A New Year with New Goals

Key to My Heart

It's 2013 and time for setting new goals!  I did very well last year with checking off all my 2012 goals, well my shop goals at least.  Hopefully I can continue that trend and check off everything on my list this year too!

Shop Goals 2013:

I love you beads, but I need to buy less!

• Expand my wire wrapping skills.  Get some tutorials and learn some more elaborate wrapping techniques.
• Better utilize social media.  Marketing is one of things I just don't like to do.  I need to make better use of the ones that work best for me and focus on them to save myself time and make it easier.
• Enter a larger craft show.  I have one big show I do every year and I'd like to make it two big shows since I'm done with entering little shows that aren't really worth my time.  This depends on how much time I have available.
• Lower my expenses.  I have a bad habit of spending waaaay too much on new supplies instead of using up what I already have.  I could seriously open up a bead shop.  It needs to stop!
• Become more organized.  This should be easy but the messy artist and the anal organizing side of me fight all the time and unfortunately the mess usually wins and causes me stress.  I need to force myself to keep up with my accounting (doing it quarterly is insane) and actually put things where they belong so I stop wasting time hunting for lost things.
• This sounds counter productive, but I want to scale back my business at least for this year.  My little girl is starting school this fall and she's growing up too fast!  I feel I missed out on too much last year and family is way more important than any of my above goals.  She'll only be little once!  This just means no more full time weeks, saying no more often, and listing less frequently as in one item a week instead of three.  If it means less sales, then so be it.

Personal Goals 2013:

Veggies, yum!

• Cut down on bad carbs (not eliminate) and eat more veggies.  Hi my name is Heather and I'm a carbaholic.
• Start saving for a down payment on a bigger house.  We are so close to being totally debt free that I can taste it!  Hubby's pay is better and we've been really good about our past savings goals so this should be no different.
• I got a brand new Canon Rebel T3 dSLR and I know almost nothing about dSLR's in general.  I want to know all about how to take beautiful photos.  After all if I paid that much for it, I may as well master it right?
• Enjoy life more.  I spend too much time obsessing over "what ifs" and I need to stop and enjoy my life more instead of worrying about some mundane thing that may go wrong.
• Spend more time on me.  This goes hand in hand with the above but I also need to make more time in my schedule for myself.  Spend more time with friends, drain my Kindle battery more often, buy myself a little something now and again instead of squirreling away every spare penny we have (what's the point of having money if you can't enjoy it right?), and relax more.  I need to stop torturing myself with making sure everyone else has what they want and completely ignoring my own well being.

I think that about covers it.  I'm not really into making the typical resolutions that I know I won't keep or even referring to them as "resolutions".  It's almost a dirty word and sets you up to fall on your face come February.  I prefer to focus on things I'd like to accomplish and flaws I'd like to fix that are actually achievable.  No point in wasting time over things I know I won't do, such as look like a bikini model (although I wouldn't complain if I did look like one).

I do feel a little guilty over my last shop goal of scaling back since it sounds like I'm intentionally moving backwards.  However, with all that I've learned over the time since I've opened shop, such as using better keywords and better pricing, I should be able to work less and not lose out too much.  I originally quit my previous job to spend more time at home with Kaylie and instead of doing just that I opened a business and thought I could be successful, be a full time stay at home mom, keep the house sparkling clean, and preschool at home, all without feeling burned out.  Oh boy, that's laughable!  So computer, you and I will be seeing less of each other but don't worry, I will still keep up my shop and keep creating new things, just not as many :)

My little girl is growing too fast!

What are your goals for this wonderful new year?