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3/3/14

resolutions for March : personal

Oh wow, February was a quick month.
 photo IMG_5812.jpg
This last week I have been feeling somewhat discouraged in relation to my goals..
and while I was pondering this, my dear friend Chels wrote this post
and I instantly thought wow, that's me.

As far as goal-setting goes, I also:

A) didn't work hard enough
B) aimed way too high and set unrealistic goals because 
C) my month was crazy.

With my travel and flights, catching up on life/sleep when I got home from said travels, and having a bad cold at the end of February that zapped a lot of my energy, I didn't get a ton done.

I exercised maybe twice. Made some progress towards getting up at 6:30 but it was by no means consistent. (sidenote--does the getting-up-at-5:30-AM-for-the-airport-after-staying-up-till-after-midnight-the-night-before get any credit?) Letter-writing was scarce. Not getting any yarn meant no knitting project was started..or completed. 1 Thessalonians 4 was not memorized. Sometimes I made a list for the day, but it didn't always happen nor did I stick to it. I didn't practice shooting around the house. Reading was sporadic and when I did read it wasn't always on the designated Tuesday/Thursdays like I planned. 

Keepin' it real here, people. 

It's easy to beat yourself up and feel like a failure in comparison to the 'list' you made of how a perfect February would go...when in all honesty there is no 'ideal' or 'perfect' life, and if there such a thing it only appears that way from the outside. 
We are all, at our best, a mess without Christ..no one really has it together, and we tend to put people on a pedestal and say, "look at their instagrams! look at their adorable outfits--flawless house with fresh flowers--and no dirty dishes on the counter." 
When in reality the dishes were probably pushed to the side and the quickly counter wiped so the peanut butter smears wouldn't ruin the background of the instagram photo..right?!

We all have areas we fall short in daily, and need to cling to truths like, "His mercies never come to an end..they are new every morning," "a righteous man falls seven times, and gets back up again" or "tomorrow is all fresh and new, with no mistakes in it."
[thank you Jesus and Anne Shirley]

Keeping things positive, however:

- Journaling is still happening several times a week.
Oh man, this is officially one of my new favorite things to do..super therapeutic.

- I cleaned out a ton of e-mails in my inbox. No, it isn't down to zero but I did make a ton of progress!!

- Spring sessions are in the works!! Several shoots scheduled and more to get put on the calendar...ahh, I am so stoked, people! 

- I finished up designing all my new pricing documents over the weekend for 2014!! This took a lot of time with the layout, text, photos I used, etc..so glad I was able to crack down on this project and make it happen!

- Looked into more outfit inspiration, posing, etc. / photo courses this year.
Excited to do even more location scouting in nearby towns soon!

For future posts, I want to streamline these resolutions to just a few main personal / business goals, and if I have other 'smaller' ones I can add them to the monthly list that I tape up in my room.
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Here we go, March..

personal:

- get up at 6:30 four days a week. 

- exercise three times a week. 

- keep my bedroom organized and maintained. Somehow my room can go from looking perfectly put-together and deep cleaned, to a WWII war zone replica in the span of about 2 days..does this happen to anyone else?! I think the heart of the problem is that I don't maintain, and therefore end up with a mass cleaning session about once a month.

business:

- do a secret business project. which is going to be announced tomorrow..eep!!

- as mentioned before, e-mail/touch base/schedule sessions with clients for this spring.
Oh man, I am so stoked about my shoots this year--I almost can't put it into words.
Sidenote--I will be in the Mason City, IA area this April, so if anyone is interested in photos send me an e-mail 
[ hannah@hannaheliseblog.com ] and I'd be thrilled to set something up!

- update and enhance my website.

- designate a 20-30 minute 'e-mail domination' time each day. This being where I strictly focus on only e-mails at that point, instead of answering a few at random times throughout the day. Hoping this will increase my focus and productivity and help conquer the inbox!

Do you have any personal or business goals for this month as well?
I'd love to hear them in the comments!

happy Monday!
~H. Elise
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8 comments:

  1. So excited about your secret business project!!! ;)

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  2. You basically just described my room! Perfectly clean, to WWIII!

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  3. love this, hannah. so true....
    thanks for the "keeping it real" thought. love that!

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  4. I loved your "keeping it real" thoughts as well. Glad to know I'm not the only one who struggles with keeping up with things and sets goals that are unreachable. I love the idea of setting monthly goals; I might try it sometime. :)

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  5. yes! Loved this post, Hannah! And I say a hearty AMEN to your thought on journaling. It is one of my favoritest (yeah...not a word I know) things to do recently, and I find that it's one of the best ways to process things that are on my heart/mind.
    And I'm lovin goals this year, too! I am learning, though, that even goals need to be surrendered to Christ, right?!
    love you girl!!!
    Allison

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  6. Girl, I am amening you from the rooftops! Life really is messy and instagram doesn't do too good a job of capturing that. ;) It's so hard sometimes to stay on top of everything. I love hearing your heart and seeing where the Lord is taking you month by month.
    And I'm SO PUMPED about your secret project!! Yay! :) Love ya, girl!

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  7. Thank you so much for sharing these words, Hannah. Love your honesty, enthusiasm, real-ness. I'm really looking forward to hearing what your secret project in-the-works is and you are def not the only one with the room organizing situation. Especially my desk, which is pretty much buried right now. ;) All right, thanks for sharing your goals with us - love the idea of having monthly ones. [And loving that cheery picture, too. :)]

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  8. Thanks for the honesty. This post was super encouraging. Somehow I let February slip on by. I was able to maintain a steady exercise but other than that... So grateful for new days weeks and months! God is good!!!

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please leave a comment -- I would love to hear your thoughts on this post!! :)