For my girls!~

I never got my Personal Progress as a Young Woman.  I was always active in church, but for some reason was not motivated to work hard on my Personal Progress.  For years, I've wondered if I should do it as an adult, but it always seemed like ALOT.  I had an experience a year and a half ago (talked about it here) where I felt like it was definitely time.  And it, of course, has been such a blessing. I finished all of it, completely last month.  No big fanfare, but I didn't need it because I'm proud of myself and got so much out of it.

Here are some reasons, I'm so glad I did it:

1. It helped me TOTALLY understand the program so that I can better help my girls work on theirs.  I know what types of goals you need, how long it takes, what works and what doesn't. I also am very aware of the accomplishment it is, and truly admire girls and women who spend the time to make this happen in their lives.

2.  It helped direct my personal scripture study, prayers and goal making over 18 months.  I'm kind of sad now that I'm done that I have to actually think through what I want to study or what I should work on!

3. It made me do things I wouldn't have done.  There is plenty in there that I was already doing, or needed to do a little more seriously (scriptures, mothering, church calling stuff), but there were things I would never have tried, if it hadn't been on goal list.  I worked hard on budgeting, I learned how to hem pants, I resurrected my blog, I spent 10 hours doing family history indexing, I made phone calls to a museum to find out how a mom might start working at a museum after her kids were in school, I didn't eat sugar for a month.  I think it's so important to get out of our comfort zone so I really tried to push myself to do the out-of-the-ordinary things.

4. I memorized The Living Christ during Christmas 2014 and read the Book Of Mormon in 5 weeks during Christmas 2015.  Those things helped me so much in feeling closer to Christ during that special time of the year.

5.  I loved the little goals.  The ones like "be extra nice to one family member for 3 weeks" or the "study repentance and teach a lesson about it".  Again, those are things I try to do, but I loved being focused.  I learned so much and grew ALOT while I did it.

6.  I love that I am an example for my kids about setting high goals and working a little at a time to achieve them.  It took me about 18 months working pretty constantly and I'm so happy that I can say: "I completed my Personal Progress!"

(Little side note:  this book/journal was brought to my attention right before Christmas last year and I got it for Jane.  IT HAS BEEN AWESOME.  She said yesterday "I'm so glad you got me this.  It makes doing Personal Progress so easy!"  She works on one goal a week every Sunday and should be done with all of her little goals by the end of this year and will spend next year working on the bigger value projects. I'd highly recommend it.  Click on the link if you want more info.)