My Monthly Goals…Why do I set them? Why do I share them here?
- Setting goals helps me remain focused.
- Sharing my goals helps to hold me accountable.
- I hope that it may inspire you to set goals for yourself.
Are you new to goal setting? Here are a few posts that may help or inspire you:
- How to Set Goals using Short Challenges and Mini Goals
- How Short Challenges and Mini Goals Work for Me
- One Simple Task to Help You Follow Through On Your Goals
Sleep
July: I originally started my blog as a way to create an early morning habit. Read more about My Morning Motivation here. Due to my daughters waking up and pregnancy exhaustion, I was losing out on my morning time and tried to get it back.
After resetting my mornings in June didn’t work so well I wanted to get back on track in July. I got up around 6:30 consistently so I had 30-60 minutes before my daughters woke up most mornings. It helped that I am working on a new project so I was more motivated to get up and work on it in the morning!
August: Continue to wake up at 6:30 each morning. Possibly move it earlier?
If you have trouble making sleep a priority, check out these helpful resources:
- Sleep It Does a Family Good
- Make Over Your Mornings
- How to Create a Morning Routine (includes printable worksheets that I created)
Exercise
July: Cardio 3-4 times per week. Try to walk or run (I’m done with running this pregnancy!) at least once per week. DONE. I feel so much better when I continue to workout while pregnant!
August: Cardio 3-4 times per week. Try to walk at least once per week. Do you need tips on getting exercise into your daily life?
Weekly “date” night with hubby
July: One movie, game or date night per week. Done for most weeks?
August: Continue one movie, game or date night per week. We have been using VidAngel to watch movies at home. It’s just $1 per movie, we don’t have to leave the house to find a Red Box, and it’s not a subscription service. We have watched well over 20 movies with it and are happy with how easy and cheap it is. I wrote a post about VidAngel if you are curious how it works.
Monthly outing with our family
July: Plan one fun activity for the four of us in June. We got in a cabin trip, a day at the Children’s Museum, and a morning strolling around the lakes.
August: Plan one fun activity for the four of us in August.
Habit from my 12 Mini Goal Challenge
July: My goal was to increase and track my water intake. This was much easier than I thought! I started off the month being more intentional about how much water I was drinking and that is all I needed to get on track. If you need tips to increase your water intake, check out my tips and get the printable tracker here: 8 ways to Drink More Water Each Day.
Read more about my 12 Mini-Goals Challenge.
August: I know the importance of reading to children and reading has been key to my girls’ lives. We spend so much time with books. They love having books read to them and also enjoy looking through and “reading” books themselves. I am realizing that during the summer months we occasionally have days where reading is not a priority. In August I am going to read daily to my girls and track the time.
Faith
July: Read Daily Devotional New Testament: Through the New Testament in a Year
August: Continue to read Daily Devotional New Testament: Through the New Testament in a Year
Morning devotion with my girls
July: Read a daily devotion or bible story with my girls at breakfast each morning. I don’t know why I struggled with this goal so much in July. It’s such a great way to start our morning together and I want to get back into this routine.
August: Read a daily devotion or bible story with my girls at breakfast each morning. I wrote more about this new morning routine here.
Books
July: I almost finished Gone South.
August: Read one book. I picked up The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child’s Heart for Eternity from the library. I have heard good things about this book, so I may start it in August.
Home
July: Backup pictures on my computer. Nope…
August: Plan mom’s group at church. Backup pictures on my computer? With a baby due this fall…find a new car?
July Blog Goals
- Now that I can make use of the additional features within the paid version of Mailchimp, I want to set up an automated sequence for new subscribers. This will save time once it’s set up. – Not completed.
- Set up e-mail sequences for purchasers of the Travel Planner Printable and Health and Wellness Printable Planner. The printables are sold via Gumroad and the e-mail addresses do not directly import into Mailchimp. – This is approximately 90% complete.
- Create a new e-mail opt-in to replace the 7 Habits to Add to Your Morning Routine Printable. – Yes! I created a set of worksheets to help you create a new morning routine. Read the post How to Create a Morning Routine or sign up for the worksheets here!
Because I tend to create a long list of blog to-dos, and don’t have the time to do them all, I am giving priority to the goals above and will move onto the goals below once they are done.
- Set aside time to plan next printable workbook or other printable project. Possibly based on the survey responses. – Yes!! I am excited about my newest project! I have an eBook/workbook that is launching in August. I based the product off of what I heard on my survey responses.
- Set up sharing schedule for new posts. Possibly make a printable for this? – Not started.
- Update About Me or Start Here page. – Nope.
August Blog Goals
- Launch eBook/workbook in August! Includes: finalize design in InDesign, cover design, figure out what to use for landing page (any suggestions??), set up sales pages, e-mail sales sequence, and quite a bit more…
- Set up automated sequence for eBook purchasers within Mailchimp.
- Research details on accountability group for anyone who purchases eBook in August. (Facebook group & e-mail automation)
- Set up automated sequence for new subscribers within Mailchimp.
- Complete set up for e-mail sequences for purchasers of the Travel Planner Printable and Health and Wellness Printable Planner.
- Work on two sponsored posts.
If you blog about goals, I would love to have you stop by the first Wednesday (at 7 AM EST/6 AM CST) of each month to linkup your goals post. We look forward to reading your posts and encourage you to look around at the other posts linked up here.
Please join us to share your goals and progress for the week, month, or year. We are all about building a positive community; please remember to read, comment on, and share the post of others.
- All forms of goal posts are welcome. They can be for a specific area in your life, or your general goals for the day, week, month, or year. We love to hear updates on your progress too. Please only link up posts involving goals.
- Make sure to use the URL specific to your post and not your blog’s homepage.
- Link back to With Grit & Grace with our image or link in your post or party page.
- Comment on the post prior to yours in the link-up. Support others through comments and shares.
- By linking up, you give us permission to feature an image on our blog and social media. Proper credit and links will be given.
- Join in on social media with: #withgritandgrace.
- We want to support you! Please follow your hosts in some way.
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This post includes affiliate links.
Stop by to see where I link-up my posts each week: Link-Up List and Blog with Intention
You will receive free updates, morning motivation, printables, blog post highlights, and occasional deals sent your way. Frequency?? Just a few times per month.
Beth Newman says
So question. At what point in a pregnancy have you felt done with running. I have a good friend who is 8 weeks now and she is hoping to keep it up for a long time. I know there isn’t an across the board answer, just curious about your experience.
Thanks for hosting!
Emily says
I think it varies greatly depending on the person. Some moms run until 6 months pregnant or even longer! I run comfortably during the first trimester, then typically focus on the elliptical after that. I usually run at least a few times during the second trimester, but just to get outside and get fresh air. My body doesn’t like running at that point. ;) The elliptical is so easy on the body while pregnant, so that is all that I’m doing right now! Well, and also some walking. I think it’s just important to find something that still feels good and isn’t an entirely new form of exercise. Hopefully your friend can stick at it a while!
Kimberly says
Hi Beth!
I was a big runner while pregnant with our first at 32. I ran up until my 6-7th month (5x/week- then replaced with stairmaster). I continued my strength training routine, also. I believe that my exercise gave me the endurance and grit to handle a very loooong labor! Two years later, my SI joint was more lax, so running was painful while pregnant with our 2nd child. I substituted the stairmaster (continuing the strength training.) IMO, prego moms should talk this over with
their OBs and listen to their bodies. Seasoned exercisers shouldn’t have a problem! ;)
Angela @ Setting My Intention says
I’m working on an ebook too! I’m having a hard time fitting everything I want to do in the mornings! I love Sally Clarksons book too – it’s a great one!
Emily says
I am only a few pages into Sally Clarkson’s book, but it’s great so far!
What is the topic of your eBook?
Krystal @ Little Light on a Hill says
Wow! I need to start doing this. I am an avid goal setter, but I never thought to share/apply it to my blogging. Thanks for the inspiration!
Emily says
I find that I am more focused on my blog when I have actual goals written out. Let me know if you try it out!
Kirsten Thompson says
Thanks for sharing your blog goals on Blog with Intention! I love how you have broken all of your goals into categories to make it more manageable.
Natalie Patalie says
Good luck on your goals! :)
Keri Snyder says
I love the morning devotion with the girls. I think that would be such an amazing thing to do and am going to implement that.
Emily says
Yes, it’s such a nice time and they enjoy it too! I am just frustrated that I got off track…
jehava says
I love your goals and it seems that everything is really balanced! Thanks for the inspiration!
Jacki Q says
Setting goals for your blog is soo helpful! I’m just starting up but I’ve set out to do this and have even had to change up my goals because they were being achieved far in advance~
Vanessa says
Great goals! I set goals for myself too. Can’t wait for my hubby to get back from deployment so we can start date nights again!
Jeanette says
It’s always great to set up goals :)
Lenze says
This are great goals. I am going to take the challenge.
jill says
I love this! I’ll have to remember your link up parties next time I have a goal related post. Glad I found your blog, look forward to reading more! XO
Emily says
Thank you so much for stopping by, Jill! Yes, please link up a goals post if you have one in the future. :)
Amanda says
Love all these goals!! I am going to try to start doing something like this! I definitely need a way to keep myself on track 😊
Emily says
Let me know if you start! Thanks for stopping by, Amanda. :)
Tajuana Paige says
Great idea! I love the idea of sharing our goals.
The Home Loving Wife says
You amaze me. Truly. You light a fire under my rear haha!!
Emily says
I’m not sure you need that fire…you seem to have it all down! ;)
Jennifer says
I started waking up really early in the morning, too, so I can have some time to myself before my children wake up. It makes such a huge difference in my day. I love that you set monthly goals for yourself. I’d like to start incorporating exercising in my schedule again. I miss working out.
Emily says
Yes, the morning time makes a huge difference! I love it. :)
Lucie says
I love this. Setting goals is a great thing to do and doing it monthly really keeps things on track. I have found that by simply training myself to get up earlier helps so much! Thanks for sharing!
Pia @ Mama Hustle says
Have you checked out Zapier? It’s an online platform connector – you could use it to automatically import new GumRoad purchasers into MailChimp, add them to specific lists, etc.
There’s a free level, and a paid level. It might help ease some of the administrative burden, especially when you’re looking forward to a new baby!
Emily says
Thank you for the tip! I appreciate it. :)
Kendall says
I have loved writing and publishing my goals the last few months I’ve done so. I find that it really helps me to stay focused and also to redirect any wandering thoughts or ideas I have to another time. Congrats on meeting your July goals! :)
Emily says
Yes, goals definitely help with focus! Most of the time… ;)
Jessica Kong says
Awesome! I am in accountability groups to help me with goals but I think sharing them would probably keep me more honest about what I have actually accomplished! I/m going to write mine down and share them here later. Thanks for a great link up!
Emily says
Yes, please share your goals here! I am looking forward to checking them out.
What type of accountability group?
Margaret @approachingfood says
Great goal posts! Am especially impressed by the blogging ones!
Julei says
I’ve been wondering whether to expand my MailChimp, but haven’t made that a priority yet. I’m curious to see how you go about that. For the gumroad purchases, do you have to manually add the emails or is there a plugin/extension you can get?
Emily says
How I expand my e-mail list? I think the main thing is having an opt-in offer that makes sense for my readers. I have had 2 different opt-ins and both of them have been about mornings, which is a big topic on my blog. And I have tried to get the posts that talk about them plenty of views. :) One of the posts did really well in Pinterest, which definitely helped!
I think there is a middle-man software (I don’t remember the name) that can pull the e-mails from Gumroad to MailChimp. But I decided to switch routes on that. I’m not adding them directly to my e-mail list at this time. I just send a few e-mails that are on topics specifically related to the printable they purchased.