My 2024 Goals

But when I read about the saints, they were just vigilant. Particularly Therese she just noticed even in her heart. When she was judgmental or desired something for herself and then she’d say, oh, forgive me, Lord. Let me choose you. Let me choose littleness. And I just, I don’t want to be obsessed with it or consumed with it, but just more often than I was, I’ve been checking in with myself on my sinfulness, not just at the end of the day. Hey, how do we do, but just how was this last hour where was I clinging to the world? And where was I clinging to God?

So today I want to share my 2024 goals with you, just because I think it’s interesting and people like to see other people’s goals. But before I do, I want to encourage you to scroll down on your phone and rate this podcast. And if you’re in a good place and some of you are driving, which is not a good place to do this. And want you to consider leaving a review. I read those all the time. I don’t just read them when they’re new. I read them on my hard days when I’m having a hard day. And I just want to throw in the towel and I’m like, I’m tired. I don’t want to do this. I’m just going to burn everything to the ground. I go read my podcast for views. Because it’s so simple for me to do that and I have access to them on my phone. And I just started reading what you guys say. And it is so meaningful to me.

And so, yes! reviews help the podcast algorithm, but to me, the real benefit of doing it, why? I think it’s worth your time to do it because you lift me up. I don’t get to hear your voice. I don’t get to shake your hand. I don’t get to meet most of you. But in this way, I feel connected to you. I feel connected to the work. And it keeps me going. And so if you’re willing, you’re in a good place, leave a review. I don’t understand why iTunes has very weird usernames, so I may not know your name but I looked at those and they really helped me.

So today’s episode is about my goals. I actually recorded it for Catholic Mom Daily. I do a daily podcast and y’all aren’t over there. I can see how many of you listen to this podcast. And the number is smaller. The daily podcast. So I just want to encourage you to hop over to Catholic Mom Daily. It’s Monday through Friday. In my mind, it’s five minutes, but it’s really always eight minutes. But two of those minutes are me praying very slowly. And I just hear that women love that. So two minutes of prayer, then, you know, five to six minutes of something encouraging. So I’ve recorded my 2024 goals and then I thought, oh, I really want that to be on the weekly podcast. So this is cut from Catholic Mom Daily, but I actually think I’m not a hundred percent sure. I think this episode is going to come out before that one, but they will be exactly the same. So for those of you who listened to both, they will be the same. And I am just sharing not only my 2024 goals, but also how I used the Year of Calm Planner to organize them.

And I want to update you more frequently throughout the year on what’s going on with me? I think my coffee and pearls podcast was very much just a hit record and tells you what was going on with my life. And I feel like it was a little more raw or a little bit more. Transparent about what I was going through and this podcast because I think of it more like a teaching podcast. I often sit down and I think, okay, what do I want to teach? So I want to bring back some of those kind of raw off the cuff. This is what I’m going through, Episodes, and I’m going to do that. Tying into my goals so you guys can see what I’m working on, how it’s going, how I’m pivoting. What I’m reading. But today if you know one of my 2024 goals, how am I thinking about them? And I hope it’s helpful for you. I hope it gets your wheels turning and I really believe that. One of my goals is to improve as a homemaker and I think all of us can embrace that. To bring more order and peace into our homes. And then that’s one of the most powerful ways we can affect what’s happening in the world right now.

Jordan Peterson talks about that. You know, clean your room, make your bed, get your own house in order first. Sometimes we want to do these big outside things. Because the small inside our own home things don’t seem big enough or important enough, but I really think they are. So I hope you enjoy this episode. I’d love to hear what your goals are. Lots of places you can find me. Love to hear what you guys are working on. Because we’re always thinking about, you know, what content and recreating for the year. And help a lot of you will join me in this year of the homemaker. Bringing peace to our homes. All right my friends enjoy this episode about goals. Who wants to talk about goals? I am excited to share my goals with you today and a different way that I’m thinking about goals this year. And I feel like every year I have a different take on it or a different flavor of setting goals or ways to think about it. And I really enjoy sharing that with all of you.

So before we begin, let us bring in our divine creator, the one who has the perfect plan. The God who chose us to live at this time. We can get our goals from him. Let us pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Come Holy Spirit, we ask that you give us wisdom today, Lord, wisdom to see things the way that you see them to grow in charity for ourselves and for others. To understand this world better. Good things, the evil things, the blessings, the temptations, to see our own sinfulness, to know that all good things come from you. Help us to see all of that, Lord. Thank you for the gift of today. Let us never stop being in awe that we are alive today and to be curious about the work that you want us to do. For if we are alive, we know there is something that you want us to do. Help us to know what that is. We ask this in Jesus’s name. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

So I made a new planner called Year of Calm, and it helps you set goals, but then it also can be used as a regular planner, and it focuses on creating systems. So I was thinking about goals, and goals are really result oriented. I want to lose 20 pounds, I want to pay down 5, 000 of debt, I want to teach this kiddo how to read. You know, we make this list of results that we want, but really it’s systems or habits or routines that enable us to create those results. So one of my goals here is to teach Forrest how to read. And if I spent 30 minutes with him every day for a whole year, it would probably result in him learning how to read. So I could create a system for doing that. And I could break the system down. I could say, well, how am I teaching him how to read? I need to procure some sort of reading program. And then I need to put it in a place that I can find it and it’s easy for me to grab. And then when are we going to sit down and do it? And what am I going to think about when I don’t feel like doing it? And if we miss a day, is that okay? Right. You can see there’s all these questions that are addressing the system for achieving a goal. So what we have the women do is write down all the combustors, the things that are stealing their peace, driving them bananas, causing stress, first.

And then we have them think about goals or systems that address those things. Because you may feel like your body is a little fluffier than you want it to be, and your genes are a little tighter than you’d like, but that may not be the thing that’s actually causing you the most stress. And if God wants us to live with peace, then it is our job to identify the things that are causing us to lose our peace, and to address them. So we have you pick four calm making systems. So, again, in your mind, the goal and system now is the same. We write down the result, but we know that what we’re really doing is creating a system to lead to that result. And then for homemaking systems, I’m very into homemaking. It’s the year of the homemaker. We’re going to be doing homemaking stuff all year long in CatholicMomCalm.com and very excited about that. And I just think we need to embrace our identity as homemakers and take pride in it and acknowledge that it’s probably just a bunch of skills that we need to practice or acquire to be better homemakers. And then we have them choose four one off projects. Projects are something where you’ll do it and you’ll complete it. It may not be something that you need a full system around. It may not be something that you’re going to be doing for the whole year. So I’d love to share mine with you. So my four calm making systems. Okay, I identified things that were stealing my piece. And I thought, what are some goals that I can create to combat that and a system that would lead to that goal? So the first one is exercise and moving my body. It’s just so easy for me to sit. To sit in my office, to go home and sit with the kids. I just sit a lot.

And so I really want to incorporate walking and weights and stretching. And so I found a friend and I said, hey, do you want to walk with me? And so we are taking 30 minute walks together. And then I talked to my husband and said, okay, what kind of equipment do we have? I want to do weights three days a week. And then, finding a light stretching program, which I haven’t done yet, but I want to just find a light stretching program. And I want to do that with the kids. I want to see if the kids could get into it. They may roll their eyes and not be into it, but I want to try. My second goal is being a surrendered wife. You know, I read that book. It’s actually, the newest version is called “The Empowered Wife” by Laura Doyle, and I went through a couple other marriage programs last year, and I wanted to put them together and make my own marriage program to help all of you. And so I just want to do those practices. There’s some very specific practices that I’ve kind of pulled from all these programs.

And I’m just to myself saying I want to be a surrendered wife because that’s what the Bible says. And so I’m going to create systems around being a surrendered wife. And the way that I handle something that’s not measurable is I just arbitrarily pick a measurement. So from 0 to 10 and I can say like maybe I’m at a 3 and I want to be at a 5. So, I’m going to create a system, I’m going to create these practices that then hopefully lead to the result of going from a 3 to a 5 as a surrendered wife. And then, one of my other goals is I want to build an office on our property and work 20 to 30 hours a week. And I know which, I don’t leave that variable, it’s just that certain times I work more and certain times I work less. And to have a certain number of days off where I’m doing family stuff, like a trip or a day trip or a hike or things like that. And then my fourth one is to have more peace by, I’m doing the St. Bridget prayers this year, and you have to say them everyday. I want to do the rosary every day, and I want to use my new planner every day.

And so these kinds of three daily practices that would lead to really growing closer to the Lord and having more peace. So then for homemaking, and that’s for the whole year, and I’ll be working on, and then we have you pick one of those for the quarter. So you’re not doing all four of those things for the year. You’re going to have one focus on the quarter, even though some of them might be happening in the background. I will spend a quarter really bringing one of them to the foreground and establishing the system. And I talk a lot about working on one thing at a time, which your brain is going to hate. But it is the best way to make progress in your life.

So then homemaking, the first one I have is tackling all of our closets. All of our closets need something, and I just really want to tackle that this year. I want to shuffle up our chores. So for a very long time, my oldest has done our dishes. That is the next one. Does the laundry, and the next one kind of just fills in random places, but it isn’t really clear, and then my six year old clears the table sometimes, so I just want to lock that down and just do another, Hey, what are we doing with our chores for those kids? I want to reorganize our book and puzzle and art supply system, so again, I’ll spend three months just doing that. And to me, that’s really just about shelving. All of those things are in three places and I just want to rethink them. And then my fourth homemaking goal is a system for the kids to make and track money.

And I did a track money system last year. So I just want to revive that. But then also I want to sit down and spend the time to really, they ask me all the time, how can I make money? And I’m like, I’ll think about that later. And then of course I never do. So I want to do that this year. And then the four projects that I have is I want to teach Forrest to read. I want to take the girls to visit my mom. I did that last year and I really enjoyed it. I want to help Rose, my oldest, find a job. She really wants a job and I want to help her find that. And then I want to do that icon class that I did last year in Boise, where you go and, and learn how to write an icon, and it was really great. So those are kind of four, like, one off things. I’m not going to be doing those all throughout the year. And so that’s what my 2024 is going to look like. And I’ve been really enjoying this planner. I can already see how I want to tweak it as I’ve been using it, and we’ll collect feedback from everybody and, and incorporate that in the next round of making this planner, but you know, if I were to sum it up, it’s moving my body, being a surrendered wife, I want to build an office on our property so I’m not, so I’m like home more or just with the kids more. I want to do these St. Brigid prayers and the rosary and the planner every day. We’re going to do closets, we’re going to rethink our chores, system for books, puzzles and art, and really books, puzzles and art are just like the things my kids do every day and take out.

How can they take them out? How can they put them back? And then a system for kids, making and tracking money. And then basically like two trips, help Rose find a job, teach Forrest to read. So I just love sharing goals with all of you. And I want to do a much better job of updating you, probably not weekly, maybe monthly, certainly quarterly on how it’s going. Both for me and accountability, but just also so you can see how I coach myself, what things are hard. And how I grow because one of the biggest lies that our brain tells us is like, we’re too busy or we’re too overwhelmed or something’s wrong with us and we can’t improve our lives and it’s just not true. So I will share with you how I do it even in the hard seasons and I hope you enjoy that. All right, my friends, thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.