Goals… Intro

It’s that time of year when the subject of goals is weighing heavily on people’s minds…
Whether actively setting goals for New Years resolutions or
actively avoiding setting goals for New Years resolutions out of knowledge they won’t be kept anyway,
Goals tend to be on people’s minds more so at January than at any other time of year.

I am a goal setter.
I fully, 100% believe in the importance of setting goals.
Mr F & I not only set goals regularly and write them down, but we also track our progress and regularly review how we are going.
It’s important to us.

That’s part of the reason for my recent little funk actually…
Because last year one of our biggest goals was to eliminate our “short’ term debt –
After carrying around most of that debt since Hannah was born (long story – most of it about  lack of wisdom with money, long periods of unemployment and international moves) last year we finally had the financial means and the insistence to pay it off rapidly.

Our finishing date was set for February 2013. Next month!

For the first time in years, through frugal living and hard work, we were watching our debt disappear before our eyes.
{To the tune of killing $33,000 of debt during 2012. Yay us!}
Oh.my.it.felt.so.good.

We were all on track to having a zero balance.
The excitement and anticipation was huge.
5 years {or more if I’m honest} of accumulated financial backlog was coming to an end and in my eyes we would be able to start with a clean slate.
February 2013 could not come soon enough for my liking!!

Then Mr F got an offer to change jobs to a local job.
And he did. He came home.
It was 100% the right decision for our family.
Another of our goals that year was to have him home with us full time,
so no questions asked about it, the answer was a resounding Yes, take the local job!!
But at the cost of nearly half our income that decision to prioritise our family over funds came at a high financial cost to us.
The cost of meaning we not only couldn’t make the February deadline, but without something else changing we couldn’t afford to finish until probably the middle of 2014.
Another whole 18 months!!!!!!

I was crushed.
For weeks.

Don’t get me wrong, I was happy about Mr Flutter coming home.
Oh.so.happy.
But oh so crushed at the same time.
And I grieved for that lost goal –
The loss of us achieving freedom from the noose of debt around our necks when we had been sooooooo so close!!!

***

But I have picked myself up.
Because the thing about goals is that they need to be fluid…
Life circumstances change.
So the goals need to change with it.
And the more important goal last year was definitely to keep our little family together!
Despite the fact that we won’t finish our financial goal on time, we can still be extremely proud of how much progress we did make last year. It was definitely a first for us.

So January 2013 has been a very influential time for me.
Goals have been the most forefront topic in my mind.
I have stewed,
and processed,
and selected,
and written,
and revised,
and set into motion
a bunch of new goals.

I’m always a goal orientated person, but this year more than normal, I’ve been motivated to change, to set and to plan for them.
And it will be a great year.
Big things are set to happen this year for our family.
I.can’t.wait.

***

So what is the {very long winded} point of this post?

Well, I would like to spend a week on my blog focusing on goals…

Because I know through experience, and statistically, not many people set themselves goals.
And even though I personally love setting goals, I really feel that I could really improve on having follow-though in achieving them!!!
{which is why not achieving that goal up there was probably more impacting on me than it needed to be on me – I just wanted to get finished at something ya know!}

So over the next 2 days I’ll be exploring the subject a bit more,
Sharing some of my personal goals for 2013 with you in detail
{because writing them down is one of the first steps towards success!}
Looking at a system for helping them happen,
And once that’s done, inviting you to join me in setting some, and reviewing them regularlytoo.
But that will become clear at the end…

So there you go, that’s my plan for the week.

I know I promised to show you my new projects, but they can wait until next week. January is getting on and I feel like this is more important for now.