Goals for the New Year

Happy 2016! I hope you all had a fun & safe NYE! We stayed up waaaayyyy too late playing The Game of Things and Cards Against Humanity, but it's always good to share laughs with family and friends. Needless to say, today will likely be spent on the couch reading and Netflixing (my favorite kind of day).

I try to be a goal setter all the time, but as cliche as new years' resolutions are, it really is nice to step into a new year with a fresh mindset and some new goals. I thought I would share a few with you...

1. Live more simply. This is definitely a mindset/way of life, but it's something that's been weighing on my mind a lot lately. With adulthood comes a lot of expenses and if you're not careful you can fall into financial stress quite easily and I don't want any part of that. I don't shop in person often (which surprises people) because I find that I have less self-control with my spending (I'm talking about you Target & Sephora). Shopping online I'm able to really think about what I'm buying - whether it's something I truly need or something that falls into my personal shopping budget. I will probably dedicate a post to this topic sometime this year! But really the overall goal of living more simply is to focus on the bigger goals... Renovating our house as an investment, traveling/experiencing the world with my husband, and saving + setting ourselves up for a successful future (kids, retirement, etc.). It also goes along with the next goal to...   

2. Declutter + get better at cleaning. I don't know how stuff piles up so quickly, but clutter is driving me crazy lately! Our kitchen table piles up so quickly with mail, odds and ends, stuff we're simply too lately to put away - and it honestly looks terrible most of the time. I think this will be a good motivator to buy less this year! I also seriously struggle when it comes to keeping up with laundry. We don't even have kids yet, so I feel like I really need to get a grip on staying up with laundry and other cleaning before then. I would love any tips you have for keeping up with cleaning and clutter!! I know consistency and not being a procrastinator would definitely help me... 

3. Eat cleaner. This probably falls on everyone's list, but I love learning about nutrition and want to put the healthiest, cleanest things possible into my body. "Eating for health" is definitely a great mindset to transition into. I'm typically fairly good about buying healthy foods for our home and cooking clean meals, but I could definitely get better (less refined carbs and more lean protein + fiber). We also need to work on eating out less... It costs more money and it's harder to eat healthy, especially in a small midwest town without many options (definitely no organic foods and juice bars around here sadly).  

4. Read more/less screen time. It's no secret that I often buy books and then don't get around to reading them for an embarrassing length of time. I think a lot of this is because when I sit down with a free moment I tend to scroll through Instagram (either to post my own photos or to gain inspiration from others). I want to get better at getting my blog posts done quickly and getting off of social media so that I can really be present when I'm with Trey and also read more.

5. Work on consistency. This is a blogging goal, so I want to work on consistency both with my "look" in terms of branding, as well as posting frequency. Starting this fall I consistently posted 4-5 times per week, but I would like to get up to 5 posts just about every week with consistent post times early in the AM on weekdays. I also want to continue learning about photography and photo editing so that I can develop a true brand identity with my photos on both Instagram and my blog. Along these lines, I'm also hoping to do a website revamp soon to create a better, more streamlined site!

Cheers to a fresh start and new year! If you have any tips for me, or goals of your own that you'd like to share, I would love to know!

xo,

Jacy