Every New Year's Eve and/or New Year's Day, my dad would reiterate the importance of making goals for the upcoming year. This was such a priority, that for many years, we would head to my family's church for the activity.

On New Year's Eve night, my dad would find an empty classroom at the church, place each of us kids in a different corner of the room, give us paper and a pencil, and then advise us in our goal writing.

My dad is the five year strategic plan kind of man, if you hadn't picked up on that.

As imagined, all of my siblings and I were not very happy about our plans to ring in the new year.

BUT, years later, I am so thankful for a leader in my family who taught (or at least tried to) us how to plan for growth and trust God with the results.

I have so many ideas for this blog, this camera, and this coming year. Yesterday was a much needed time to digest all those thoughts.

To make things simple, the categories my dad taught me to make were:

Spiritual: how do I want to see my relationship and knowledge of who God is change and grow this year?

Physical: how can I be a better steward of my body with what I eat, wear, and do?

Mental: what am I going to do to ensure I am stretching my mind and learning new skills/perfecting old ones?

Relational: how am I going to serve God and put others first in my relationships?

I love how simple goals can become when I have an easy way to separate aspects of my life.

This may be long overdue, but thank you for dragging a grouchy little girl to the church to write goals, Daddio.