Goals number one and three ended up working together! I found several new home-cooked meals (and snacks!) that both Jeremy and I absolutely love. For my birthday both my brother and sister gifted me soup cookbooks and Emma surprised me with a beautiful dutch oven. Jeremy and I have tried about six or seven soup recipes so far, most of them with a base of green vegetables like celery, peas or broccoli.
In addition we made up a simple recipe for broccoli slaw with bacon that is super delicious. Sometimes we make it with shaved brussels sprouts instead of broccoli. I can't decide which I like more, they're both really good. I'll share those recipes here sometime soon!
For goal number two I would give myself like a C+. I did try a couple new hairstyles and added a couple new items to my makeup routine, but I don't feel like I tried anything outside my "box" this season. I feel very settled in my style, which is good thing in most ways, but I want to always be actively evolving even if it's in small ways. I'll be carrying this goal into the new year in some way.
My fourth goal is by far my favorite. I wanted to start a new tradition with Jeremy that is something for just us and sometime that we can continue in the future as our family grows. We live near all of our family so we have a pretty intense holiday routine. We go to lots of different places on Christmas Eve and on Christmas day to visit family. This year we decided to make Christmas Eve-Eve (Monday night) our night at home to make a special dinner and treat. Jeremy picked homemade donuts for our treat. I'm so excited! We're planning to try one of Emma's donut recipes (probably this one).
Tell me about your four simple goals? I'd love to hear about your experiences! xo. Elsie
Credits// Author and Photography: Elsie Larson
51 Comments
My next goal will be have a holidays at least 2 week each year only with my husband and my children. Our family liver far away and we spent all the holidays visit everyone but I would like star a new tradition, at least one or two weeks alone with my husband and ours kids.
The second goal spent almost two weekends in the year only with my husband.
Really great and I need to have my own goals now. I have some plans.. But I ll see. Have a nice day.
I love making little goals. I think the four simple goals is a great idea. A few years ago I started doing the “21 before 22” etc., but I found that they’re very overwhelming. I think I like the idea of simple goals a lot better. I’m gonna try this out for the new year!
xoxo
Taylor
http://www.welcomehometaylor.com
Such great goals x
http://lornaswishingwell.blogspot.co.uk
What positive and simple goals. We can all learn from these! Thanks!
I love making soup from scratch. It is so great to set goals and achieve them also. Can’t wait for you to share some of your soup ideas.
xo. Kailagh
that’s so lovely (:
mfashionfreak♥blog
I already do #3, but #2 is also one of my goals! I feel like I haven’t tried at all to find my personal style and have just resorted to wearing things I know look good on me, regardless of if they represent who I am. Gotte get on that.
http://cuddlyasacactus.wordpress.com/
“Actively evolving even if it’s in small ways”. Yes, so true, small does add up.
My four simple goals for 2014 are:
Learn how to make my own kombucha.
Learn how to crochet granny square style.
Make more meals at home and eat out less.
Less time behind our computers and more play time!
Happy Holidays! 🙂
I’m going to pick four goals too and I’ll try accomplish them next year 🙂
xx
http://analeote.blogspot.pt/
Ah, I’m glad you met all your goals! When you set yourself tangible goals it is much ‘easier’. I hope you enjoy your Christmas Eve-Eve tradition – the holiday season can be a bit intense with family festivities.
🙂
loved your little goals! I think I’m going to set some goals for myself as well 🙂
These are great! I definitely need to try and implement the green one into my own life.
Lovely goals and great results 🙂
xo, Juliette Laura
http://juliettelaura.blogspot.com
Aww I cannot wait to start traditions with my family when I’m older x
Ruby
http://rubys-eyes.blogspot.com
You and Emma really inspired me this holiday, Elsie! I blogged about my goals in November (the link is below). Goal-setting really kept me focused on what matters in the midst of the seasonal hoopla! I’ll be sharing the results later this month. Happy Holidays! <3
http://mirror80.com/2013/11/4-simple-goals/
Definitely some amazing goals with wonderful results. Enjoy your new Christmas-Eve-Eve tradition! 🙂
I think carving time for you and Jeremy is wonderful and a good investment for your relationship. Like you said, once your family grows, holidays will be even more busy and you won’t get that couple time. Enjoy this season in your life! Let’s, see the goals I’ve met are: making an advent calendar and actually use it 😉 I also wrap all the presents for our family in a fun creative way so it’s not a chore anymore. Most of all, I really focus on creating memories with my family. We have 3 children and the one tradition we started last Christmas is that each sibling gets a special mommy/son date or daddy/daughter date when they dress up, go to dinner and buy a gift for their siblings. They look forward to this even more than their own presents 😉
I wish you a lovely Christmas Eve Eve 😉 and Christmas holiday with your families. You are super blessed to have family close by 😉
I was thinking about this today! My progress is:
1) two recipes with the dried black beans that have been sitting in my cupboard for over a year
– I made bean burritos, bean mash and cheese + bean quesadillas!
2) discover new music by listening to the radio more.
– I listen to the radio more but haven’t discovered new music that I love yet.
2) start a Xmas tradition with my boyfriend
– Xmas movie night is born! This year it involved salted caramel popcorn and homemade marshmallow hot chocolate.
4) log into my fitness pal every day to jan.
– MASSIVE FAIL
Oh well.
I love simple goals like these, because I don’t believe in overwhelming yourself with big resolutions. I would like to make more time for crafting and reading with my children. Happy Holidays!
Jo
http://www.womaninreallife.com/
How lovely! Great post.
Zoe
http://thatszoe.blogspot.com
Christmas Eve-Eve is a THING in our house. We go out for Italian every year! I think I made it a tradition when I was about 7 years old when we happened to be out for dinner on the 23rd. This year we’re trying a new place downtown and going to a swanky party afterward. 🙂
these are lovely. sometimes we need to take a step back with our goals and aim for the little, simple things 🙂 wonderful post x
-Jianine
We call that night eve of eve and it has been part of our family tradition for a long time. ♡
I’ve found that my favorite homemade dinner in katsu pork! And it is easy to make the recipe into a vegetarian alternative.
I love making goals, such a good way to track good (and not so good) progress. One of my big goals this season was to host my first giveaway, and I did that today! Thanks for inspiring me to set goals to work toward, and congrats on the new tradition and green meal integration! 😉 Can’t wait to try that broccoli bacon slaw!
if you are interested, you can check out my first giveaway here: http://bitsfashion.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-first-giveaway.html
I love the ‘start a family tradition’. My fiancee and I aren’t religious or have particular ethnic roots so have always wanted to start something special with our kids that will be done by their kids & so on.
Do you lovely people have any ideas?
http://www.creamstop.com
Hi!
I just wanted to share some Norwegian tradition with you! When you spoke about having something special planned for the 23. it came to me that we norwegian may stand out a bit.
23d of december is called “little christmas eve” in Norway, and most people decorate the christmas tree this day- old tradition. Many have a little get- together with family too. Me and my husbond plan on decorating the tree, bake and make some new chritmas ornaments. The ornament- thing has been our little tradition for years, we bye a diy project at the lokal craft store 🙂
Master a hair curler. Straighten out my back. Make a coat. Learn to use my DSLR.
I loooove these goals, such a lovely thing!
http://talisatalksbeauty.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/christmas-gift-guide-for-her.html
My goal is to try some new recipes as well as save up money for this Chanel bag that I want. (I specifically picked up a second job for it!)
promisesofcoffee.com
It looks really nice! I like it)
http://smtpants.blogspot.com
I didn’t make any simple goals recently, but I always strive to eat better and eat greens. I can go days without eating vegetables (that sounds horrible!!). Broccoli slaw sounds like a great way to eat vegetables, especially with bacon. Always bacon.
M.
It’s great to be comfortable with your style, but you can definitely get bored with it after a while if you don’t switch it up sometimes. As a beauty hoarder (almost), I am kind of jealous of people like my mom who have like one base, one mascara, one eyeshadow palette, and that’s all they need. If you’re looking to add a little spice, have you tried something like Ipsy or Beauty Box 5 where you get some new products to try each month? It’s super affordable, generally costs less than buying new products and the store, and you get a couple of different things to try. You can give away the stuff you don’t like or aren’t interested in and keep the stuff you fall in love with. Just a thought!
I had an autumn list in which I hoped to achieve some goals:
Finally nailing the fishtail braid
Organizing 1200 photos
A walk in the forest
Bake a pie
…. and some other stuff that I simply can not come up with now! (That’s weird) Hopefully soon I will have other goals too. I like giving myself goals in different ways.
Love this! Love that your goals are realistic and feasible.
xo
http://thewearwithal.typepad.com/
I shared my experience here,
My experience with my four simple goals,
http://www.bonitarose.com/2013/12/four-simple-goals-sharing-my-experience.html
I’ll think about it, It’s a good way to start 2014. Happy Holidays!!!
http://tarragonain.blogspot.com.es
My 4 Simple Goals
1. Juice 3X a week. I started out juicing 2x weekly, but it fizzled to nothing in the last 2 weeks. This is hard to master because juicing can be labor intense. I don’t want to get up earlier in the morning to do it (which would be best), and in the evenings I just don’t have the energy after work. Despite the excuses, I’m going to keep trying because I notice the difference when I do juice.
2. Being a single girl, my next goal was to do something fun once weekly. I’ve gotten stuck in a rut of just going to the gym for workout classes as an outlet. So, I joined a few groups on meetup.com (n/a) and attended a few events by myself. Guess what? I enjoyed it. It really gave me something to which to look forward. Also, I ended up meeting some really nice people.
3. Hang out with friends twice a month. I failed majorly with this one mainly because I don’t have friends. So this goal will be on the 2014 list. I feel like if I keep putting myself out there, (see #2) then I’m well on my way to having some leisurely Saturday morning brunches.
4. Live in the Moment. This is so hard for me to do. I’ve put a rubber band around my wrist to snap whenever my mind trails off.
Thank you for showing us how to set goals in a way that’s more fun and less anxiety-inducing.
4.
I stopped making New Years resolutions for fear of failing to follow through on them. Maybe four simple goals can help me make some fulfilling and sustainable goals. I’m giving this a try 🙂
We also have a very busy family routine with people to see and meals to be eaten at various houses – so my husband and I have a tradition that on Christmas night when we come back from my parents house (no matter how late) we turn on our Christmas tree lights and open our presents to each other.
It makes our Christmas together feel complete and relaxed after all the chaos. That time, even if its one in the morning is our time to chat under the Christmas tree and reflect on our day of crazy happy fun with everyone. and its the prefect end as we give each other gifts we’ve crazily been waiting to give each other ALL day!
I made a post about mine – finished them all up today! 🙂
1) Make a Herman the German Friendship Cake.
2) Clear out my wardrobe.
3) Read more (at least 4 books before New Year).
4) Stay as up-to-date as possible with Flickr uploads and photo editing.
http://bifrostphotography.com/4-simple-goals-2013-done/
Sadly, I do not have any goals yet!! BUT I am hoping after Christmas I will sit down and take time to be more intentional about my day with my little ones . . . I tend to just want to survive the day ha! This year I want to get crafty with my toddler and have a more structured routine since she will be 3 yrs old in a few months.
Elsie, it is great that you and Jeremy are molding your days because once the little ones come you will be able to have that to bounce back to and will have that to feel some control (what little you can at least! ha!) ~ Enjoy that Dutch Oven it will come in handy!! Blessings!
I love these 4 goals. I am going to have to try a similar goal reaching idea! I will definitely credit you on my blog
– Joia
Lovely
these goals are great! love the tradition with your husband, so cute
xxoo,
nikki
http://www.dreaminneon.blogspot.com
love the idea of four simple goals! I always overwhelm myself during the holidays by giving myself too many goals! great idea! xoRach
I love these goals. They are so simple, yet they have so much meaning!
You can never go wrong with a favorite home cooked meal! 🙂
Hi, I really enjoyed the challenge and made some great simple changes to my everyday routines.
1 My first goal was to drink glass of water every morning: This I am doing as a routine already for a while
2 Second goal was to do more walks outside: With this I am doing rather well. I am also walking more in the city and to work.
3. Experiment a new home-cooked heatlhy snack: These I have experimented several already. Will continue exploring.
4. Be more patient: The most challenging longer term goal. 🙂
Here is my blog post about the challenge:
http://www.thinknstyle.blogspot.fi/2014/01/my-four-simple-goals-update-on-challenge.html
Happy New Year 2014 eveyrone!
Hey Elsie! <3
I'm starting four simple goals for the New Year and posted about it on my blog tonight. Thanks for the inspiration!
Charin 🙂
Hey Ladies, I just wanted to stop by and say thanks for the idea to focus on 4 simple things! I have just completed 5 Simple Things for 2014 (I just had to have one more!). Here’s the post if your intersted. Thank you for encouraging positivity on your blog. Nikki x
http://styleandinfluence.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/five-simple-things-for-2014/