Over the last year, Eric and I have become close friends with 3 sets of neighbors in our building. This is a major benefit of living in a large apartment building. It makes our social life a whole lot easier. We spend a lot of time with each other playing cards, watching our favorite shows (it helps that we have the same favorite shows), painting pottery, walking the dogs, or generally hanging out in our pajamas. Sometimes it feels like we live in an episode of Friends. Except there’s way less drama. And I love it.

Each week, the girls (3-5 of us) get together in one of our apartments, make tacos and unwind with a glass or two of sparkling wine for what we’ve coined “Girl’s Night” (super creative, I know). It’s a nice break from the week and a great way to catch up on our lives without the boys around. It’s also our only opportunity to catch up on tv that the boys have no interest in watching (like America’s Next Top Model or So You Think You Can Dance, haha).

Well, the last few months we’ve been on a bit of a self improvement kick. Once a month, we’ve been setting 4-5 goals for ourselves to accomplish over the month. These have been as small as “Make stockings for Christmas” and as large as “Work on Marriage”.

Generally our collective success rate each month has been a pitiful 25-50%. I think there are two major reasons for this. 1) I, personally, have failed to write any of my goals down. And those who do, write them down and put them in a drawer. So by the end of the month we have completely forgotten what our goals were in the first place. And 2) We have a whole month. I can put a lot of things off for a whole month.

To solve number 2, we’ve decided to briefly check in with each other each week. If nothing else, this extra level of accountability will keep our goals fresh in our minds.

And for number 1, I decided to share my goals here. Each month, I’ll give a brief update on my success before posting the next month’s goals.

To kick it off, here are my February goals (in no particular order).

Goal 1: Create one illustration for my children’s book

Over the summer I wrote a picture book with the intention of illustrating and publishing it. It’s not done by any means and is currently in a very rough state. However, I’ve had this one scene swimming around in my head since the very beginning and I just want to get started on the illustrations. I’ll worry about editing later. So, that’s my first goal. Get this scene down at least roughly.

Goal 2: Go on at least one date with Eric (outside of the house and Valentine’s day does not count)

This pretty much speaks for itself. Get out with husband more. Spend less time lounging in front of the television.

Goal 3: Call an old friend

There are a few people I’ve been really bad at staying in touch with. People I care about and want to keep in my life. And I suck at the phone. I really hate it, actually. But I also know that living at least 1000 miles away from some of my closest friends means that phone calls are a necessary part of maintaining those relationships. So I’d like to call at least one old friend and catch up.

Goal 4: Create at least one collection of images

This goal relates to my decision to pursue Art Licensing. I’ll talk about this in more detail at another time, but for now I just need to get started building my portfolio.

Goal 5: Create a sub-site for Kinderling Pets

I have been putting this off for way too long. Kinderling Pets needs to be it’s own separate thing. The Kinderling site is very kid focused right now and I think it might be discouraging pet owners from purchasing portraits of their furry friends. So I need to get a separate site up for those pet lovers.

That’s all for now. I’ll let you know how I did next month!

In the mean time, what are your biggest challenges when it comes to setting goals for yourself?