Quotes, Planners, and Faithfulness

I have a dry erase board in the hallway off my kitchen. I put up a grocery list sometimes but its real function is to hold the quotes that I write on it. I love a good quote. I have a whole Evernote page full of quotes. A Pinterest board full of quotes. I love them. 

And this one from Spurgeon is my quote for the year. (I just made up that "quote of the year" statement. I didn't know I had one before now.) 

"The way to do a great deal is to keep on doing a little. The way to do nothing at all is to be continually resolving that you will do everything." 

 Isn't that true? Right now I'm working on exercising consistently. Nothing impressive. It's 10 minutes a day but it's much better than nothing.  Keep doing a little is a great motto. My work often seems like a little. But I can keep doing it and over time it will end up being a great deal. 

I've noticed something peculiar. Whenever I've been really pondering an idea and how it affects me, our Pastor frequently ends up preaching on the subject. This past Sunday night he preached on faithfulness and diligence. You can go watch it here.  I've never announced a word for the year- mostly because I've never picked one before- but I have picked "consistent" for my word. Maybe for more than this year. Because consistency is faithfulness. 

I can't spend hours practicing piano but I can practice consistently. I can't write a book every day but i can write consistently. I can't teach Micah the periodic table of elements this week but we can do our work consistently. 

Modern Mrs. Darcy had a post up last week about her goals focusing on the effort, not the result. I LOVE that. I can't be responsible for all the results. But I can put forth the effort. I can consistently- faithfully- do the work. 

This is all a culmination of what I've actually been practicing. I bought a planner this year. I love paper. (And quotes, remember?) I've tried multiple times to keep a schedule/planner digitally and I hate it. And that means I don't do it. So do what works. Maybe you like digital. Maybe you like a scrap of paper that you throw away but I like to keep it. I've been writing down little happenings of the day too to help me remember life. 

I also love to cross things off. That's the fun part about a paper planner. But the best part is I've been writing down every day if I've done my work. If I've practiced piano. If we did preschool. If I exercised. If I did my daily writing.  It helps hold me accountable and  allows me to see an honest account of what work is being done.

This year I want to be faithful to the work God has given me. And if writing down that I've done my work helps me, then I'm going to write it down. 

What helps you be faithful? What small things are you going to keep doing so that you can do a great deal with your life? 

Summer Goals Recap

August is quickly ending and summer is almost gone again! Summer transitions to fall sometime during September for me. I don't care what the calendar says. 

So how did those goals go?

Well...I didn't meet any of them.

What??? But it's ok. I did WAY more on all of them than I would have without the goals. And really, that's the point. 

photo courtesy of photostock/freedigitalphotos.net

1. Drink 1 Dr. Pepper a week (16 oz.). I realized I had a problem with this several weeks in when I found out a can had 12 ounces, not 8. Oops! There were a few weeks when I had decidedly more than 16 ounces but no where near the amount I would have consumed if I weren't paying attention!

2. Finish my second music technique book. I either underestimated the time it would take to learn these songs well or overestimated the time I would have to practice. However, I am halfway through the book and working through it much faster than I did the first one. 

Oh, and I'm also working steadily through my scales book and even my music theory book! Learning is so fun and I'm really enjoying the work. 

3. Stay under my allotted grocery budget. I hit this over 75% of the time. Go, me! 

My perfectionist past rejects this but I consider my summer goals a success. I worked significantly harder and achieved more than I would have without them. And that's really what I wanted: a little more motivation. 

Now to figure out my fall goals. I know one of them will be to finish the other half of that music technique book.  The others are currently undecided. 

Summer Goals

The desire accomplished is sweet to the soul:  Pro. 13:19a

Picking out three summer goals was a lot harder than I expected it to be! I went to my husband for suggestions and he had some great ones. Problem was all of them were going to take lots of time. Time that I couldn't find in my calendar on a regular basis.  I wanted some goals that would push me in what I was already doing. 

photo courtesy of photostock/freedigitalphotos.net

Now I picked three for simplicity. And it's easier to keep up with and not feel overwhelmed. But imagine if I did three every three months? That's twelve goals a year! 12, people! I really think I could be accomplishing more than I am. Now after that sorry pep talk- the goals! 

June-July-August Goals

1. Drink 1 Dr. Pepper a week. I'm crying a little here, folks. I'm drinking a glass of Dr. Pepper now. I love the stuff! But it's full of junk. It's just unnecessary liquid calories. And sugar makes you fat. (That's my main thought on weight control.) Now please note, I did not say that I was NEVER EVER going to drink Dr. Pepper again. I'm just limiting it to one a week. And not one 2 liter either. 16 ounces. 

2. Finish my second music technique book. That's measurable and it will be pushing it to finish in three months.  I've planned several things to help me with this. 

A. I already set the keyboard back up in our bedroom so I can use it to practice while the boys are napping, after they've gone to bed, before they get up, etc., etc. A few minutes here and there will add up. And it allows me to spend my normal practice time at the piano on other things if I've already done/will be doing scales and technique. 
B. I'm going to count how many songs are in the book and divide it by 12 so I know how many I need to finish per week. I haven't done that yet and it scares me a little! 

And did I mention I still have five songs left in the first book to finish?? Better get on that. I still have seven days left this month! 

3. Stay under my allotted grocery budget.  This is not because of a money crunch. God has blessed and we budget so that's not the issue. But I have three motivations for this. I want to

• be disciplined with our money
• be a good steward of what God has provided
• be a blessing to my husband. 

Will all this really accomplish anything in our lives? I hope so! I hope that really pushes me to grow in my piano playing. And not waste that five minutes on Pinterest when I could work on a song. I hope the other two help me grow in self-discipline and who doesn't need that? Hopefully I'll be healthier and wealthier too! ha! That was a joke...well, the wealthy part was. 

Have a good weekend! And since it's not June yet I'm going to drink another glass of Dr. Pepper! 

Summer Goals

Summer is almost here! Well, for practical purposes at our house it is here. Mostly because it's warm and the college students are gone. When you live in a college town and your husband works at the university that's a very noticeable change. I love summer but I can't believe this much of the year has passed by already! Let's put the brakes on time and not just for the baby (who's trying to crawl!). 

 I'd like to make some summer goals for June, July, and August. But I'm not sure what yet. I want them to be measurable so that I will know if I've met them. And I want them to be realistic; sometimes my expectations can be a little high. I guess that's better than not expecting myself to do anything! 

I'm throwing around a few ideas and I'll try to let you know next week what I've decided. I'm leaning toward making three goals right now but I may change my mind. 

Do you have any summer goals? 

Goal Check!

The beginning of April seemed like a great time to think about my goals for the year. We're already a quarter of the way through the year and I wondered how I was doing. The main word for this year is "consistency." The things I feel are important enough to invest my time in need to be done on a regular basis, none of them are one-and-done items. So how am I doing? Let's start with the positive. I'm doing great in some areas! I'm practicing piano consistently, at least five days a week, normally more. Normally this happens during Micah's nap time (we have a keyboard with volume control!). I'm also working on incorporating baby play time into my schedule at home so I have plenty of time to play with Micah and still get my work done.
Some areas I'm not doing well in at all! Mostly exercise. Oops! So I have a new plan. There are some ladies at church that go running in the mornings before Micah is up and starting Thursday, I'm going with them! That will also help me be more consistent in getting up early. I did this for quite a while before I got pregnant with Micah, but I must admit I stopped when it was about 15 degrees outside and we were running at 5 in the morning. Now it's warming up for the spring and we're going at 6:45! That's much better for me.
Hopefully I can take a few minutes every month for the rest of the year and see what I need to change. And maybe, come December, we can see some progress and set new goals for 2012!