Goal hustling with the long-view in mind

Alternatively titled, “Goal hustling as a mom of littles”

When I first started this blog, I knew I was going to have kids. Or at least, that was our plan. So I knew that as I formed the purpose for this blog, I knew that I was going to have to have something that was going to be able to survive years of “goal drought” or slower periods where striking things off my bucket list were few and far between because of the demands of diapers, tantrums, potty training, breastfeeding, etc.

Initially, my transition to motherhood was rough. Going from being a goal hustler to being a mom at home felt very suffocating. I loved my son and I enjoyed him, but it felt a bit like my entire life was on hold — everything I was made to be was on hold to raise a family. I’ve settled more into my role as mom and so I no longer feel that way exactly but I admit at times I do lean in that direction.

Long-term thinking

Part of what brings success to reaching our goals is being able to have long-term thinking. I’ve been a mom for 4 years now (which I know is nothing compared to some of you who are reading— hi mom!), and I’ve finally gone through enough stages of childrearing to know they do grow up and few things lasts forever. The poop jokes for boys are still going strong, though. And when they’re learning a second language there’s even more to choose from!

The last few months, I have been restless. I’ve been looking ahead too much to what I want to accomplish when my kids are less dependent on me. This has been unhelpful because I’m not there yet. It means I haven’t been entirely present in my home or have felt resentful of where I’m at in life. Living resentfully is not at all what I want for my life. Thankfully, I’ve had some personal insight into why I’ve been feeling this way and how I can get my head back into being present for my family and happy about it.

Over the last year I’ve also been into a personality test that has been super helpful for me to understand why I am the way I am and what makes me different. This has also been super enlightening for helping me to lean into the hard parts and be more patient.

Anyways, back to the long-term thinking.

If you’re motivated by goals and feel stuck with where you’re at, I’ve found it helpful to make goals related to where you are. If you’re stuck because of an illness, decide who you want to be in that illness. If you’re feeling stuck because of career issues or dissappointments, decide what kind of person you want to be in that. These character related goals at least give something to work towards when you feel like it’s all out of control.

Who, not just what

A lot of the goals on my Bucket List are things I want to accomplish. I don’t think any of them say anything at all about what kind of person I want to be. I certainly have these ideas in mind as well, I just have never written them down on my Bucket List. Lately I’ve been focusing more on my character goals rather than my accomplishments. I’ve also been working on the long-term goals of raising my children to not be incarcerated!!! Low bar, I know, but some days I wonder with the consistent ignoring me and lack of obedience if there’s any hope for them #kiddingnotkidding

Honestly, though, as I sit back and stop being so tightly wound about being a published book author or running a marathon (both nowhere on the horizon), I am reminded that having raised good human beings is actually at the top of my list of concerns. Also, having a loving intact marriage at the end of all of it too.

So in light of these things, how have I been working at my goals the last 6 months? Things are going pretty well, I’d say. A lot of my habits have fallen apart again and as a result an obvious chaos has entered our lives. I’d like to get those things back in order again: bullet journaling to keep the swirling thoughts in order, mornings in prayer and my Bible, and actually thinking about meals. Exercise has been put in the back burner as I’m cooking a third baby.

Keep at it, friends!

The Newsletter

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I’ve decided that as an extension of this blog I’m going to start a newsletter. I will send it out ever 4-6 weeks and it will contain content you wont get here in the blog. I’m doing this in attempt to keep the blog focused on its purpose. The feedback I got from the survey made it clear that a lot of people read my blog to keep up with my life and you want more of that. That kind of stuff doesn’t always fit with the theme.

I’m about to release the first newsletter so you better sign up if you haven’t yet. The newsletter is different than if you subscribe to these posts to your inbox. I don’t want to assume you want both. It would be spam to sign you up for something you didn’t ask for.

My promise to you: I want it to be useful and relevant. Therefore, I promise I wont be upset if you sign up and decide to unsubscribe later. Your inbox is precious and should only contain good things. I hate spam. I get a lot of it.

So go on over to to the sidebar and sign up for the newsletter (“Straight to your Inbox”) if you want to take a peek at the first one coming soon. Note: if you expressed interest in the newsletter on the feedback form, I have automatically added it to the list.

A Week Like Last: Why routine and habit has become crucial to my functioning

I’m writing this from North Carolina and I’m very happy about that. Willy finished his final papers and exams at 5PM Friday evening. It was an intense two weeks of assignments and exams for him. I joked with my coworkers that he was hardly a whole human being anymore. His life was studying and writing, save sleep and a short time for meals. I had a busy week consolidating things at the end of the school year, having final meetings before we went on vacation and then switched gears to start working on a new project when I return.

Last week was a big reminder that I still need to grow in developing habits and routines in my schedule that are non-negotiable. Buying groceries is one of those things. There was much chaos last week and I’m confident we could have maintained a sense of normalcy if I had a structured time I did groceries (we didn’t have much in the fridge last week and were too busy to go get some), still making time for other things.

My ideal has become building a series of habits and routines that reduces the amount that I need to think and maximizes getting things done. “Things” being primarily the things I don’t like doing and don’t want to do and therefore don’t make proper time for: Like washing my floors and grocery shopping.

I can’t remember if I’ve posted about this before, but this isn’t the first time that I’ve felt like my life is a bit of a gongshow and I think to myself: I know how to fix this, I just have to do it.

Just doing it is half the trouble, right?

But this week is about chilling out, enjoying the sun, eating really cheap food here in America, and relaxing.

Easter Weekend Project

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I bought hydrangeas for Easter!

Four days off in a row. How awesome is that? This is the first year we didn’t spend with family. Usually we end up spending one or two days at my dad’s but this year we’ve stayed home in Montreal for all of our holidays except Christmas. I never knew how awesome four-days-in-a-row is when you aren’t obligated to do things other people want to. I was telling my dad this yesterday when I called him to wish him a Happy Easter. It was really relaxing to not have to visit family, even though I love them. They totally understood, which is very nice.

I spent a lot of the weekend writing. It was wonderful!

I’m slowly moving ahead on some of these smaller goals that lead up to (I hope) getting published one day. This one is the easy first step: an ebook related to this blog. Now, I know, it maybe doesn’t sound thrilling (or does it?), but I promise you it’s actually pretty not bad!

As I took all the most-popular posts from this blog and the other posts that are very key to what I think will help someone define goals and move towards them, over the course of the long weekend I wrote an ebook. It is meant to be short and to the point. It is meant to be given away freely. I think it does a really good job of streamlining what I’ve learned in the last several months about making life changes to structure your life to reach your goals.

So the next step is to get it edited and reviewed by a few people and then release that bad boy.

I’m excited!

A few random things

  1. 1. I didn’t announce the winners on Friday because I had some blog maintenance issues. The winners (Sarah & Audrey) have already received their copy of the books.
  2. The blog maintenance issues were related to me migrating over to a self-hosted WordPress website, which I am very excited about because now I have complete control over what goes down here – no more paying WordPress for them to put ads on my site (I know, right?).
  3. You wont be able to follow my website within WordPress.com anymore (I don’t think?). The other option is through RSS or subscribe to receive my posts by email. You *may* need to update your RSS stuff? I have no sweet clue how this stuff works. I know just enough to make things (sort of) work.
  4. Happy Easter! I’m seriously loving my 4-day weekend. Went for a run this morning, then ate a our first Easter meal at our own place, not visiting any parents this year. It was nice.
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