New Year - New Goals - Becoming Supermom

Happy New Year to everyone!   I hope the holidays came with a fun and relaxing time for everyone (that is a joke as nobody I feel has a relaxing holiday).  Mine was filled with stress, anxiety, and a lot of family time.  Rushing around buying presents, wrapping presents, setting up the Christmas decorations all with a 1 year old was definitely an interesting experience.  Needless to say there were many sleepless nights trying to get things completed while the little one was down and sleeping peacefully.  I now realize this is how it is always going to be with children in the house.  I am honestly okay with that, as I am personally someone who is obsessed with winter and the holidays surrounding it, and I will take one for the team to make sure that my family is having a good time. 

Since my son was born the day before Thanksgiving, I now realize from November to January it is just going to be busy in our household and during that time it will be a whirlwind of events.  Now that the holidays are coming to a close, I am finally able to sit down and think about what has happened this past year, and how much of my life has changed for the better.  Even with the busy flow of my life, I would never want to trade it or adjust things.  I am content and happy where I ended 2017.

I can't believe this year has come and gone and now a new year is to be explored and discovered.  I am a little nervous, as I love setting new years goals for myself.  I love competition against myself, and to a fault sometimes.  The problem is, I also get anxiety about my goals and half the time end up not doing them for fear of failure.  One of my goals last year was to start this blog, and it literally took me until October to get the courage to even post anything.  Not to mention, I had a whole blog post written out for the month of December, and because of my anxiety I ended up not posting it, as I was too afraid it was not good enough for my readers or a good representation of me and what I want to be perceived as.

I guess this post is a little more serious, as I reflect on 2017 and what I want out of my life for 2018.  I had minor goals last year that were more technical - get to x amount of followers on Instagram, start a blog, start getting followers on twitter, and pay off some debt.  I am going to move forward with some of these technical goals in the new year (get to 400 instagram followers, hit 150 twitter followers, and start a youtube channel). However, there were some really important goals that I made for myself and I think I am going to move forward with them in 2018 that I would encourage all of you to consider:

- Be Nice To People - Even when I don't want to (which is a lot because sometimes I am really petty).  I find however, that most of the joy in my life (other than spending time with my family) is when I can legitimately help someone out that needs it.  When I am left with a choice to be damaging in my relationships, my goal is to take a step back and try to make the better choice of being nice and kind.  I know how cliché that sounds, but as I did this last year and it changed the way I looked at things, I am going to put more of a focus on this and how I can be better in 2018.
-Make time and put my family first - As much as I can or always.  My son's emotional, financial, and physical health is the most important thing in my life.  All nerd references and jokes aside, it is so important to me to make sure he has the best childhood that I can provide to him, and that will mean making hard choices that might affect relationships in the future.  As I am a people pleaser, this one has been difficult for me this past year and it is my goal moving forward to set boundaries for myself and for others so people are more aware of my decision to make my family the most important priority.
-Spread Peace and Love as much as possible - this one is obvious, so sometimes I don't dive in to this.  However, I am an advocate for equal rights and believing that you should always try to understand someone's point of view, even when you don't want to.  So for the new year, I am going to try and do just that.  I want to be a bridge for people to learn to communicate and find understanding and some sort of peace in their lives.  This connects well with being nice to people, and so my goal is to continue to try to break down barriers that divide us, and seek to find a common ground.
- Be Healthy - This goal doesn't mean to lose weight, because I am sick and tired of living against society's standards of beauty, but more to be healthier in my life.  Make healthier choices (both physically and mentally) for myself and my family.  This ties right into making sure my little one has the best life possible.  I want to build healthy relationships within my family, my friends, and with myself.  I want to find healthier eating solutions, and I want to feel good about the way I am taking care of my mental and emotional health.  I want to grow in knowledge and find a way to grow my understanding of others.  There is more than one way to be healthy, and my goal is to improve as much as I can.
- Be myself and Accept it.  This one can't really be measured, but I think it is the most important thing I need to learn to do.  With my anxiety, comes a lot of high standards that I put on myself as a mom and as a person.  Something that I am coming to terms with and trying to embrace is that I am good enough just as myself. When I became a mother, my desire to be perfect amplified.  Now, I just want to know that I am good enough just the way I am.  Julia - lover of all things nerdy and cheesy, loves holidays, is a passionate person, is very loyal, and is someone who gets emotional too easily.   Take me or leave me (RENT anyone?!), but this is who I am!  This version of me can be a supermom just being herself.

To all the mothers that are trying to be more and more for their families, just take a moment and give yourself a pat on the back.  I understand the desire to be a better mom and wife, and I am with you and understand you.  However, please make sure to take some time of reflection and realize you are already wearing that supermom cape, and you are a wonderful human being taking care of your babies.  You are enough.  In 2017, you were enough, and in 2018 you will be enough.

Take my advice or leave it!  Either way, lets make a common goal to support and lift each other up in 2018.

May all of you have a wonderful start to your 2018!  Make this year great.

-JaxxyLake

Follow me on all of my social media!
Instagram:@jaxxylake
Twitter: @jaxxylake
Facebook: @jaxxylake