New Year's Challenge: Week 1: The Office

This year is about being good enough. I don't know about you, but this is a real struggle for me. To start this year's theme on the right foot, I am participating in an organizing challenge hosted by one of my favorite organizational blogs: A Bowl Full of Lemons.

I am participating in ABFOL's: 

Week One, of course, starts with the one room I was hoping I wouldn't have to think about for a while: the office!

Keeping this year's Good Enough theme in mind, rather than trying to overwhelm myself to the point of tears and trying to actually organize my abyss of an office, I focused on 1 section of some wall shelves for my essential oil business. Guess what? It worked! I had to fight myself quite a few times to stay focused on just do that section and no more. It took half an hour here, fifteen minutes there, and an hour or so when I could throughout the last several days, but I have completed Week One's challenge!

Is it huge? No.
Is it life-changing? Not really.
Did I say I would complete the challenge? Yes.
Did I complete the challenge? Yes!

Do you know how it feels? It feels GREAT!

New Year, New Goals

Image Attribution

Resolutions....
Hmmm...I always feel like the *right* thing to do is make them each year. Then I get caught up in how important that word seems and how I can't possibly perfectly live up to those resolutions, and they start slipping fast. Once life steps in, those resolutions are history.

Goals...
To me, goals are much more attainable and open to revamping whenever I feel that I am straying and need to reevaluate. I am making a few new goals for this new year. I plan on reevaluating them on a quarterly basis to see how I am progressing, then reworking those goals as the need may be.

These are my new goals for the year:

PERSONAL

• Blog at least once per week = 52 posts for the year
• Work towards my weight loss and exercise goals 
• lower BMI by a minimum of 2.4 points
• lower my weight by 15 pounds
• lower my waist measurement by 5 inches
• lower my body fat percentage (according to my scale) by at least 2%
• Complete the doTERRA Slim & Sassy Challenge

SPIRITUAL

• Complete the 60 day reading plan (not necessarily in the 60 days, as long as it is completed)
• Choose another reading plan to complete

PROFESSIONAL

• Find at least 1 more business to create and manage a website for
• Increase my doTERRA team
• Hold a minimum of 1 essential oil class each quarter
• Teach 2 cloth diapering/ green mama classes this year
• Teach 2 green living DIY classes this year
•  Teach 1 mystery shopping class this year
• Attend at least 2 professional workshops/ conferences this year
• Attend at least 4 professional classes this year

FAMILY

• Continue to pay down debt and stay on track to be debt free (aside from mortgage) by the end of 2013
• Organize entire basement
• Reduce "stuff" by 10%

Splitting up my goals into categories seems like it will be easier for me to accomplish, and to not be overwhelmed. I will work on these and check in on these in 3 months. 

What are your goals for the new year?

Perfection?

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything,

That's how the light gets in.

~Leonard Cohen

What do you call a perfectionist who never seems to get it perfect?

If you have followed my blog thus far, you have probably noticed that I have grand plans, but those plans often fizzle out. I almost made it in October with my gratitude posts. It wasn't that I didn't have things to be grateful for, because I certainly did. It is more that I have a bad habit of allowing life to get in the way of my plans and goals. In this case, it was a potty-training toddler, a bottomless pit that can't sleep through the night yet baby, a husband with an erratic schedule, a crazy shedding dog, and 2 cats who make my basement smell, well, gross to put it nicely. I can't find a safe place to keep my laptop between moments I get to work on it. I have no desire to relegate myself to the cool and smelly basement.

I feel a pull to be still and active at the same time. How is that to happen? I don't know, but I feel that being perfect is not what I need to be striving for. I am going to start focusing on quality over quantity, but also knowing that if perfection is my goal, I will never be pleased.

At the start of November I began a 60 day Bible reading guide. If it doesn't get completed in 60 days, that is okay. The point is to complete it. I am well on my way. I haven't even looked at the list or the calendar to see how they compare to each other to see how I am doing on the reading plan.

 Do you find yourself in this predicament? How do you cope with it? Have you mastered this issue? If so, please share how you were able to step over the perfectionist stumbling block.