What are some of your biggest goals in life? Today I’m sharing 5 of my biggest life goals with you!
Ever since I was a little girl, I loved setting goals. I’m a bit of an organizational freak, and setting goals was a way for me to plan my life and become the person I wanted to be.
Things changed a little bit when I hit my early 20s! Goals started to feel overwhelming, depressing, and seemed to suck the life out of me. I realized that this was because I was a perfectionist! If I couldn’t do something perfectly, it stressed me out too much, to the point of where I wouldn’t do it at all.
This was such a toxic way to live! When I recognized what I was doing, I started making changes to my mindset. I began with accepting and liking who I was, at that moment, and being ok with my flaws.
This was the most powerful thing I’ve ever done for myself!
It took time to let go of the perfectionist in me. Now I’ve gotten a lot better! I used to set goals because I didn’t feel like I was good enough, and I needed to be better or else I felt like a failure. Now, I set goals because it would be cool to improve myself and become better. It’s something that I want to do! But I also know that it’s okay if I fail, and it’s okay if it takes a long time, because I’m an awesome person the way I am, too. Plus, I can always try again!
So, here are five of my biggest life goals!
Have a Happy Family
To me, this always meant becoming a wife and mother. This sounded so easy when I was a little kid! Life was so simple back then! Now, it means being a wife and mother – but it means so, so much more than that.
Growing up, I had a great but also difficult childhood. I grew up with 8 siblings (that number has grown and is growing, but that’s a different story!) I loved growing up with a big family! There were always friends to play with, and life was never boring.
When I was 10 my parents divorced, and my life was still very good, but it also became more complicated. I had two families, that I loved with my whole heart, and these families were very very different from each other. They had different house rules, political views, communication and parenting styles. That was hard as kid! I felt confused and frustrated, and the loyalty binds were difficult to live with. When I was with one side of the family, I was always on the defense of the other side, and vice versa. Luckily my parents handled things pretty well. They never talked negatively about the other parents to us. But it was still so, so hard!
Because of this, I knew that who I married would impact everything about my family’s happiness. I knew that I wanted a spouse who would be loyal, patient, and kind – someone who I could create the life I dreamed of with.
In July of 2016 I found that in my sweet husband, Chris. I knew early on while dating that he was a good man straight to the core. In the way he treated me and lived his life, he unknowingly showed me that he would treat me and my children kindly and patiently, and that he would be faithful and love me for who I am. I am so grateful that I found him!
Now, we are looking towards our next goal of becoming parents. We’ve been trying for about a year, with no success yet! But we are starting our journey of working through infertility together. We don’t know if we’ll be able to have children soon, or within a few years, or if it will take longer than that! We’ll see what happens.
Whatever happens, I know that my main goal in life is to have a happy family. I know when kids come there is no way of forcing them to be happy. Their going to make choices that will be crappy and painful, because we all do! But I know what I can do to help us have a happy family.
I know I want my home to be a place that’s safe, where our kids will feel loved, accepted, understood, and important. I want Chris to always feel that way, too! That is the most important goal to me in my life.
Some small goals I’ve made to make this a reality are:
– self care & kindness. I’ve learned that when I’m tired, overworked, and stressed, my patience goes out the window! Managing my time & stress levels helps me have the energy to be happy and patient. I’m also focusing more on showing kindness to others – especially Chris!
Have a successful photography career
Chris will be the first one to tell you that I spend the majority of my time working on photography! When I’m not photographing I’m editing photos, marketing, blogging, setting up photoshoots, or doing something else photography related. If I’m not doing any of those things, I’m still thinking about what would be cool to photograph! Needless to say, being a photographer is my passion in life!
What does having a successful photography career look like to me? That is such a hard question to answer! Mainly because it’s changing, so often! But right now, to me that looks like:
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Owning & running my own studio. This space will have an office that I can work from. It will ideally be close to my home. I want it to have a natural light space, with large windows. It will also have all the lighting & equipment I need for a variety of photoshoots!
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Creating photography (& stop motion videos) for large brands. Some brands I would LOVE to shoot for include Anthropologie, Free People, Good Housekeeping, ect. This would be a dream come true!
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I’d also love to create images for smaller businesses. My ideal clients are creatives. These are people who design things like clothing, home decor, skin care, ceramics, ect.
For me, this also means being able to support my family with my career. I want to help provide a good income so that my family and I can enjoy a comfortable life, with financial freedom.
Some small goals I’m working on now to make this happen is:
– Spend time each day working on my business (at least 30 min). I work as a product photographer full time, so this isn’t always easy! I’m usually tired coming home, and want to sit and watch the Office. But I strive to make time to work on my biz at least 30 min a day!
– Create consistent Instagram & blog posts to share helpful content with my readers. I’ve made a goal to blog 3x / week, and post to Instagram once a day.
Be well enough off to enjoy life, enjoy financial freedom, and be able to serve others.
This is a dream of Chris and I’s that we are hoping for! Neither of us are very materialistic, but we do want security, comfort, and freedom. Our first goal is to be completely out of debt. Next, we want to save for a down payment on a home, retirement, and for our kid’s college. We would also like to have the financial freedom to invest, grow our wealth, and have the ability to help others.
Some small goals we’ve made to make this a reality is
– Create a strong budget! And stick to it. We sit down to budget once every two weeks, and plan where our money will be going. We plan for our needs – rent, groceries, gas, ect – first. Then we split the rest of our checks between savings and paying off debt.
Travel
This is a goal of mine that is so important to me!! Traveling is another passion of mine. I grew up moving every 1 – 2 years. These experiences taught me to love new places, diverse people, and different cultures. The places on my immediate travel list are:
– Sweden & Norway
– Italy & Greece
– India
– England (I LOVED London – I want to go back, and see more of the countryside!) and Whales
– Ireland & Scotland
– Mongolia. Chris lived there for two years, and I would love to see the people and culture there! I would love to create a photography project with/about the people there, too.
and more!
Small goals to make this a reality – I signed up for Pomelo Travel! Chris and I set aside a small amount of money each year to spend on a trip. This year we’re going to Hawaii!
Have a comfortable, happy home – aka our dream house!
I had a hard time thinking of a 5th goal. Of course I want to be healthy, (possibly) get a Master’s degree, ect. But funny enough, this was the next goal Chris and I talk the most about!
Chris and I talk a lot about our future home. We still haven’t decided where we want it to be! But we both appreciate good interior design, and want a nice, comfortable home. We dream about having a beautiful garden in the yard where we can BBQ and relax in the evenings. We’d like a big library, where Chris can have all the books he loves, and we and our kids can read. We would like to have a large yard, where we can plant a vegetable garden, play games, and where kids can explore. I of course would love to have high ceilings, and large windows looking out into nature. We would love for this home to be close to family too!
Our small goals to make this a reality are:
– pay off debt! We put a certain amount each month straight towars our loans. After these are paid off, that amount will go into savings!
– make some extra money on the side! Chris picked up a tutoring job, where he makes an extra $800 or so a month. I’m also working on building my business on the side to bring in more income.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks so much for reading along! It’s been fun to share five of my biggest life goals with you. It’s so fun to dream, and to make goals that will make those dreams a reality. To learn more about me, check out my about page. What are some of your biggest goals & dreams in life?
