 2018.
Be transformed.
Our minister has been preaching for the last several weeks on the transformation that should come from knowing Jesus. I want to focus this year on being transformed because of Who Jesus is. I want people to be able to see Him in every aspect of my life. I want to be transformed. Unplug. I read an article this week about the addictive nature of a cell phone for young kids. I was convicted about the addictive nature of technology for myself. I know that technology can be a good thing, but I think sometimes satan uses good things to distract us from our purpose. The purpose of being a good wife. ...of raising Kingdom kids. ...of building deep relationships with people. ...of creating a home environment that is beautiful for our families. ...of taking care of ourselves so we can pour into others. This year I will set limitations on social media usage and spend more time focusing on face-to-face interaction with those I love. Do fewer things, better. I am notorious for working hard to balance too many spinning plates. I can usually multi-task without much problem. I say "yes" often to lighten the load for others. I get a lot accomplished and a lot of times, those accomplishments are just "good enough". This year, I want to simplify. To minimize. To do fewer things and to do them better. What are your goals for 2018? Do you set resolutions? If you could choose one word to take with you this year...what would it be? Make it a great year, friends! New Year's Love from the Farmhouse, Hannah ❤️🏡❤️ |
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