Are you ready for 2018? Helping you set goals for the New Year!

A few years ago my husband introduced me to the concept of SMART Goals.
He even wrote a blog post about it that you can read it here.

As we welcome the New Year, I come to the realisation that I have areas of my life where I can improve.
Improving and growing are essential for success. In my case I identified 7 areas that are important to me.
I will share these with you and hopefully I will inspire you to come up with your own goals to succeed this year.

Yes, they are very personal to me and to open up about them with you (the reader) is extremely hard for me.
I am exposing a part of my life that is very personal. You may not agree with all of these areas and that is ok. I hope though, that in some way, this post inspires you to pursue areas of your life that you lost passion at some point and that by reading about my goals helps you pursue your own goals.

1. Spiritual Life:

It is my believe that if I put God first all other priorities will fall where they belong. This is an important part of my life and who I am. Therefore, I feel that I need to invest more time reading the word of God (Bible) and praying.

     2. My Physical Life:

My body is the shell that sustains me. For the past year I have been seeing my loved ones battling different diseases and it has been rough. Therefore, this year I will take care of this shell. Yes, I will eat healthier and exercise more. I will purposefully walk instead of drive. I will take the stairs instead of the elevator. I know that small changes over time will compound into success.

    3. My intellectual Life:

This is highly important to me. My dad always said: “What you learn, no one can take away from you”. With this in mind, I will shut off the TV and instead of binging and wasting my life away in front of the TV or just browsing mindless through facebook, I will invest in myself. I will read more, in fact I want to read 100 books this year. Think this is a crazy goal? Well, I can usually devour a book in a day depending on the size. I can also count on audio books. Therefore, it can be done. What I am saying it is a bold goal and I know it but I can invest more time reading and crush that goal.
I hope to add 50% fiction and 50% non-fiction.
Got the title of a good book? Please share it with me below!

    4. My Family Time:

Family is extremely important to me. For some reason, I have been spending less quality time with my family. Maybe because by the time I come home I have still tons of chores and I am exhausted. It is not fair to my kids to be tired and spend less quality time with them. Over christmas break I spent so much time with my kids. I had so much fun. We read daily. We played board games. We watched movies together. I created moments with each of my kids that inspired them to pursue hobbies that they are actually good at it.
I noticed as I unglued from the TV I improved quality time.
You know, if I go on weekly walk with my kids we will be physically fit and spend quality time together. It is a win, win situation.
My goal is to read with them daily, to have board game night at least once a week and to ensure I have a one-on-one time with each of them at least once a week.

   5. My Career:

Career, is important to me. I love having a career. I am an educator by trade and a long life learner by choice. I read somewhere (I truly don’t know where but I will find it) that if you read for 30 minutes every day on a topic by year 7 you will be an expert on that subject.
Therefore, I will read one peer reviewed article a day. These articles will help me while I pursue my doctoral degree but will also help me to improve as an individual.

   6. My Social Life:

Social life is not very important to me, but writing on my blog is important to me. Therefore, I will make a point to write daily. I will write even if I don’t publish it. I will write it because it is a way for me to express myself in a creative way. Hopefully, this will goal will help me improve the quality of my blog. Sophia James Education will grow.
Even though I can stay home for a long time, it is important to spend time with friends.
I will work on connecting with my friends being via text or a visit but this will be done intentionally to invest on our friendships for my friends are important to me and I want them to know that! If I have not reach out to you in some time please connect with me soon too!

   7. My Financial Life:

Yes, it is uncomfortable to talk about money. Not having money is even worse. This year as a family we decided to SAVE. For many years we have been blessed with health to work and blessed with jobs.
This year our goal is to improve the quality of our lives by preparing for the future. Which means we will save our hard earned money to create wealth for our future.
It is fun to live a life being comfortable, buying whatever we want now.
However, this mentality will only be sustainable while we are working.
While we are still working we can prepare now for the future we want to have it later.

For this goal to work we will be turning our minds to the money guru Dave Ramsey. If you have never heard of him, you should definitely check out his website.

This goal works only if you and your spouse are on the same page. Trust me a financial makeover will expose areas of the relationship that can be very nasty but if you and your spouse are on the same page it will do wonders to your relationship.

You may have read this far and thought to yourself, great!
Why would I want to read about your life?
Well, the reason I decided to post this today was simple.
This is me telling the world (you), my goals.
It is an accountability post, designed to help me be accountable and to inspire you!

You may have similar goals and you may need an accountability partner as well.
Sophia James Education believes that “Together We Achieve More”, so this is my request for you to join me!
This journey can’t be completed alone.
Let’s work together, let’s improve together, let us grow together.

My husband says that: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is today”. Therefore, let us plant this tree together. If you are looking for someone to help stay accountable count me in. I am also looking for support.

I love creating resources.
Below, you will find the goal trackers that I will be using to track my success.
I will use the Goal Tracker 2018 to write my yearly goal.

I will use the Habit Tracker to track monthly my success.
I will use my Daily Tracker to help me track my daily success.

Feel free to print and use them.
Tag a photo and tag me #SophiaJamesEducation

I really want you to join me in this journey.

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We have 365 days ahead of us to make this the best year ever!

Much love,

Raquel