At the beginning of a new month, one of my favorite things that the Powersheets offers is a small box that says: “Pep talk to self.”  This month, my pep talk reads:

It’s wedding season now, and I know what that means! It’s time to step up my game, roll up my sleeves, and GET TO WORK.

It’s true. I’ve accomplished much these past 2 months, but I’ve still had my Saturdays and weekends to regroup. Callie and Elizabeth have already kicked off wedding season here at NRP on the 22nd of February, and we will have photographed 3 weddings by the end of March. It doesn’t slow down from there, either! April and May have quickly turned out to be my busiest months of the year. By the end of May, the studio will have already photographed 14 weddings and even more sessions.

It’s easy to look ahead and get overwhelmed, but I’m choosing a different path. I’m going back to logging my hours this month, preparing everything in advance so nothing catches me by surprise, stepping up our in-studio editing and blogging, and tackling work one day at a time.

My secrets to getting it all done? Getting enough sleep each night. Waking up early. Exercising regularly. Communicating frequently the team and with my clients. Making sure my workflows are in place. Tackling email as best and as often as I can. Praying. Doing focused work. (I often use a timer to set time-sensitive goals when it comes to emails, editing, and blogging.) Making time for what matters: time with Will, time with family, time for friends, time for rest.

This month, I’m sharing my monthly goals, as well as my weekly and daily goals. I’ve been finding that many of my weekly and daily habits are what keeps me on task, but I never list them here! I hope they inspire you to create healthy habits that will pave the way for a fulfilling life of hard work, good rest, and fulfilling relationships.

March Goals

• 20 in 12: Read Ordering Your Private World and Who Moved My Cheese
  (also finish reading Paid to Speak. I’m a little behind on this one.)

• Hire an intern

• Order personal photos to fill frames in our home*

• Collaborate with my gifted friend and designer Becca on a dreamy Styled Shoot

• Buy and sell lenses* (I purchased my camera, but haven’t finished updating my lenses)

• Have a getaway weekend in Asheville with Will

• Speak at Making Things Happen (Can’t wait!)

• Declutter excessive decorations in my home

• Practice new calligraphy techniques (Thank you, Lauren!)

• Announce Spring mini-sessions

• Write letters to sponsored kids

• Get fitted on my road bike

Weekly

• Ankle tending: icing and PT exercises

• Take a Sabbath

• Hot Yoga or strength training 3x/week

• Stay off social media 2 days/week

• Sundays: reset household and laundry day

Daily

• Morning Routine

• ShootQ check in & workflow

• Drink 4-5 waters (in my favorite tumbler)

• Read 15-20 pages in my current book of choice

• Sleep 10pm – 6am

• Complete posture exercises

(*) = unfinished goals from last month
I would love to hear what your goals are this month. Leave a link in the comments!

I love February. I took this photograph of one of my favorite marriage quotes in hopes to remind myself what love is really about. This is the month we celebrate love! We go on dates, we buy gifts, we embrace romance and butterflies and getting dressed up for one another. But if we are honest, love is more than butterflies and romance. It is selflessness and work. It is sacrifice and victories. It is doing all that you can to make your spouse the person he or she is meant to be. It is making time to nurture your relationship even when you don’t feel like it – the other 11 months of the year included. I do love this quote and I do love February because it causes all of us to stop and evaluate our relationships, and that is a good thing.

Do you know why else I love February? This quote says it better than I can:

“If January is the month of change, February is the month of lasting change. January is for dreamers… February is for doers -”
– [Marc Parent / Runner’s World Mag]

That quote hit me like a ton of bricks as I was reading Runner’s World this month. Isn’t it GOOD? It’s just the kick in the pants I needed as I begin this month. Last year, Will and I did the Whole30 in January. This year, we have done our own variation of the Whole30, and have abstained from processed food, sugar and grains all month. Yes, we have talked quite a bit about how nice it would be to eat a warm piece of bread, some oatmeal, a mug of hot chocolate and various desserts. But I don’t want to just dive back into my “old ways,” you know? What’s the point of all this sacrifice if it doesn’t lead to lasting change?

One of my 2014 goals I wrote out in my Powersheets is this:

I want to take care of my body. I want to be fit, skinny and strong: a woman who runs distances and isn’t afraid of a little pain. I want to eat food that fuels me – full of nutrition. I don’t want to be like our culture. I want to lead by example.

If January is the month of change, February is the month of lasting change. I’m certainly embracing that this month!  I’m the kind of person who needs defined boundaries in order to make something work, so in regards to my health, I’m striving this year to limit my desserts to once or twice a week. (Says the girl who has a major sweet tooth and used to eat something sweet at least once a day.) So I’m determined to break my bad habit of reaching for sugar every day, and replace it with the habit of reaching for a glass of lemon water, or an apple, or my favorite green peach tea. I’m also determined to stay consistent with my strength training workouts 2-3x/week, and my pilates DVDs as well. The only way to kick a bad habit is to replace it with a good habit! This is MY YEAR to break these habits for good.

Healthy eating isn’t my only goal this month, as you might have guessed! I’m focusing a lot on getting the studio in order before wedding season officially begins with our first wedding of the year on 2/22. Here are my goals for this month!

February Goals

• 20 in 2014: Read Rich Dad Poor Dad & Paid to Speak

• Organize and streamline ShootQ

• Begin Intern hiring process (If you’re interested, stay tuned! And please – don’t email me quite yet!)

• Buy and sell lenses, cameras and computers. Time for a studio and equipment refresh!

• Install Drobo and get it up and running

• Go on a date with Will and think up something creative for him. (We’ve decided not to buy each other gifts this Valentine’s day, but rather do something meaningful for each other.)

• Speak at the WPR Roots Workshop alongside our friends Geoff & Cheyenne (aka The Schultzes)

• Decide on gym membership

• Line up Winston-sitters and reserve rental equipment before wedding season starts

• Take a Calligraphy Class

• Order personal photos to fill frames in our home

• Implement new workflow after the first NRP wedding of the year

• Take photos of us one weekend – just for fun

• Finish leading The Legacy Journey at church

• Be true to my new healthy lifestyle, especially in regards to eating dessert once or twice a week

What goal or area of your life do you want to implement lasting change? I’d love to hear it!

Before I begin, thank you so my best friend and husband for your sweet blogpost yesterday. I love you. You made my birthday wonderful.

•••

2014 Goals

My #1 goal for 2014: to restore margin and achieve a more balanced life. I want to

LIVE more: living out adventures, memories, and experiences. to spend more time outside, running, resting, and feeling alive.

to GIVE more: giving to my church and to ministries that are making a difference, sharing the gospel, and meeting real needs. I don’t want to fund buildings, I want to fund changed lives.

and to DO more: doing focused work daily, work that matters, work with boundaries. I want to do greater things than I think I’m capable of, that inspire others to take hold of life and run.

While this list may appear longer, it is more robust – focusing on things that will restore my time and health. Here’s to a beautiful 2014.

• Read 20 books (I’d love to hear your recommendations!)

• Write letters to our 3 sponsored kids monthly

• Make the art and organization of my home purposeful and meaningful

• Complete a triathlon

• Declutter every space in my home and studio

• Memorize a verse each month and truly meditate on it. I want scripture to fill the empty space in my head, not Instagram or social media like it to often does currently.

• Run a half marathon (I’ll be starting from scratch, friends. Let me know if you want to join me from the ground up!)

• Eat desserts 2x-3x week (not daily. desserts are meant to be special!)

• Fast from social media 2 days/week.

• Embrace clipless petals on my road bike. I can do this! (scared!)

• Have an intentional, guiltless Sabbath once a week. I say I do this, but in reality I just don’t. Time to change that.

• Go camping in Boone with friends

• Read the entire Bible with Will

• Simplify and streamline the organization and workflow of my business (I’m looking at you ShootQ & Drobo!)

• Implement business structure given in The Advantage

• Shoot in film

• Take our boat out and go water skiing at least 5 times this summer

• Photograph less weddings as Callie and Elizabeth photograph more

• Host a workshop, mentor photographers, & speak more in general. (After Making Things Happen and my Influence-net talk, I have learned I really love teaching. A lot.)

• Do the hard work to correct my posture. This includes a personal trainer + chiropractic care + daily exercises at home.

• Plan a vacation to the Beaufort house

• Continue to learn to play the guitar and fill in at youth group when I can

•••

January Goals

• Finish Margin, a current novel, and Descending into Greatness

• Don’t run. Instead, eat really well and focus on strength training and ankle exercises so I can be cleared by the Doctor to run again at my next appointment. (Yep, still recovering from my ankle sprain in July!)

• Complete a 30 day sugar fast

• Research and decide on 2 ministries we want to contribute to regularly

• Fly with my 4 year old triplet nephews to Raleigh, host them for 3 days, then fly them back to Nashville. Oh boy, this is gonna be good!

• Setup the Drobo

• Buy a backup Contax

• Write out new workflow for weddings and shoots

• Declutter : under our bed + under the guest bed + all bedside tables

•••

I was driving down a highway in Raleigh today, and I thought to myself, this is a perfect January 1st. Crisp air to breathe in deep, partly cloudy, bare trees, very few cars out. As I drove through my neighborhood, I saw people running, walking their dogs, being with family. I just love New Year’s day.  Besides the fact that it’s the day after my birthday, it is one of my favorite holidays. I believe the Lord loves it too, because He loves new things, new seasons, a fresh start.

“…I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,  I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

He knows we need it, and each year it is so good to start afresh.

Can I just be real for a second? This year, goal-setting was a more challenging task for me. I don’t have a clear picture of 2014, and I don’t feel completely prepared to be writing this post. One thing I do know – if I don’t feel like it, and if I don’t write it down, I won’t accomplish what is most important to me. So here I sit, wrestling with this deadline and my goals and my heart, trying to make sense of it all. I remind myself – DONE is better than perfect. (Download this from my dear friend Lara!)

I will be spending more time in the next few weeks continuing to work through my new 2014 Powersheets from Lara. I must say, these have been so helpful in this year I’ve felt a bit stuck. What a gift Lara is – I am so grateful for her! They have been worth every penny so far, even though I haven’t finished with them yet. I will be posting more in the next few weeks some things that have worked for me  and some thing that didn’t in 2013. I think this is such a valuable exercise, and I know it will continue to bring me clarity.

Setting goals in the beginning of the year is usually one of my favorite things to do. I shut down the computer and write in my journal for weeks leading up to the new year, praying and meditating on the good changes I want to see in my life. Sometimes it comes easy to me, other times it takes work – thoughtful, careful work to map out where I really want to go. It’s not always fun to face where we currently sit in this life, and to look forward, but is good. It is healthy.

One thing I’ve learned in the last few years of setting goals? If I don’t take time to set them (and to blog them for my own accountability!), the urgent always overrides the important. Even though I feel unprepared, DONE really is better than perfect.

So friends, here’s to restored margin and restore balance!
Here’s to meaningful work, intentional time with those we love, and taking the time to rest
Here’s to filling our minds and hearts with Scripture, to putting our phones down, to writing more letters
Here’s to taking care of our bodies, running races, healing my ankle and breaking records
Here’s to living in a place of contentment, simplicity, and gratitude
Here’s to 2014!