thoughts on plans for the new year

Goals and Plans

For the last 20 years I have been a stay at home mom.  I learned a lot from that experience, and believe it or not, what I learned there has carried over to my new career in Real Estate, to my dream career in writing, and to my life in Christianity.  A stay at home mom is not on a life pause, but is working for her family as a self-employed home manager.  The pay is not great, but the perks and rewards are without measure.

One of the roles I played was household management.  I worked to save money, be frugal and provide good nutritious meals for my family.  I enjoyed making homemade baby food, cooking, baking bread and sewing.  Well, maybe not sewing.  The biggest struggle as a stay at home mom is the freedom I had to plan or not plan my days.  I found I needed a schedule and goals.  Home management does not just happen.  To have frugal, tasty and healthy meals takes planning.

What were our goals?  First and most important was to raise, nurture and be there for my children.  We had values to instill.  We chose to always attend church, to put God first.  Walking at the park we could talk about God and the beauty of nature, in the playground interactions we could talk and model Christ like behavior.  I wanted my kids to enjoy life and live simply.  I wanted them to play outside, build forts with blankets, read books and delve into their creativity.

I learned how to cook.  I tried different vegetables and fruits and always we experimented with different recipes.  We grew a garden and saw where our food came from.  We also ate fast food and frozen pizzas, but hopefully we had a balance.

Now the children are grown, and I am working.  I have found the lessons learned are needed in my “real world” life.  I am a Real Estate agent, a wanna-be writer, and a Christian.  In each area of my life I need goals, a plan and a schedule.  No one is going to lay that out for me, there is no clocking in and out for any of those sections of my life.  This is scary.

This week I am writing out my Real Estate goals, and trying to create a loose schedule that I can use to plan my days in order to achieve these goals.  I must do some form of prospecting, or advertizing in order to let others know about the services I offer as an agent.  I must read and train myself on contracts, financing and the market.  I must get out and look at neighborhoods and homes.

I want to write.  I need to schedule time for that, to sit and write.  I need to read a wide variety of texts; I need to improve my vocabulary and grammar.  I need to get out and observe life, and to see and experience.

I want to grow as a Christian, and to share my faith.  I must have a faith in order to share it.  I must pray, study, work on my relationship with God and my church.  But to share this faith and to challenge myself and grow, I must get out and participate in life, meet others and use my faith.

One action item, so to speak, is the same for all my goals.  Get out, become involved in life, and develop relationships.  People will only trust me as an agent if they know me.  I will only have writing material if I have a life, and Christianity not shared is dead.  How can we love and teach others if we don’t care, don’t know them and remain aloof?

For me, I need a balance of scheduling, planning, goal setting and getting involved in living.  I like to just see where life will take me, and some of that is natural and who I am.  A true plan that will work will take my natural personality and strengths into consideration, so for me a mixture of well laid out plans and “lets just hop on that road and see where it goes” is what will work best. 

What are some of your plans for 2014?