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  • Goals for 2026 + Looking Back at 2025

    I can hardly believe 2025 has already come to a close–this year was a big one for our family. In March, we had our fifth baby and it has been both magical and overwhelming. Taking care of a baby while homeschooling and parenting older kids has been harder than I imagined it would be, but also more worthwhile (my favorite thing is watching their relationship with her!).

    When I was deciding on what goals to set this time last year, I knew it would be an adjustment year, one spent in survival mode for a lot of the time, so I didn’t set a lot of big goals. I was focused on preparing for labor and the birth of the baby. This year, I am feeling ready to set some higher goals as we are coming out of survival mode. I am excited for all the year will bring and the chance I have to grow and improve.

    Here are the main goals I have for the coming year:

    Workout four times a week

    Since having Leah, Ben and I have been slowly easing our way back into working out together. We have a nice setup in the basement as well as a little pickleball area where we can do some half-court drills together. We start with pickleball as a way to get ourselves down there and then do our workout afterward. We pay my two oldest to watch Leah while we do it. The biggest thing is just being more consistent with getting four workouts in each week, which is something we’ve struggled with since Leah was born. I would really like to lose ten pounds this year and I know being consistent with our workouts will help me do that.

    Pray every morning

    Prayer is something that I have always been hit or miss with and am working on being more consistent with again. I’ve been working my way up to this as well the last few months and would like it to be a focus in 2026. When I wake up before the kids, I’m usually good about kneeling down for prayer, but if I sleep in or our morning gets derailed in some way, that’s when I’m not as good about it. I’m going to add a reminder to my phone and even if I’m kneeling down later in the morning, that’s okay, as long as I do it!

    Avoid my phone in the morning

    Before Leah was born last year, I had started a habit of leaving my phone plugged in when I got up in the morning. Sometimes, I wouldn’t check my phone until lunch time. It made such a huge difference to how my day went, but when I had Leah, that habit stopped–I was tired, I was nursing and nap trapped a lot, and my whole schedule was undone for awhile. I feel I am in a place now where I can get back to it and I’m actually excited to.

    Write on a novel

    With everything going on–homeschooling, having a baby, and some big family things–I have not had a lot of extra emotional energy this last year. One of the things that fell to the wayside is my writing. My writing stats for 2025 were abysmal. Now that Leah is getting older–she’s sleeping at night, napping more consistently, and is more self entertaining when she’s awake–I am feeling like I can get back to writing. I miss writing and have all srots of ideas for my current project! My main goal is to have a complete outline in the first quarter of the year and write the first draft during the last three quarters of the year.

    Read 180 Books

    This is the number of books I have as a goal every year. I love having reading goals, as it keeps me off my phone and in books more often. I also love filling out my bullet journal as I reach my reading goals. This year, two main goals I have are to read the Little House series aloud with my kids (we’ve read the first two books together before, but not the whole series) and to read the entire Anne of Green Gables series (I’ve read a few of the books, but again, not the entire series). I am looking forward to both!

    Some goals for January

    Each New Year’s, I love to set some goals for myself that are January specific — I can really struggle in January, so these goals are my way of getting through a hard time of year in the best way possible.

    Take a Daily Walk

    I’ve found this to be the number one thing to help me through January- if I take a walk outside (no matter the temperature) each day, the combination of movement and sunlight makes the biggest difference to my mental health.

    Month-Long Social Media Break

    I have to admit that I have never done a social media fast before, but I’m feeling like I really need it right now. I’ve gotten into such a habit of pulling out my phone and getting on Instagram that it’s affecting my mood, productivity, and relationships. For the month of January, I’ve deleted Instagram off my phone and blocked Facebook on my computer so I can’t get on and scroll.

    Those are my goals for this coming year! I would love to hear what you are hoping to do or achieve in 2026. Let me know in the comments section below!

  • A Homeschool Mom and Reader’s 2024 Goals!

    2024 is already here! We were sick the last three weeks of December and the first week of January, so Christmas felt like it flew by and suddenly the new year is here! Despite our slow start on the year, I am really excited to start a new year and set some new goals.

    A few of my goals for 2024:

    1. Go outside every day. I won’t get outside every single day of the year because I didn’t start this goal until the 4th, but I want to get outside for at least 10 minutes every day. This will often mean a walk (we have a short loop around the neighborhood that the kids and I love) but other times it might mean going to the park, riding bikes, or even just sitting outside with the kids. In the summer, this goal will be fairly easy for me, but it will definitely stretch me in the winter. I can already tell from two days of it, though, that it will be very good for my mental health and motivation.
    2. Do pickleball drills with my husband. My husband has gotten very into pickleball this last year and loves to play with me. We don’t have an easy way to go play together often until the kids are old enough to watch themselves, but we have a set up in the basement for drilling. We want to go down and do drills together regularly, both for fun and to get better at the game.
    3. Paint the house. Last year when we paid off the house, I got excited about painting the rooms in it. When we first moved in, we did a single color to save on money and never got around to painting anything ourselves. At the end of last year, I painted the girls’ room and love it. I’m excited to paint the rest of the house. Our living room and kitchen are going to be a lot of work, so I don’t know if I’ll finish the whole house this year, but we’re starting with our son’s room and I want to get at least a few rooms done throughout the year.
    4. Post to Instagram weekly. I would love to start up a business using Instagram as a way to build an audience, writing blog posts and maybe books for those followers. I’ve started writing blog posts and now I am going to focus on actually making posts for Instagram to see what people like and what works. The biggest thing with this goal is that I want to make reels. That is a goal that will stretch me as well, because making reels is very intimidating.
    5. Go to the temple each month. I am a member of the church of Jesus Christ and temple worship is such a fortifying and beautiful experience. I don’t get to the temple enough, even though we have one just ten minutes from our house. This year, I want to go to the temple with my husband at least once each month.
    6. Do an adventure with the kids each month. After paying off the house last year, we wanted to do something as a family to celebrate and decided to go to Disneyland. After talking with our kids, though, we realized we wanted to us the money we would have spent on Disneyland to do some other experiences closer to home. We are going to do a “year of celebration” and do different things each month. In January, we are having a party where we each pick a present for ourselves and unwrap the present at the party. Then during the year, we’ll do a different activity together each month. We got a Get Out Pass for some of those activities, a pass to Thanksgiving in Point (which is about 3 hours from where we live) and have plans to do a lot locally where we live that we don’t normally do. The kids are very excited for the things we have planned, and I think it will be fun to proactively do more together!

    Those are my main goals, starting the year off. I’m sure I will make other goals throughout the year and my husband and I need to do a planning meeting still to plan out my writing and his game development plan for the year. I’m very excited to see what this next year will bring!

    What are your plans for 2024? I’d love to hear some of your plans or goals for the next year in the comments below!