Monthly Goals: November 2015

With new schedules and new routines this fall things are definitely feeling different, and a little more frantic than they were in the past.

For some reason at the end of the October I really started to feel the new changes to our family routine and weekly schedule. 

For the most part things feel a little more rushed, a little less flexible, and a lot more scheduled. Big Brother is now in school five full days a week, I've added hours to my teaching schedule, and both boys are in care until after 5:00 pm three days a week. While we still have the evenings together, it's not as much down time as I was able to enjoy with the boys in the last two years. Add into that the increased workload at school, the determination to see things go smoothly and purposefully in the classroom, and extended hours on a local school board. Of course these busy days still come with the regular routines and worries of grocery shopping, paying bills, laundry, house cleaning, etc . . . and I'm not even touching on the long term things parents think about and agonize over. 

All of these concerns are ones faced by thousands of families every day. Chances are, if you're reading this post this is not anything different than what you too look at and think about in order to balance every day life. The thing is, sometimes this balancing act gets pretty exhausting and overwhelming. It can begin to feel like life is one long list of priorities, schedules, worries, to-dos, and of course, more lists. 

And when life begins to feel that way, it becomes pretty easy to focus on the negatives. Our brains go into overdrive, looking for what is not working, what needs to be fixed, what needs improvement. We internally (or sometimes verbally) analyze where things could be better, faster, smoother, or more.  

So for that reason I've decided to return to a strategy I did several years to find positivity in every day: journaling gratitudes. Each night, before going to bed while still rethinking the day I am going to write down at least three things that make me feel grateful. They can be big or small, simple or elaborate, regular or special. They don't have to be different every day and there might be some repeats across days and weeks. But they do need to be genuine things, people, or moments that make me feel gratitude. 

I also am going to try and share some of these "daily gratitudes" over at Instagram, as we've enjoyed sharing some of our other monthly goals there before.

November is a time when many families focus on what they are grateful for, so it's a great time time to reconnect with this habit and to find ways to bring about more positive thinking. I'd love to know, in what ways do you focus on the positives and the things that you're grateful for?

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