With little ones in tow, setting goals can seem like a fruitless effort. How can we expect to get anything done when just keeping everyone fed, clean, and dressed is a monumental task? Planning can help us to be productive and effective in living out our calling of building God’s kingdom. Goal-setting is worth it, and today we’ll talk about how to do it when your hands are full.
S4E6 – What Does the Bible Say About Money? | 20+ Scriptures on Finances & Biblical Stewardship – A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast
- S4E6 – What Does the Bible Say About Money? | 20+ Scriptures on Finances & Biblical Stewardship
- S4E5 – What Do Jerusalem, Athens & Rome Have to Do With Your Faith?
- S4E4 – You Don't Have to Agree With Them to Learn From Them: Why You Should Study Church History
- S4E3 – Bible Alone? Can We Really Just Follow the Bible?
- S4E2 – What If Questioning Your Faith Isn’t a Bad Thing?
Hey everyone, and welcome to Season 3, Episode 6 of A More Beautiful Life Collective Podcast. I’m your host, Cayce Fletcher, and I’m here to help you grow in grace, live with purpose, and live beautifully.
In the last episode, I discussed what a crazy year 2025 was and one of my goals for 2026. Today, we are going to talk about goal setting for 2026, and I hope that this episode helps you feel motivated to be intentional with your year.
Why do we need to set goals?
The New Year brings up so many different feelings in people. Some people feel motivated by the promise of change and growth. The reset leaves us feeling refreshed, and we are ready to take on the blank slate of the year. Other people feel overwhelmed and defeated. We saw what we actually accomplished in the previous year, and we feel depressed and hopeless about doing anything more with the year to come.
Wherever you fall on the scale, how should we approach goals?
In our podcast on goal setting, we talked about what the Bible says about goals. Goals often help us to be intentional and wise about our use of time. Through planning, we can accomplish more than if we are just blown and tossed by the waves of our feelings and the demands of life.
At the same time, when our goals are distracting us from our primary calling, building God’s kingdom, then we have to recognize them as idols in our lives. Our goals should not be vanity projects. They should not pull us away from God. Ultimately, ‘many are a plan in our hearts,’ but God determines the steps of our lives.
Accomplishing Your Goals Even When Your Hands Are Full
There’s always a certain moment in a young mom’s life when you are walking into a place – Car seat on one arm, diaper bag on the other, and maybe a child or two hanging onto your coat – and someone stops and looks at you and says, “Wow, you sure have your hands full!”
And, it’s true – both literally and figuratively. I really do have full hands – and a full heart.
With three little ones, starting two businesses, homeschooling, homemaking, and everything else I’m juggling, my hands feel very full.
One of the purposes of goals is to direct our focus even when our hands feel full. We’ve made the plans. We’ve set the direction of our lives – so that even when everything goes off kilter, we still make progress.
This is what happened to me last year when I was in the thick of it. I had already taken the time to set my course. So, when life threw so many curveballs at me, I was still able to make (very small) incremental steps towards my goals.
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How to approach goal-setting?
Keeping this in mind, how should we approach goal-setting?
Goal setting is something that can allow us to focus our lives on the things that matter most. It is something that helps us to spend our days well. But it should not be held too rigidly. It should not dictate our lives. God guides our steps – not goals. But goals help us to intentionally live for God.
We all want to be as purposeful, productive, and effective for God’s kingdom as possible.
What makes a good goal? Something that does just that. Something that brings glory to God.
Related: How to Review Your Year and Set a Theme of the Year
How do we make goals?
Every year, we have the opportunity for a fresh start. It doesn’t matter what the previous year was like; we can choose to make good habits, refocus our lives, and move forward with confidence and grace in the year ahead.
Here are the steps I follow when I make goals:
- Assess. Review your year (you can get Rooted & Renewed: A Yearly Review Guide on the AMBL Shop) and see areas that went well or need improvement in your life.
- Set. They should be attainable and sustainable for your season of life.
- Stage. Gather whatever tools, resources, or information you need to accomplish your goal.
- Explore. Research. Research. And Research some more. I always feel more motivated to achieve my goals when I’ve explored the goal area through podcasts, books, and articles.
- Track. The only way to reach your goals is to actually do the thing. Of course, that’s also the hardest part. Tracking your progress provides both accountability and the opportunity to monitor and adjust your target.
You can read more about the ASSET framework for setting goals in this post here.
New Year’s offers a perfect time for a reset – but it doesn’t have to be the only time of year when you focus on setting new goals. Each season throughout the year can be a gentle reminder to reset and refocus. If we do this, we will be more likely to actually achieve our goals because we are keeping them at the forefront of our minds.
The 12 Week Year, a book and concept that we talked about in this post here, sets goals in 12 Week increments. This keeps them manageable while also creating pressure to actually accomplish the goal (rather than waiting for later in the year).
You can get our free guide, The Faithful 12, for setting goals below.
Want to go deeper? The complete workbook, Cultivate, will walk you through every step of the process.
My Yearly Review
Last year, I set goals and created a theme of the year based on the fact that I wanted to be intentional about my habits, routines, and focus. When I look at what I accomplished, I feel like I fell short of all I wanted to do. I struggled just to keep life moving.
Did I reach my goals? Not in the way that I thought I would. But what I did accomplish was always coming back to my key priorities.
Throughout the year, I did the following:
- Nursed a baby through FTT and was ultimately able to get off formula and nurse for the full year
- Helped my husband build a business (with SOPs, budgets, the whole thing) and saw progress towards our goals
- Reformatted the blog, shop, and podcast. So many products got a much-needed refresh. (You can check it out here: https://amorebeautifullifecollective.com/amblshop/)
- Continued (however imperfectly) with homeschool and homemaking routines during a crazy year
There were some goals that I didn’t get to – like weight loss, gardening, and other crafting projects. I was intentional, and truly, that was the only way that I made progress this year.
What I’m Doing Differently This Year
This year, my theme of the year is to ‘Finish Well.’
For several years (honestly, since we got married), my husband and I have had so many goals, but I honestly feel like my feet have been stuck in the mud. There were so many things that I have not been able to accomplish.
So this year, our goal is to ‘finish well.’
We want to finish all of our projects, existing jobs, and reach some of the goals that I’ve been hoping to get to for several years.
But I know the way life is. How will this year be different?
This year, I’m combining what we’ve already talked about with the 12-week year. Then, I’m applying all of these concepts to my top 5 priorities.
Setting Your Priorities
In years past, I’ve set goals, but they’ve amounted to a ‘wishful thinking’ bucket list that may or may not get accomplished throughout the year. This year, I want my goals to center around my top priorities so that I know that I am focusing my life on what truly matters.
Our first step is to determine your priorities. We all have very different lives, but most of us will have priorities that fall into the following categories:
- Physical
- Spiritual
- Social
- Vocational
(If you want to go more in-depth on each of these categories, follow along to Bright Hearth’s current series on these areas of life.)
We want our physical bodies to be as productive as possible, which means taking care of our health. We want to cultivate our hearts for God and the spiritual disciplines that help us to do that. We want to have life-giving relationships in and out of our home. And, we want our lives to be filled with good and meaningful work – all for God’s glory.
But the way this looks is very different depending on your current situation in life. Your priorities will not be the same as someone else’s, and they may not be the same as your own five years ago.
That being said, all of our priorities should be different shades of the same color. Yes, as a wife and mom of young kids, my vocational priorities have changed quite a bit from what they were when I was newly married. At the same time, the priority is still to do good work with the job I have been given.
We are all called to handle our relationships with grace and love. We are all called to work heartily as if unto the Lord. We are all called to pursue what is good, true, and beautiful.
No situation in life can remove the responsibility you have to devote yourself to the teaching of God’s word. No situation in life can remove the responsibility you have to love your neighbor. No situation in life can remove the responsibility you have to steward the resources you have been given.
We all must work out our priorities and determine what they are for our lives. But, as a Christian, our priorities should look somewhat similar to one another.
My Top 5 Priorities for this Year & The Goals I’m Setting.
My Health
In 2026, I want to focus on moving every day. The goal is to do 30 minutes of exercise and get 10,000 steps, but I’m going to work up to that. I want to lose some of the baby weight and get my diet back on track.
My Home & Family
In 2026, I want to continue to focus on my family and building our family culture. It’s easy to let life pass you by in the little years, and I can already see how quickly it goes by as my son inches closer to his sixth birthday. Here are some of my goals for home and family:
- Homeschool: My son is in the middle of his kindergarten year, and we are still working on reading. I want to make sure that’s a primary focus of our year. My daughter will start a preschool curriculum next year, so I want to get everything ready for that. And, I was also very slack about Morning Time last year. I want to restart that because it is one of my favorite parts of that day.
- Handicrafts, piano, and sports: Now that my kids are getting older, I want to spend some more time on the ‘extracurricular activities.’ We will probably start doing some sports this year, and I also want to spend some more time on crafts and piano.
- Family Adventures & Field Trips: We spent a lot of time at home last year, which was fine for the season we were in. But this year, I want to get out and explore all the areas around us.
- The Home Front: We’ve already started with some chores for the kids, but I want us to be much more consistent with cleaning and tidying routines this year. The house always felt like it was in chaos last year. I want to create a decluttered, tidy, and cozier home this year.
My Work
One of the ways that we can work to build God’s kingdom is through our work. This work can be paid or unpaid. It is just the way that we put our hands to the plow and work for God.
This year, I’m working in several different ways – in addition to the holy work that I do at home, caring and tending to my family. First, I am helping with some admin responsibilities for my husband’s business. Second, I am the Assistant Youth Director at my church and volunteer my time teaching, planning, and coordinating events. And third, of course, is this blog, podcast, and shop.
My goals for the blog are:
- Complete the #ambl365challenge: Post a real picture and real caption (written without AI) every day in 2026
- Write and post a blog post each week. With a house full of people, I don’t know how well I will be able to keep up with recording a podcast (especially with video), but I want to at least make sure that I am consistent with the written portion.
- Continue to streamline the shop with products that help you create a life you love and cultivate a heart for God.
In addition to this, one of my goals is to start learning homesteading skills. We want to plant a garden, and I have several crafting projects that I want to make – and potentially sell.
My Finances
Our finances really took a hit this past year as we focused on building our businesses. This year, we’re doing Dave Ramsey’s baby steps while focusing on building a budget using Profit First’s principles. (I’m planning on doing a series on finances soon – so stay tuned!)
My Project List
I have lots of projects that I want to complete in 2026. With everything we had going on last year, we were just treading water. But we have a huge list of maintenance items that need to be done around the house that we’ve been putting off. We also have several things that have been on our wish list around the house (like the garden) that we said we would do when things calmed down. I’ve realized, though, that things rarely ever actually calm down. So, this is the year that I want to spend finishing this punch list of things.
What are your goals for 2026?
At the end of our lives, we are the ones who are going to have to answer for what we’ve spent our time doing.
Are we spending our lives well? Or are we just being blown and tossed by the latest trend, distraction, or ‘pressing need’?
Set your priorities. Make your goals. Create systems that help you accomplish your dreams. Find people who hold you accountable.
You can do it – even in the season when your hands are full.
What are your goals for 2026? Comment below!
Don’t forget to check out the shop, where you can find workbooks and printables to help you reach your goals.
If you’ve liked this episode, remember to subscribe and share this episode with your family and friends. (It’s a great way to build your accountability circle!) You can also leave a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts.
Until next time, keep creating a life you love and cultivating your heart for God.
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