Monthly Goals – July

Start the month of right! Grab the Healthy Habits set here! It’s just about $5/day for 30 days as a PC.

The Healthy Habits Set Includes:

• 1 FeelFit Pea Protein Shake – Choose your flavor!
• 1 EnergyFizz Ginseng Fizz Sticks – Choose your flavor!
• 1 GutHealth Digestion & Microbiome Support
• 1 CleanTox Herbal Detox Tea

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

June: If you have been around my blog for a while you may know that I originally started it as a way to create an early morning habit. Read more about My Morning Motivation here. Due to the sleeping issues with one of my daughters and pregnancy exhaustion, my mornings reverted back. I still would get up a little before my daughters, but I was missing the hour or so I used to have every morning. My mini goal for June focused on resetting my mornings. My goal was to get up at 6 AM every morning.

I did a decent job on this goal for the first half of June. Then vacation, pregnancy tiredness, and books that kept me up too late stopped the early morning waking. I’m not going to beat myself up over this as I know when I need to get more sleep, but I want to get back on track in July.

July: I want to focus more on getting to bed at a decent time. I would also like to wake up at 6:30 every morning. This won’t allow for much time before my girls get up, but it’s better than nothing!

If you have trouble making sleep a priority, check out these helpful resources: Sleep It Does a Family Good and Make Over Your Mornings.

Exercise

June: Cardio 3-4 times per week. Try to walk or run (I’m done with running this pregnancy!) at least once per week. DONE. 

July: 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

June: One movie, game or date night per week. Done for the first few weeks of June, then vacation happened.

July: 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

June: Plan one fun activity for the four of us in June. All 4 of use didn’t get to the Farmer’s Market like I hoped. Just the girls and I made it to the market. We had an almost week-long trip to the cabin and a family wedding so that counts as quite a fun outing for us!

July: Plan one fun activity for the four of us in July.

Habit from my 12 Mini Goal Challenge

June: In June, my goal was to reset my mornings and get up at 6 AM every morning. I did a decent job on this goal for the first half of June. Then vacation, pregnancy tiredness, and books that kept me up too late (I couldn’t put down The Light Between Oceans!) stopped the early morning waking. I also stopped tracking my bedtime and waketimes. Because I started to ignore writing anything down on my goals calendar this became less of a priority. I want to get back on track in July, so I will be carrying this over to July.

Read more about my 12 Mini-Goals Challenge.

July: Drinking water is not the habit it used to be. Because it is summer (and I’m pregnant), I often have a feeling of thirst and know that means I am dehydrated. In July, I am going to try and stay on top of my water intake. Join me and get the printable tracker to record your water intake in July!

Faith

June: Read Daily Devotional New Testament: Through the New Testament in a Year every morning. This daily devotional includes two readings from the New Testament, a short reflection, a portion of the Psalms and a thoughts for prayer section. I enjoyed reading this devotion every morning. I have spent the last year or so changing up my daily devotion and I liked just having one that I go to every morning.

July: Continue to read Daily Devotional New Testament: Through the New Testament in a Year every morning.

Morning devotion with my girls

June: Read a daily devotion or bible story with my girls at breakfast each morning. Because I slacked on waking up early midway through June, our morning routine went out the window. I stopped tracking this goal and forgot about it towards the end of the month. I will need to get back into writing down and tracking my goals.

July: Read a daily devotion or bible story with my girls at breakfast each morning. I wrote more about this new morning routine here.

Books

June: I finished Brooklyn. I read the Amazon reviews when I was 100 pages in and not that into it. One reviewer said they didn’t appreciate the book until the end. I thought it was ridiculous to keep reading if I wouldn’t like it until the end. But…I finished it and I’m glad I did. I completely agree with the reviewer as I appreciated and enjoyed the book more and more as I approached the end. The movie is enjoyable too!

I read The Light Between Oceans. Whoa. The emotions in this book. I highly recommend!

 

July: Read one book.

Girls

June: Get the girls outside to play at least 5 times per week. We had no trouble with this goal.

July: There is no need to keep this goal around as we are spending plenty of time outside. I will probably be adding it back in during the fall. When the baby is here and it’s chillier, I may need more motivation to bundle the girls up to play outside.

Home

July: Backup pictures on my computer.

June Blog Goals

• Post new printable. – Check out my Travel Planner Printable!
• Promote Ultimate Homemaking Bundle Flash Sale. – Complete.
• Clean up mailing list. I am using the free account through Mailchimp, which limits the number of subscribers. I cleaned up my list a few month ago but keep approaching my 2,000 subscriber max. I need to clean up my list to delete old, inactive subscribers. – I decided to bite the bullet and sign up for Mailchimp’s paid account. While I try to keep my blogging expenses minimal, I think this a good decision. I can now focus on growing my list and can use the additional paid features within Mailchimp. 
• Once room is opened up for new subscribers, add a content upgrade to 10 Habits to Add to Your Evening Routine. – I am switching gears on this goal.
• Send a survey to readers. – I sent my survey to my newsletter subscribers. I received more responses than I expected. If you filled it out, thank you! The responses were both interesting and helpful. I now have an idea of what direction I should go on a few ideas I have.
• Look into adding CommentLuv for commenting. – After a bit of research, I decided to keep my commenting as is.
• Get a better Boardbooster plan. – Not done. I am going to skip this goal and call it good enough for now. Update: I now use Tailwind for scheduling pins in Pinterest. Use this link to get a credit towards your account!
• Set up sharing schedule for new posts. Possibly make a printable for this? – Not yet done.
• Set aside time to plan next printable workbook or other printable project. – A small amount of time, but yes.
• Schedule new morning time three times per week to work on above goals. – Complete during the first half of June. 

July Blog Goals

• Now that I can make use of the additional features within Mailchimp, I want to set up an automated sequence for new subscribers. This will save time once it’s set up.
• 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.
• Create a new e-mail opt-in to replace the 7 Habits to Add to Your Morning Routine Printable.

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.
• Set up sharing schedule for new posts. Possibly make a printable for this?
• Update About Me or Start Here page.