The arrival of February is always bittersweet for me. January feels like such a hopeful month, the month where you make a clean start for the new year, and I love that feeling. It also feels quiet to me, because spring seems so far away.
This January I announced my intention to set monthly goals rather than sweeping year-long resolutions, as I embarked on My Own Personal Happiness Project.
How’d I do with my January goals?
1. Clear the clutter – I successfully completed this task early on, but it doesn’t mean we’re done getting rid of things. I am always looking at spaces, analyzing if I really, truly need the stuff in them.
2. Finish abandoned tasks – This was a tough one. I started out really motivated and energized, like so many of us do in the early days of January. In January I had only one free weekend, the rest were spent traveling or packed full of small business activities. A week-long business trip to Florida didn’t help either, but at least I got some good business advice out of it.
Here’s what I accomplished:
- Finished an overdue hand-sewed gift for a good friend
- Hung hooks in the coat closet
- (Re)Organized basement work room
- Spackled all walls and prepped for touch-up paint
- Changed out the dresser in my office/dressing room; reorganized office, started building a “reclaimed wood” desk
- Blogged: No-sew applique pillow cover tutorial
- Blogged: Fancy flour sack towels tutorial
- Solved my cutting board storage issue
- Welcomed my first blog sponsors
What I worked on, but still didn’t finish:
- Blog re-design
- Re-wire a vintage lamp for the living room
- Remove Kitchen Shelf Fail and replace with art
- Reupholster the dining chairs
- Sorted wedding photos for those last pesky wedding posts
- Organizing my sewing studio once and for all
- Improving the pet feeding station
There’s more accomplished tasks, like making long-overdue doctor’s appointments, but they’d be boring to blog about.
Because I made progress, but not enough, I’m extending the goal of Finish Abandoned Tasks into February so I can tackle these items:
- Wedding blog posts that I never wrote. If I don’t do them this month, I’m not allowed to do them at all.
- Finish reupholstering the damn chairs.
- Finish rewiring the lamp.
- Touch-up paint.
- Finish decorating my office. This involves several projects.
- Start working on the guest room (again). This requires: finish organizing Janery products.
- My friend’s dog beds (a year or more overdue).
- Bedroom: Re-hang art.
The second big goal, exercising, is needed because I’ve become too sedentary. Working a day job and working on my own business & blog at night means that I make less time for activity. As a result I’ve gained weight in the last year, and especially in the holidays this winter. Buying new clothes because your existing ones don’t fit comfortably – that’s not economical. So it’s time to take action!
I scored a Groupon for 10 yoga classes for $35, so that’s going to help me kick off my month of exercise. I’ve taken a “before” photo to help with motivation, and will share it with an “after” photo at the end of the month. Eek.
How did you do with your January goals, or your new year’s resolutions? Are you setting goals for February or working on your own Happiness Project?
9 Comments
I need to start a happiness project I think. I feel like it it would be very beneficial. Thanks a ton for the motivation!
Do it! It doesn’t have to be stressful, just little steps that you are comfortable with. Not sure if you have the book or not but I recommend it.
I didn’t write down any formal goals, but I had a few things in my mind that I wanted to focus on in January: 1) re-establish cleaning routines in our house. This went well. Will continue. At least 1 load of laundry a day helped a ton on its own (which, we’re a family of 5 and we cloth diaper – – there’s always something to wash!) 2) eat more whole foods. This went great. And I lost 7 pounds doing it. 3) make time to do more creative projects. BOMBED OUT. Made some very minor stuff. Will try to amp up the effort on that front in February! 🙂
What’s a cleaning routine? 😉 Just kidding. That’s a really good goal.
It’s funny how our creative projects, which are probably the ones we need most for peace of mind, are always pushed to the bottom of the priorities list. Good luck!
Thanks for the inspiration Jane! I was sick all January and despite the fact that I had to move mountains last month anyway, I am loving a fresh, healthy start to February. I can actually breath through my nose, this is big. Haha.
Hey you 🙂 Here’s to a fabulously healthy February. I had similar breathing issues, so I get it!
I loved reading your January updates! I can’t wait to hear about how February goes. 🙂
holy smokes you accomplished so much!!! making me get motivated to write down my goals to happiness project!!!
i didn’t start my happiness project :(…i mean i’m totally happy, but not as organized as i’d like to be! i did accomplish one goal which was to rearrange my living room and it felt great to finally do that, need to move on the other things.
Thanks a bunch! I feel like I didn’t do enough, but isn’t that always the case? I think we both need to celebrate the small accomplishments and just keep chugging along 🙂