What? Achieving goals takes effort?!

A couple weeks ago, I was feeling fairly confident in my role as a new mother. I'd been back to work for about three months and juggling that, along with my new duties as a mom, and I thought it would be a great idea to enact a couple personal initiatives. You know, things you want to do to improve your life, and possibly even the lives of those around you. It might be to eat better, exercise more, or go to bed earlier. We all have them at one point or another. Well, here were my three.

1. Make a dinner plan for the week, a grocery list to coincide with said plan, and ONLY buy the things on my list once at the grocery store. If it's not on the list, it doesn't go in the cart.

2. Ignore phone/social media on weeknights between the hours of 6pm-8pm. Given the fact that my babe is becoming ever increasingly observant, I want dinner and the time around it to be free from technology. It would be a time to bond and not be distracted by email, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

3. Lastly, de-clutter my home. Easier said than done, but my house is filled with trinkets and things I don't need. Particularly the guest, ahem, junk room.  

So there you have it. My three personal initiatives. I was feeling very proud of myself for coming up with these, and had no doubt that I could carry them out. Well, let me tell you. It has been harder than I had anticipated.

I started the plan over the weekend, and by Thursday night, the faint memory of these slipped back into my very sleep deprived brain. With the exception of my first grocery trip, I had completely neglected and basically forgotten about my grand initiatives. I hadn't expected this to be a walk in the park, but I also didn't realize how difficult it would be to focus on three seemingly simple tasks. Like most things in life, we have to work toward what we want. I shouldn't have expected to come up with these and carry them out with little resistance. If it was easy, I wouldn't need the personal goals in the first place. That being said, it is a new week and I've started over again. They say it takes 21 days to form a habit and these are things I'd like to continue on, well beyond 21 days. I now recognize how easy it is to lose focus and will be working extra hard to follow through.

An incentive to master the grocery shopping is to take it a step further. I'd love to prepare a simple meal plan for a month, full of clean eating and healthy options. It will include meal suggestions for breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as a variety of snack options to rotate throughout the week. I believe that if you have a plan and can stick to it, you really can change the way you eat, and in turn, live. The trick is to only purchase the items you'll specifically need. Hence initiative #1. No extras or impulse buys as you make your way through the store. I am a total sucker for this, and can easily add at least 10 things into my cart that I don't need at all. Maybe more.

So first things first. On to planning more, owning less, and decreasing my time spent on social media. I guess that means it's time to get off the computer.