MY 1ST QUARTER GOALS – IN REVIEW

Well, you asked for it, my friend, so I’m going to deliver! I’ve had a lot of requests to share my month/quarter review and I think it’s an incredible idea! There’s nothing like being held accountable and I hope that by sharing these posts, it’ll help to motivate you so you can knock your goals completely out of the park! Without any further ado, let’s get to My 1st Quarter Goals In Review!

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I wish I could tell you that I conquered every one of them, but unfortunately, it just didn’t happen. Honestly, though, I think a lot of us find that we don’t hit every single goal. I’ve heard people say that when you don’t hit them all, you should readjust those goals and bring them down to a more manageable list. However, I believe that if your goals don’t challenge you, then they aren’t big enough.

I, for one, don’t want to go through life easily attaining everything I strive for. I want to be challenged and learn along the way. I want to grow and if I am not reaching for something big enough, then I’m not growing.

I learned a lot in this first quarter. As a lot of you know, I love Lisa Jacobs’ workbook, Your Best Year 2017. This is my second year using this incredible resource and I highly recommend it to everyone – not just business owners.

I’ve, also, become a Time Management/Goal Oriented junkie, so I am constantly looking for ways to improve. This quarter I also worked through The Daily Productivity Guide for Bloggers by Ruth Soukup.

Holy moly, this one resource helped me blow through my productivity ceiling! Just like Your Best Year 2017, I honestly believe this guide is for everyone – not just bloggers. Unfortunately, it’s not available right now, but if you sign up for my email below, I’ll let you know the minute you can purchase it. Seriously, this is one of my absolute productivity must-haves!

So let’s get started on how I did. Below you’ll find my goal categories and how I did in each one.

FINANCIAL

1st Quarter Goals:

• Hit $1000 ER Fund and get all of our debt listed in order of least amount owed to the most amount owed, including interest rates. – A huge success! Not only did we hit this goal, but we’ve started paying down our debt! I can’t even begin to tell you how incredible freeing this is!

Useful tip: If you want to stop living paycheck to paycheck and start taking control of your money, read The #1 Step to Becoming Debt Free. 

How we accomplished it:

• We are participating in Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey and I can’t recommend this program enough! He takes you through every single step to get the job done. 
• I’m also participating in Rosemarie Groner’s 90 Day Budget Bootcamp (you can sign up on the right sidebar of her blog). This is a free class and she walks you through 90 days of assignments to help you nail down your budget and begin the journey of becoming debt-free.

2nd Quarter Goal:

• Paying off 2 of our debts.

Challenges to this goal: We have 2 big graduations (one son from college and one from high school), 3 birthdays, personal property taxes, an anniversary and I’ll be going into surgery sometime in the next month. Which means I’ll be out of work for a couple weeks without pay.

To stay on track, I’ll take every paycheck and immediately assign every single dollar to its proper place. We’ll put aside an allotted amount from each check so that we aren’t scrambling at the last minute to figure out how to pay for it all.

It’s going to be tough to meet that 2nd quarter goal, but I am determined to pay off this debt so I’m not changing it.

SPIRITUAL

1st Quarter Goals:

• Continue my daily devotional – success.  I’ve come to see that I need my daily devotional time just as much as I need air to breathe.

2nd Quarter Goal:

• Join the 30 Day Kindness Challenge. – I just got started and have “chosen my person.” I’ll let you know how it goes! If you want to join me, head over and sign up. We can work through it together!

MENTAL

1st Quarter Goals:

• Staying on top of my bills – success. Honestly, paying bills is my 2nd least favorite thing to do (the other is right below this). I’d much rather bury my head in my work than deal with this aspect of my life. However, I will say that now that I’ve buckled down and am determined to continue meeting our financial goals, it’s getting a lot easier for me and I can even see that, perhaps one day, I may enjoy sitting down to pay bills.
• Implement a regular cleaning and laundry schedule – didn’t make it. Sigh! I used to be such a great housekeeper. Now it’s the absolute last thing I want to do. I started the quarter out well and then completely piddled out in the end. As soon as I begin making a regular income with my blog, I’ll definitely hire out my cleaning. My time is far better spent on the finances and blog than on cleaning my house. 

2nd Quarter Goal:

• Continue looking at my checkbook register and staying on top of the bills 2 days/week. This may seem like overkill, but I want to obsess over the bills in the sense that they are constantly in front of me….keeping me motivated to continue moving forward. 
• Pick a room once/week that my husband and I will deep clean. 
• Do 2 loads of laundry from start to finish Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. I will load the washer the night before and set the timer so that the first load is finished by the time I wake up in the morning. 

PHYSICAL

1st Quarter Goals:

• Exercising 3 times/week – didn’t make it. I made it to the gym a handful of times, but that’s about it. I’m definitely struggling to get in my groove. 

2nd Quarter Goal:

• Exercise 3 times/week – I’m going to try a different strategy this quarter. I’ll be working from 6:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. After I’m off, I’ll still have plenty of the day left to hit the gym. (This is my work from home days – not the days I work at the dental office.)

BUSINESS – Footprints of Inspiration

1st Quarter Goals:

• Complete my free Goal Setting/Time Management e-course – didn’t quite get there, but I’m making great progress. In fact, I just found something else to add that is going to help you set your goals! (Oh no, no, my friend! I’m not spilling the beans just yet!)
• Complete 36 Blog Posts and move on to unit 4 in Elite Blog Academy – success! I actually went back to Unit 1 when enrollment opened back up in February. Ruth added a lot of incredible information, so I wanted to go back and make sure that I got it all.

If you aren’t familiar with Elite Blog Academy, it is by far the gold standard in blogging classes. I enrolled in February 2016 and it has been the best investment that I’ve ever made in myself. Sounds drastic, I know, but it’s the truth. (Ruth Soukup is the founder of this class and she only opens enrollment 5 days every year. I have no idea when it will open for 2018, but your best bet is to sign-up for the waiting list here.)

• Monetize my blog – success! Not only did I meet this goal, but my production increased over 3000% from February to March! (Nope, that was not a typo!) I ended the quarter knocking it completely out of the park! How did I do that, you ask? I implemented every assignment in Elite Blog Academy! (To be fair to my new EBA classmates, you don’t monetize in Units 1-3, but going back and focusing on my foundation helped the systems that I had in place finally work!)

2nd Quarter Goals:

• Launch my free Goal Setting/Time Managment e-course by June 1.
• Batch all my posts and newsletters 1 month out. – A hefty goal but one I am determined to conquer.
• Complete Unit 6 in Elite Blog Academy.
• Begin researching my new product to put together for 3rd quarter launch.
• Read The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson – a book that was recommended by a friend (Thanks, Rachelle!)

Wrapping Up

What worked for me:

• Mid-quarter, I started Eating My Frog First. If you aren’t familiar with Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy, I highly recommend reading it. He’s got some great strategies to help you increase your productivity. The premise of the book is that you take your least favorite task and complete it first so that for the rest of the day, everything else will be a “piece of cake” compared to eating a frog. It’s genius and when I started doing this, it completely changed how productive I became.
• Choosing a Theme for the day. I learned this from the Daily Productivity Guide for Bloggers and it really helped to have a central theme for the day. I felt far more productive and inspired working on similar tasks all day instead of jumping from blog posts to social media to newsletters to backend site updates. It always takes me a little time to get in my groove for the day and this really cut down on that by staying with one focus. I can easily go from task to task and stay in my groove.
• Time Blocking continues to be a key strategy for me that helps me stay 100% focused when I’m working. I turn off my e-mail and social media notifications. I don’t spend time scrolling through  Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest. I save my “scrolling time” for when I’m waiting in a doctor’s office, or sitting in front of the TV. (If you aren’t familiar with time blocking, you can find more information here.)
• This quarter, I began streaming lectures, tutorials, and books that I could listen to on my drive into work (at the dental office) and while I workout. This was a huge time saver for me.

What I’m going to change:

• Since I despise cleaning and laundry, I’m going to make them “my frogs” and complete them first thing. This will help me mentally which in turn will make me be better able to focus when I’m working.
• I’ve set aside 2 full days to complete my e-mail course only. I’ll go to the coffee shop or someplace away from home so that all my household chores aren’t crying out for my attention. (In the future, I’m considering taking a couple days away where I can hole up by myself to complete tasks such as these.

I may have missed some of my goals this quarter, but by golly, I made progress! And as my friend, Rosemarie Groner says,

we want progress, not perfection! 

So when it comes to meeting your goals, use your time wisely and pay attention to your time suckers. Once you recognize what they are, put systems in place to help you stay clear of them.

Thanks again, for the great idea of sharing my reviews with you. I hope it helps to motivate you into reaching your goals as well.

If you need help with accountability, start by writing everything down. Then hit reply to this email and tell me what you have planned for this 2nd quarter. (Or you can comment below or even tag me on social media.)

If you need some help planning your goals and scheduling your day, check out the “more great posts” section below. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you don’t miss a single post!

Until next time, my friend…..

P.S. Need a step by step strategy for turning your dreams into attainable goals? Enroll in my free e-course, Conquering Your Goals – Turning your dreams into actionable steps and get started today!

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