First of all, Happy New Year!!! We are on a Caribbean cruise ringing in the new year, so it’s a little belated from me! That’s also the reason why we just barely did our annual dinner date night where we share and discuss our goals for the year together. We typically do it on New Year’s Eve but we felt like saving it until we got home from our trip. Especially because this fun stuff was going on!

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As I’ve mentioned before on how we typically set goals together, we tend to focus in these four areas: Personal, Spiritual, Marital, Professional.My husband is a pretty good goal-setter and is VERY organized and just proactive on a daily basis at accomplishing the things he has set out to do on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. It makes me very proud of him, but it’s also hard for me to be on the same level, haha. The goals I have set this year I think will help me prioritize and organize my life a little better so that I can be on such a go-getter level like he is.

One thing he suggested to me is that I should have more attainable goals, and I think it’s great advice, even though I think I can do everything. I’ve thought a lot about this which is why I chose to focus on pretty much one main goal in each of these areas. My marriage goal this year is to be a better supporter and example of improving our physical health. I have kind of set this goal before but the stupid allergies fiasco reaaaaaalllllly threw a curve ball at us, but also I just have junk food habits that I’m not proud of and it influences him more than I realized.

This goal is obviously going to have some personal benefits to it, but the best part is that when we are both supporting each other’s diet and exercise, we are supporting the emotional and physical intimacy of our marriage as well!

The Hard part

I find that writing goals down and even sharing them publically can increase accountability so there you go! I shared it here and I hope we can kick some bad eating habits, switch them with some good eating habits, and look and feel healthier! HOWEVER, this decision is the easy part to goal-setting. The hard part is following through with it.

So it’s important to make a plan for accomplishing this goal. I’ve shared with my husband how I plan to work at this goal, and though I might not be as diligent at times, the steps I take mean progress. That’s what goals are all about, making progress!

We also decided on a new thing we are going to try that will help us both check in on our weekly progress. We try to do a weekly planning on Sundays or Mondays, where we go over each other’s calendar items for the week and even ask each other on a date night. We think it’s a good idea to review how our goals are coming for the past week, too. It will help us stay on the mindset and give a chance to support each other in our goals by sharing the positive things we’ve seen each other do, as well as give constructive criticism on how we can do better. Some people would call this a “companionship inventory” or a “marriage meeting.” Whatever it’s called, I’m looking forward to it.

I hope this inspires you to make a marriage goal this year of something you can work on to improve your marriage. Make a plan of action and put forth the effort. Maybe set a reminder on your phone. Either way, I wish you luck on accomplishing all your goals this year! Freshly Married is here as a resource to help marriage goals get accomplished, so stay with me here and we can strengthen our marriages together. Wish us luck on accomplishing our goals, too! We will need it :)

[caption id=“attachment_6128” align=“aligncenter” width=“589”] photo: Four Seasons Photography[/caption]

What are YOUR goals this year?

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• effort
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• journal