Learning from 2015 Failures & Setting 2016 Goals

Alexandria

Lifestyle

January 4, 2016

Learning from 2015 Failures & Setting 2016 Goals

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Friends! Welcome to 2016!

This is a late introduction, but it’s the first Monday of the new year, so kind of feels like the first day of the new year… right?

I read through my 2015 goals the other day and some of them seem so untouchable. First of all, why did I write out 15 goals for myself?! 15!? Little extreme…

We did a twitter chat with the Tampa Bay Bloggers and Lululemon last week and this stuck out to me the entire time:

Make sure your goals are S.M.A.R.T.!

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely

Were my goals not S.M.A.R.T. last year? Is that why I didn’t accomplish most of them? To be completely honest, while I was reading my 2015 goals, I felt like I completely failed at life..all based on those “goals” I wrote down. While outside of that post and those goals, 2015 was a fantastic year!

Going back, I think those goals were S.M.A.R.T., but my circumstances changed remarkably in March (sold house and moved in with parents), and then again in September (became very ill with pregnancy #3), and some of 2015 goals didn’t even matter to me anymore.

I don’t like to make excuses, and I know not accomplishing those goals isn’t the end of the world, and it’s not my first rodeo at failure.

Actually “failing” is good for you. Not only that, I believe failure is necessary.

Failure gives us so many important life lessons, and without it we’d all just be gigantic assholes…to be honest. 🙂

Without failure, we wouldn’t know what DOESN’T work.

Without failure, we wouldn’t know the value of things and everything would be taken for granted.

Without failure, we wouldn’t have the great amount of resilience most of us have. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

Without failure, we wouldn’t know that re-evaluation is sometimes necessary.

When I sat down to write out 2016 goals, I felt down about 2015 goals and thought to myself, “Why even write set goals for the year?!” Total Debbie Downer moment!

Just as much as failure is important, so is setting goals for yourself!

2016 Goals

What my 2015 goals taught me was that there will certainly, without a doubt, be necessary changes and re-evaluation in life.

With all that being said and after LONG thought, here are my goals for 2016…and there aren’t 15!

Reduce Anxiety

This is my #1 and most important goal for 2016. I have issues with anxiety on the regular and they just multiply when I’m pregnant. This is a total inside issue, while it isn’t caused by certain people or seem to affect me outwardly in the sense that many people probably don’t even know this about me. In my mind, the absolute worst-case scenarios happen. When I leave my kids, when I’m in a public place, when I try to plan vacations, or when I watch movies. For example: first major case of anxiety in 2016 happened when I was thinking about planning a “Family-moon” for us before baby#3 arrives. Then I watched two movies that made me not want to leave my own living room; Cast Away (plane accident) and Titanic (we all know how that ends). I know how silly this is and I’m certainly not going to stop that from letting me vacation with my family, but anxiety definitely makes me lose sleep at night.

Eat/Use less animal products

In 2015 I started doing Meatless Mondays after I saw a video on Facebook that I can’t ever erase from my memory. When I first saw it I didn’t eat meat for almost a week, and red meat was off my menu for about a month. Being an animal lover, I don’t really know why I eat meat, but I do. I would NEVER be able to go hunting, eat an animal I met in person, and I’ve been asked what the difference between eating my dog and eating a cow was. After all, they’re both very cute animals. My problem isn’t actually with eating meat, it’s eating meat of animals that were killed and treated so inhumanely, for no reason. To start, I don’t buy eggs that aren’t organic, antibiotic or cage free and I haven’t bought meat that isn’t grass fed since I can remember. I’m going to up my “meatless” days from 1 day a week to 3 days a week, and go from there.

Eat more local

To piggy back the last goal, I will strive to eat more locally produced foods AND dine at locally owned restaurants. This means buying my produce from local Farmer’s Markets and buying any meats that I do consume from local meat markets. (There is a great local meat market right by the house we are building!) There are so many great restaurants around the Tampa Bay area that are owned by actual families and not big corporations. While I love some Outback cheese fries, I know there are probably dozens of restaurants out there with fries just as good. We can hope… 😉

There you have it. THREE goals specifically for 2016!

I certainly have more “goals” in my mind I could jot down on this list. Being a good wife, mom, and just a generally “better” person, exercising more, pick up a new skill, and all those great things. But I don’t think those are S.M.A.R.T. goals, but rather ways I should live my life every day, every year. Know what I mean?

What my 2015 goals taught me was that there will certainly, without a doubt, be necessary changes and re-evaluation in life.

With all that being said and after LONG thought, here are my goals for 2016…and there aren’t 15!

I wish everyone a happy, successful, and spectacular 2016 year!

What are your goals for 2016?
Are they S.M.A.R.T.?

XOXO

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