2012 Goals: The Guilt-Free Edition

So since every blogger and her mother (ahem) has been posting things about the new year, I thought I would do the same.  I started with these wonderful worksheets that break each goal down into focus areas, and then each focus area is broken down into smaller goals.  Yay for manageable pieces!

Yes, I want to grow closer to the Lord and to David in the coming year, but in this list, I chose to focus on more concrete, measurable areas of my life.  So here are my goals (in no particular order except how I thought of them):

Prority 1: Have a more welcoming home.
Focus areas: develop a reasonable home-keeping schedule, declutter problem areas, invite friends over more often.

Priority 2: Improve my health and well-being.
Focus areas: lose xx pounds (NOT sharing the actual number at this point!), exercise regularly, go to bed and get out of bed earlier.

Priority 3: Continue to improve in home schooling.
Focus areas: Plan further in advance, get Megan more involved, choose curriculum for next year.

Priority 4: Kaplan (where I teach online)
Focus areas: Be more focused so it doesn't take up so much of my time, improve on student outreach, develop weekly discussion board posts for common courses, clean out email inbox.

Priority 5: Personal growth
Focus areas: Read more, make more friends, blog regularly, pursue an interest.

Now this post was titled The Guilt Free Edition for a reason.  I live under the burden of a lot of false guilt.  Most of it self-imposed, some put there by other people.  I feel guilty for not measuring up to some ideal standard.  I feel guilty for trying to do too much, and then I feel guilty for not doing enough.  And then I feel guilty for feeling guilty.  In fact, I feel so much false guilt that I'm not always able to discern Holy Spirit conviction in the midst of all these other thoughts.  When I sin, I want to be convicted of that.  But Romans 8:1 promises that there is "now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."  That means those voices of shame are not His!  This year I want to quiet those other voices.

So I refuse to feel guilty if I don't achieve all of these goals.  I believe they are worthy goals, and I believe that even coming close to achieving them would be a wonderful thing.  So each day I will attempt to strive forward toward them but not become bogged down with guilt if some days I just don't get things crossed off of the list.

Here's how I'm working on these each day, little by little.  (And yes, already there have been days when some things didn't get marked off.  But that's OK.)

So what are your goals?  How do you quiet those voices of false guilt and condemnation?

I'm linking up to a blog hop here.  Check out the other great posts!