My Personal Goals: Living Life to the Fullest

"When we are motivated by
goals that have deep meaning,

by dreams that need completion,

by pure love that needs expressing,

then we truly live life."

- Greg Anderson

So often life seems to be taken up with a bunch of mundane, daily life, "Just let me get through the day," experiences. We can't wait for the weekend, or for vacation, or whatever period in time we think will bring us new experiences. But what's wrong with today? Why not make today a unique and wonderful day too?! Why waste today simply waiting for tomorrow?

Greg Anderson's quote at the top of this page says that working towards goals are what lead us to living life to the fullest. With this in mind, I've come up with my personal goals for this year.

No more waiting for tomorrow, hoping that one day in the future my dreams will come true. Today's a beautiful day! And there's no time like now to get started! Won't you come along with me? It's going to be a fabulous journey!

By the way, this page is not only a listing of my goals, but will also be a record of my progress! As I reach a goal, I'll post it on this page!

Let's look back at the quote I mentioned at the top of this page.

"When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning,

by dreams that need completion,

by pure love that needs expressing,

then we truly live life."

After brainstorming my goals, I noticed that they all seemed to fit into the categories above. Therefore, I decided to organize them in that way on this page. Doing so has helped me to clarify and strengthen my goals even further.

"People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time
than people without them could ever imagine." -Brian Tracy

Here are my goals for 2011.

1. To read more books on spirituality.

I love reading, especially books on spiritual topics. But other things often get in the way. For 2011, I'd like to spend more time reading. Below I've listed the first three books on my list.

a. The Divine Matrix, by Gregg Braden

b. The Big Leap, by Gay Hendricks

c. Anastasia, by Vladimir Megre

2. To do my spiritual contemplations regularly.

Contemplation is similar to meditation, although it's a more active process. I think it's important to find a set time each day to contemplate for about 20 minutes rather than just trying to fit it in whenever I have time.

3.To make a quote wall of sayings and ideas that mean something important or special to me.

I've already collected lots of excellent quotes I love, but it's easy to forget their important spiritual messages when challenges occur in life. Having a few easily visible before me, right here on the wall beside my computer, may help me remember them more when the need arises. I will most likely only include a few of my absolute top favorites - quotes that I think will really help me - on my wall. Having too many present may take away some from the wall's usefulness.

4. To organize and declutter my house.

Perhaps you are wondering why organizing and decluttering my house is in this category? It's because what goes on out here in the outer - in the physical world - affects our inner worlds as well. Have you ever noticed how stress can lead to illness? That's one example of how our inner worlds can affect our physical body. The connection between our inner worlds and the physical body works in both directions. When we are sick, that can affect our emotions too.

Decluttering my house is a big goal. It's going to take a lot of time. The best way to go about it, I feel, is one small section at a time. So, for my first goal, I will declutter my computer desk. When that's done, I'll move on to another part of the house.

1st location: Declutter my computer desk.

1. Organize the stories for my spiritual pregnancy book.

I'm writing a book about women's spiritual pregnancy experiences, such as dreams, intuition, signs, and prebirth communication. I've collected a lot of stories already, and want to take the next step on the project. My first goal for the book project is to get all the stories I've collected so far organized and categorized. In addition, I want to develop a system that will allow me to continue to organize them easily, as they come in. Putting them in categories is harder than you might think, as many stories fit into more than one category!

Interested in the topic of spiritual pregnancy experiences?

The Spiritual Pregnancy

Pregnancy Intuition

Spiritual Pregnancy Dreams

Spiritual Pregnancy Signs

2. Create at least 15 more Squidoo lenses.

I create webpages (called lenses), such as this one, for Squidoo. Right now, I have 60 finished webpages on Squidoo and have received the honor of Giant Squid. To be eligible to apply for an even greater honor, the Giant Squid 100 club, I have to have at least 100 really great Squidoo webpages. I would love to be eligible to apply for the Giant Squid 100 club eventually, but know I have to get there at a relaxed pace, as homeschooling and other responsibilities take up a great deal of my time. If I have time during 2011, I'll make more. But for now my goal is to create at least 15 more Squidoo lenses.

I'll list my 15 new Squidoo lenses here as I create them:

1. Reach For The Stars: Personal Goal Setting Tips

2. Angel Blessings On Squidoo

3. Reading and Spelling Games Kids Will Love!

4. Blue and Yellow Macaws: Can They Really Talk?

5. The Best Homeschool Resources and Lessons (My Homeschooling Angel Blessing lens.)

6. Great Gifts For Girls

7. Rothenburg: A Charming Medieval German Village! (With photos from our trip to Germany!)

8. Double-Decker Strawberry, Banana, and Chocolate Crepes!

9. Learning History, Physics, and More with Catapults!

10. Clifford: The Big Red Dog: Books, Games, Toys, DVD's, and Costumes

11. Making Homemade Christmas Ornaments

12. My Rocketmom Adventures

13. Homeschool Curriculum for High School & Middle School Co-ops

14. Biology, Chemistry, Physics, & Astronomy: The Real Science 4 Kids Curriculum

15. Teaching Physical Science To Homeschoolers (or In A Classroom!)

16. Biology Labs, Activities, & Videos About Cells

17. Labs And Videos For High Schoolers Studying Genetics

18. The History Of Life On Earth

19. Ecological Principles / Populations

20. Ecosystems and Ecology

21. Perplexus Marble Maze Mind Puzzles

22. Chocolate Fondue Sets, Chocolate Fountain Sets, and Fondue Recipes!

23. Best Valentine's Day Gifts For Kids!

24. Top 10 Romantic Heart Gifts....For That Special Someone.

25. Biological Communities - Symbiosis, Niches, and Biomes.

26. Global Changes and the Environment.

1. Spend more time with our family pets....especially Ben!

Don't get me wrong. We already spend a lot of time with our two dogs, cat, and indoor house bunny. Since I homeschool one of my kids, we're home a fair amount. We pet our sweet furry friends OFTEN throughout the day. We talk to them. We feed them. We love having them around! Yet one of our dogs, Ben, whom I've lovingly nicknamed torpedo, is quite active. He's a little barrel of energy. When he's not tearing through the house or the yard, he's chewing up something he shouldn't. So even though he's super cute and has the most innocent and appealing eyes, I think he'd benefit from some obedience training as well as some extra activity with us. In 2011, I want to make a point of spending more quality time with Ben... and all the rest of our beloved pets too.

Top Row: Bowzer, Ben.
Bottom Row: Tiger, Amerisa.

2. Express myself via my art more often.

I have many responsibilities. There always seems to be something going on. So I often forget to take any time just for me to do something which I truly enjoy and find relaxing. During 2011, I'd like to spend more time expressing my creative side via art. I'm not much of an artist, but I enjoy it anyway! With some money I got for Christmas, I purchased a watercolor kit, a drawing people kit, and an illustrating nature book. I've only had them a couple of days now, and am so looking forward to using them!

I've published a new lens (link coming soon!) to count toward my goal of 15 new lenses, and also began using the drawing book! Would you like to see the eyes I drew while waiting in the lobby at the dentist today? I've got a LONG ways to go, I know, but hopefully if I post a photo again in a few months, I'll have improved, at least a little.

Watercolors and Nature Journals

My son and I have been doing a lot of art lately. We very much enjoyed a unit on using watercolors in which we explored many interesting watercolor techniques! We've also each just begun a nature journal. After photographing birds in our backyard yesterday, we drew a cardinal in our nature journals. I'm finding that creating art really does open my eyes, as I look more closely than ever at whatever I'm drawing!

Decluttering

I've made some progress in my goal of decluttering. I cleaned up my study! Ok, it's not perfect...but it's a lot better!

What? The rest of the house you say? I'm working on it! :-)

Squidoo lenses, Ben (our dog), and art

1. I have almost reached my goal of creating 15 new lenses this year. I published my 14th lens of the year earlier this morning.

2. Ben is considerably calmer now. Sure, he's still a very active dog, but we can definitely see an improvement in him!

3. I've really been enjoying engaging in some artistic pursuits.

Quote Wall

I create my "Quote Wall" today! To make it, I printed out some of my favorite quotes in blue type, cut them out with fancy scissors, and then matted each one with a small piece of colored paper.

Here's one of them: "Bless each moment, each thought, each word, and each deed. Let only the pure love of God flow from you and into your own universe." - Harold Klemp

lenses, art, spiritual books

I've accomplished my goal of making 15 lenses! (Actually, I just published lens number 16 yesterday!)

Also, I've been doing a lot of art, and VERY much enjoying it!!

I finished The Divine Matrix while on vacation! It was fabulous!!!

Decluttering, Art, Lenses, and Spiritual Pregnancy Project

1. I'm doing a lot of decluttering today! Threw out stuff that was years old... Cleaned out out a couple of cabinets and reorganized what wasn't thrown or given away.

2. I've been doing some more art lately. Mostly pencil drawings.

3. I've made a total of 26 lenses this year, so I've well surpassed my goal of making 15!

4. Also, I received some news that sounds promising for my spiritual pregnancy project!

Here's a song you might enjoy! It's called, "Looking For A Miracle" and was written by Bill Mann.

Personal Goals

© 2011 - 2014 Janiece Tobey. All rights reserved.

This goals webpage was created on 1/11/11.

Page last updated 8/23/14.