What a year. Seriously what a year!! Did it go exactly as planned? No….did I accomplish some of my major goals? You bet your bottom dollar I did. I hit 7.5 – 8 out of my 10 which is a heck of a lot better than I scored in most of my college classes, so I call that winning. The only reason why I am remembering my highlights is because I do a monthly review in my goal planner called “Cultivate What Matters”. This is now my 3rd year using it and I highly recommend it. There are a million tools you can purchase but this has worked really well for me. I love now being able to go back and and reflect on what unfolded. John Maxwell and Rachel Hollis also talk about doing a calendar review to see where you spent your time. This is a good practice that I am starting this year in 2019 as I am sick of not hitting some of my goals…. mainly that my book isn’t finished and that I have not made progress on it as I had hoped. Seems I did not spend my time as focused as I could have. Hence needing to do a calendar review. 

So here is a quick recap of my past year and then what I’ve set out for 2019. If you are reading this at the beginning of 2019, great, or maybe you will stumble upon this page part way through the year. Here is what I want you to know – you don’t need a new year or a Monday or anything special to make changes and set goals. Just start now. Seriously start right freaking now.

My 10 Goals for the year were:

• Get on a budget and pay off debt
• Keep up with monthly bookkeeping for our business
• Write my book
• Buy a new house
• Become the best version of Jessica (sleeping 8 hours, waking up early, cooking again, exercising regularly)
• Read 12 Books
• Travel and explore new places
• Get Pregnant
• Launch my blog
• Raise $200,000 for the Love for Lewiston Foundation

JANUARY

• Finished writing my chapter for You’ve Got this Mama.
• Finished reading the Miracle Morning and started my early morning habits.

FEBRUARY

• Did not make much progress this month – embarrassing but true I was crazy sick and stuck in bed for several days – turns out I had bronchitis.

MARCH

• Went to Ottawa to fight for SMA and the Rare Disease Community
• Really started working on Love for Lewiston Planning for our 3 big events

APRIL

• PARK FAMILY SHOW
• Went and met Ellen
• Swayzie turned 3 and hosted a cute simple bday party with so many friends – we asked for no gifts and raised over $970 for Alberta Children’s Hospital
• Had a random instagram friend reach out to help with all things LFL and she took things next level – she is now one of dearest friends and biggest cheerleaders for helping me reach my goals and GSD (get stuff done) Love you to the moon and back Melissa.

MAY

• Lewiston’s Bday Party – raised over $120,000
• Launched You Got this Mama Book with Jodie and Kristin at Distilled Beauty Bar

JUNE

• Ride the Roof – Raised over $10,000 for LFL
• First ever LFL Golf Tournament raised over $50,000 for LFL
• Spoke at Rise and Connect in Winnipeg

JULY

• Montana with Friends
• Enjoyed Stampede
• Trip to Kelowna with Swayzie and one of best friends and her daughter
• The focus was family time

AUGUST

• Missouri with friends – actually relaxing and was able finallyget my emails under control – at one point it was up to 798 unread messages – this alone gives me heart palpitations
• Found out we were PREGNANT!!!!! I knew for a whole 5 days before I told Hot Ronnie

SEPTEMBER

• The Lewiston Ultra – Watching Ronnie complete his leg was epic
• Marriage Conference in Austin Texas called Rise Together. It was the best investment we could have made in our marriage – plus I love travelling with Hot Ronnie.

OCTOBER

• Favs Fashion Show – Crabapple Clothing raised over $11,000 for LFL
• Distilled Beauty Bar Fashion Show – Raised over $1500 for LFL
• Saks 5th Ave Mama Brunch – Got to meet some amazing mamas and share my story with the co-authors from You Got This Mama
• Found out the baby was healthy and DOESN’T HAVE SMA – it was the most emotional day of the whole year! Mega relief and lots of happy tears.

NOVEMBER

• Looked at yet another open house – but this one was different – in a dream location but just out of our budget – we went to look anyway.
• Spoke at The Collaboration Team’s Event in beautiful Banff and shared about Dreaming Big and not holding back.

DECEMBER

• Vikings/Dolphins Game in Minneapolis – Hot Ronnie had been waiting for this moment for the last 8 years – Miami only plays in Minneapolis every 8 years (they are in different divisions) Incredible to see his excitement and to share it with my family after waiting for so long.
• Had a 3 day R & R mini vacay with Hot Ronnie at the Beautiful Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel – dug deep on some relationship issues and dreamed about our future.
• Christmas in Winnipeg with the family
• Bought that house we looked at in November in our dream neighbourhood. Didn’t think we would be here for another 5-10 years. It closed on Christmas eve (it was nutty till right before we boarded the plan back to Calgary) and was the best Christmas gift we could have given each other. I will do a full blog post on this experience and how it all went down but wow God was so faithful in this prayer and our dream list of the items we were looking for. Can’t wait to share all the details.  Growing our family and having more than 900 sq. feet to live in will be such a blessing. Excited to make it our own and create so many family memories in our new place.

My 10 Goals for the year were with some comments about if I hit them or not:

• Get on a budget and pay off debt – STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS BUT MAKING GREAT STRIDES
• Keep up with monthly bookkeeping for our business – ALMOST CAUGHT UP – my least favourite job.
• Finish our book – NOT EVEN CLOSE – 2019 it will get complete.
• Buy a new house – COMPLETE – New post on that coming up soon. 
• Become the best version of Jessica (sleeping 8 hours, waking up early, cooking again, eating healthy, exercising regularly) – WAS ON TRACK UNTIL WEEK 11 of PREGNANCY BUT MADE SOME REALLY GOOD POSITIVE CHANGES. BEING GENTLE ON MYSELF AS I GROW A HEALTHY BABY.
• Read 12 Books – CRUSHED IT – Check out my blog post here for some of my favourites. 
• Travel and explore new places – CRUSHED IT – Not as exotic as I hoped but still amazing. 
• Get Pregnant – CRUSHED IT – Thank you answered prayers. Babe is healthy – read about that news here.
• Launch my blog – FINALLY LAUNCHED IN AUGUST – HALLELUJAH
• Raise $200,000 for Love for Lewiston – CRUSHED IT – Raised just over $260,000 – THANK YOU AMAZING COMMUNITY!

So here it is. I have reviewed my goal book and well, I am not proud of the lack of written words – some months if I am being honest I wrote nothing, didn’t break it down into daily habits, weekly or even months habits. I didn’t celebrate the wins and really take stock of what I needed to change. That is probably all in part to the pace of life I live. I go fast and hard and well, I truly love it but the repercussions of it are that things slip through the cracks. I won’t even begin to tell you how many parking tickets I have unpaid to catch up on. I won’t tell you how many times I have looked at the bank account and wondered where all the money went. I won’t tell you how many times I snap at Swayzie because I gave all my energy and good behaviour for complete strangers and then when she needs me the tank is completely empty or how many times we picked up food or ordered skip the dishes ‘cause I was too exhausted to cook a great meal.  Oh and let’s not even get me started on what I take out on Hot Ronnie – Lord knows he is an angel sent from the heavens above because any other man would have left me by now and run for the hills with all the crazy ideas, projects and times I have had a short temper and taken my frustration out on him.

So here it is – I run a fast paced life, I dream really big, I try all of the things because I believe that I am capable. But this year some items need to change and the biggest is the pace of life and saying no. So if it is not a “hell yes” this year I won’t do it. I need to focus on projects that I started and require my time and full attention to ensure completion and success, drop the ones that aren’t successful and not inline with my purpose, say no to projects that are draining too much time and find a more productive rhythm. In August 2017 Ronnie took me to meet an amazing publisher in Austin Texas who came on board to publish my crazy idea and turn it into reality but I have been ignoring emails and not following through on self imposed deadlines. The book isn’t going to magically write itself.

So this year I am working on a more simple life with a slower pace. I still want to do a million things, dream all the dreams. But keeping the year simple and without distraction is most important for me. Trust me, you will still see me buzzing around – that is just who I am – but I will be taking regular stock of where I am spending my time and being very disciplined about it.  

In January I am fully committed to completing my first round of the manuscript for my book. I will have the book launched and for sale and selling on shelves by the end of this year.  I am still in process of what 2019 will look like for me. I will have an update on the blog by mid January and give you some tips on how I do my goal setting and some strategy’s that I have used that have made an amazing difference. 

Running towards all the goodness! Looking forward to celebrating your successes

XO  –  Jess