Tag Archives: goal-setting

One Little Word 2022

Posted on by

This word directly relates to where I perceived myself to be at on January 28th of 2020 where I made an Instagram story with the following sentiments.
“I’m a big goal setter but sometimes I push them back and procrastinate. This month and this year is different (said with a cringe amount of confidence). I’m leaning in and putting those steps out into the universe. I can see now that there are people and things being placed in my path that are meshing and aligning so well for what I’m trying to do. I can’t attribute that to anything else but my purpose coming to light. It’s driving me in a new way and I’m so thankful for that.”

Literally the. next. day, an event happened in my family that would rupture it’s very foundation of safety and my heart. The next month, my position in my district was taken away due to a failed levy. And the month after that, our schools were shut down to Covid-19 along with the rest of the world. So needless to say, my hopes, dreams and positive disposition about “everything happening for a reason and falling into place” was really shot to hell and my heart and mental health was in shambles. My theme song for that year would have been a combination of Alanis’ Morrisette’s “Ironic” and “Shot Through the Heart” by Bon Jovi.

So this year, my word that resonated the most with me is……

What I am hoping to reclaim:
– my marriage
– a new role as Mom to adults with trauma
– the belief in myself as a leader in education
– my pursuit of impactful experiences outside of school counseling role (public speaking, writing, podcast, etc.)
– prioritizing vacation and travel for our family and myself
– saying no to people or experiences that drag me down

Even “reclaimed” my hair which had gotten out of control long since the last time I cut it in March of 2020.

Here is what a fancy Facebook quiz told me about my 2022 and I rather like the final result:

Why does stubborn and independent have to be combined together two times?!?!? Sheesh I get it…..

A few other members of Team HB picked words as well –
Scott – GROWTH
WonderGIRL – RESTORE
WonderBOY – “your mom” (typical answer these days – oh joy)

If you’re interested in checking out my previous’ years words on the blog, just click the “one little word” tag below the post and they should all pop up.
2010- me (the year I went to Haiti and met Scott)
2011- you
2012- us (got married)
2013- rooted
2014- connect (Team Brave Dinosaurs formed February 2014)
2015- (survive), didn’t pick a word out of sheer chaos that was our journey this year including criminal trial and extremely hard trauma behaviors
2016- together (adoption!)
2017- allow
2018- spark
2019- value
2020- vision
2021- heal

On the 2nd annual Team HB annual review

Posted on by

Last year, we had an official meeting at our local coffee shop and although the year got away from us for a number of reasons, I really loved the time to stop and reflect/look forward together. And because our children are ours, they have an affinity for workbooks and goal-setting right alongside me!

Due to coffee shops being closed, we grabbed some pizza and soda to go and set up shop around our dining room table for our meeting. It took 3 different sessions to work through the following agenda items:
– reflect on 2020
– set personal goals for 2021
– set family goals for 2021 (this portion took a solid hour and had some unprofessional behaviors that may need a write up from admin if I do say so myself).

Here are a few highlights from their work – always fun to look back on to see this moment in time:
WonderGIRL –

  • Very powerful lesson learned – for all of us.
Her self-reflection has been a HARD process this year but I am proud of her for doing some internal work that others survivors of trauma never have the courage to do.

WonderBOY –

  • President Biden already has a nickname.
A few themes – his love of Big Guy (Daddy) and some motivation and curiosity over Black Lives Matter. I love his heart.

Next up – our family goals (still marinating on a few):

Ready for action…..

Did you include your kiddos in any goal-setting this week? If not and you want to, I would highly recommend the Big Life Journals (they have different age workbooks as well)…..Happy New Year!

On my 2020 word

Posted on by

My goal this year is to get one blog post published every 10 days….when I printed last years blog book and it was very thin compared to others, I reignited my passion for documenting our stories, using my creative juices, and journaling more often to capture my thoughts.

Each year, I choose a word to guide my year….last year was value and (when I remembered it), was a good tool for me to assess my choices, my time and energy and people around me and whether they truly did match up with my values.

This year my word is vision – with a new position at work that is still being crafted, some side projects that I’m excited about and my WonderGIRL turning 18 this year….looking at the future, being clear about my goals and wishes, and making tangible steps toward those goals is really important to me.

My other thought in choosing this word is to be very clear and have boundaries around things that might be “blocking” my vision or getting in the way of reaching my goals…..energy draining meetings or people, distraction of social media/Netflix, physical health and energy, just to name a few that pop up right now.

Both Scott and I are loving our Start Today journals, along with my Miracle Morning coloring book and Bob Goff devotional – our days are getting off to a kick ass, take names kind of start in 2020!

Life update….still obsessed with the Enneagram – learning others’ types and diving deeper into what mine says about my motivations and ways of interacting with others is still making me geek out big time. So I apologize in advance, for all the enneagram statements and jokes I will say in your presence in 2020….feel free to let me know your “opting out” at any point this year.

Team HB 2019 annual review

Posted on by

This morning, our little crew took a trip to our local coffee shop to reflect together on our year and make big plans for 2020! We called it our annual review business meeting and even snagged the important meeting room to make it official.

For Scott and I, we reflected on this blog post to determine how far we made it on our goals. Turns out, we still have a lot of items still to check off and make more of so we’ll be continuing these efforts into 2020 (and maybe beyond that depending on the goal):

(From blog post)
“Some missing pieces that we’d like to change next year:
– being more intentional with how we’re showing love to our children (love languages, quality time, etc.)
– accept where they’re at
– commit to a trip together without kiddos
– attend a personal development conference together
– more transparency about mental health struggles in hopes that stigma goes down in families around us
– host more things at our house….we love our space and want more people in it with us!!!”

I also downloaded an awesome packet for both wonders from Big Life Journal and had them work on it together. The prompts and questions were easy for them to navigate while still digging deeper than a surface level conversation starter like “how was your year”? Plus it’s 25% off through Thursday the 2nd if you’re interested in doing this activity with your kiddos also!! Once they are finished, I will share some of their thoughts and writing to check back on later this year.

A little coloring action to highlight my 2019 word – VALUE.

My one little word this year was VALUE – although it didn’t resonate with me big time, when I took the time to reflect on the word and compare my daily actions or behaviors it really helped me stick to boundaries and priorities in my life. Read more about my 2019 word HERE. I can confidently say that my values of connection and growth were lived out on the daily in my life both personally and professionally this year – even when that connection or growth felt HARD and HEAVY.

We decided as a team this morning to keep checking in on these goals by having a “business meeting” each month to bring up our goals and reflect on our growth towards them. This is where having older kiddos has been so great for me – teaching goal-setting, growth mindset, and self-care to two kiddos who will NEED those things big time in their adult lives (plus how it helps the hubby and I right along with them).