White Family News: Balance

I had a post mostly drafted the other day that went into having balance in life, and goal-setting, and keeping priorities in line. The post started feeling wordy and was going down too many rabbit trails, so I abandoned it.

Let's just say I am focusing on having balance in my life, while keeping my priorities in line, and also allowing for special interests, hobbies, projects, etc. Things were a little crazy and off-balance for a while, but they've begun to settle down nicely.

Things are getting done. Kids are being nurtured. Food is getting cooked. Balance.

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We sat down as a family at the beginning of the year and set goals. Individual goals, family goals, fitness goals, financial goals, etc. I am excited to do this a few times this year and see what everyone has accomplished.

I love the Harvard study about goal-setting, where it finds that the 3% of students who set goals (in writing) were making 10x the salary of the other 97% of students, ten years later.

I shared that story with the kids during our meeting. I also pulled out the oldie-but-goodie, "If you don't aim for anything, you are guaranteed to always miss".

I believe my preschoolers took these words deeply to heart.

Goal setting isn't just about financial success - it applies to all areas in life. I want to be successful in the areas of life that are important to me, keeping priorities in mind (God, then family...etc.)

This blog is one of those areas that I wrote goals for. Actually, I am still writing them and figuring out exactly where I want to take this blog this year. I do know that I want to continue to share pieces of my family, hopefully in a way that is encouraging to others. I want to share glimpses of real life (at least what real-life is for us). And I want to share some of our creative stuff, like room decorating, DIY projects around the house, and on. And I do want to share bits about Down syndrome, and adoption - while they are not the main focus of our lives, the reality is that they do exist, so I will talk about them on occasion.

So for now, I leave you with some pictures of adorable Braxton, who will be ten(!) months old on Friday, and who is learning new tricks, like lifting up his legs and bringing his fist to his mouth.