Last week in Something for Yourself I talked about writing a personal mission statement.  I think this is something everyone should do for themselves to make sure you have a written guideline for how you want to live your life.  

Another important step towards personal development is setting goals.  We're all familiar with setting a New Year's resolution, but those rarely stick, probably because we're not clear on what we really want to accomplish and how we're going to make it happen.  

I think one of the most important steps to setting your goals is to actually write them down.  If you take the time to put your goals on paper (or a computer screen) then you have something to look back on and remember what you want to accomplish.    

Here are some SMART tips on how to set a goal that you can stick to:

I hope these tips have been helpful to you and will give you some guidelines for setting goals you can actually achieve.  Next week I'll be writing about gratitude and how it can impact your life in a positive way.

This past week I have made this snack mix not once, but twice.  That's how good it is! And the best part is that it takes just a few minutes to make, so it is dangerously delicious and easy to make!  I found the recipe on Pinterest like almost all of the other recipes I make.  It comes from a blog called Averie Cooks.  I have modified the instructions with some tips from my experience making this, so feel free to head over to the blog to see the original instructions and beautiful photos.

No Bake Parmesan Ranch Snack Mix

Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup canola, vegetable, or olive oil 
  
• One 1-ounce packet ranch dip seasoning mix powder
  
• About 4 cups popcorn, popped
  
• About 3 1/2 cups pretzels (I used regular twist pretzels, not waffle as shown above)
  
• 1/2 to 1 cup peanuts, almonds, cashews, or favorite nuts or mixed nuts, optional 
  
• 3 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated 

Directions:

In a large microwave-safe bowl, add the oil, ranch mix, and stir to combine. Add the popcorn, pretzels, nuts, and anything else you'd like to throw in there. 

Toss to evenly coat the mixture; it may seem a bit on the oily side, this is okay and it absorbs. Heat on high power for 2 minutes, stopping after 1 minute to toss the mixture because the oil has a tendency to pool at the bottom of the bowl. Add the Parmesan and toss to coat evenly. Serve mix immediately. Mix will keep for up to three days in an airtight container or large ziptop plastic bag; but is best enjoyed same day, noting that cheese has been added and some may wish to refrigerate the mix if storing it longer term. 

Optional Instructions: When you're almost done eating the snack mix you may find that there is a bunch of oil coating the bottom of the bowl.  Instead of throwing it out, I decided to make my mixture last even longer by adding more popcorn and pretzels to the bowl and re-heating it.  This worked well for me because my air-popped popcorn machine makes more than 4 cups in one batch, so I already had extra popcorn on hand.  After heating again I tossed on more parmesan cheese and it was like I had a fresh new batch.  By doing this my mix lasted me a couple of days, so I stored it in the fridge due to the parmesan cheese.  

I am going to continue posting my favorite recipes every Thursday, so please let me know if you have any recipe requests as far as dessert, side dish, entree, etc. goes.

For this week's Motivational Monday, I decided to talk about something that everyone has in their life, which is friendship.  

Over the years I have made some amazing friends who love me and support me no matter what.  I have also had some friends who didn't treat me the way I deserved to be treated.  As tough as I was, I had to make the decision to let those people go and move on with my life.  

I'm sure this is something that everyone can relate to.  It seems like the older we get the more people we count as people we used to be friends with.  It's really the special ones who stick around.  

And so I looked through my Pinterest board for friendship related quotes and found these three sayings that really stood out to me.  I hope they inspire you in some way as well.

This quote from Will Smith really makes sense to me.  I like that he points out that you need to be yourself and do your own thing.  It seems like those are the moments when you meet the most amazing people.  They don't show up when you're looking for them, instead they seem to arrive in your life just when you least expected them.  

I agree that a true friend is someone you don't have to chase.  The friendship with them will happen naturally at its own pace without having to rush it along.  You will connect at the right time for both of you so that you can begin a great friendship that hopefully lasts for a very long time.

When it comes to finding friends sometimes it's hard to decide who deserves your friendship and who isn't worth your time and energy.  I agree with the quote above that you deserve to be selective with the people you invite into your life.  

Everyone's time is precious and the last thing you want to do is waste time on someone who isn't going to give you the friendship you want and need.  A friendship is meant to be a two-way street, with both people dedicating their efforts at making the most out of the friendship.  

Once you've found your friends and decided you want them in your life, another testament to a strong friendship is when your friend sticks with you through the good times as well as the bad times.  They are truly there for you no matter what you need and are happy to help in any way they can, simply because they love you.  

Unfortunately we sometimes realize who these people are in the worst moments of our lives.  It's when we hit rock bottom that we really see who is left standing with us, helping us get through it.  Not that all friendships have to be tested in the bad times of our lives, but you can really learn who cares about you the most when you're in one of those bad times and see who is there to help you.

Again, I hope one or all of these quotes inspire you.  If you have any other quotes, friendship related or otherwise, please share them in the comments below.

In this series of blog posts, which I am calling "Something for Yourself", I am going to explore a number of ways in which you can develop your own personal growth.  I'm going to talk about a few of the ways I have grown and learned about myself in the hopes that it can help someone else do the same.  

In today's post I am going to discuss writing your own personal mission statement.  This is something that I learned from a senior partner at my firm who runs the women's initiative.  She recently talked to our women's group about how she's had her own personal mission statement for twenty years.  One of the most important things she talked about is that it's not just a matter of writing the mission statement, it's also about checking in with yourself each month to see if you're living your life according to your goals.  

Personally, I wish I had written my mission statement a long time ago, but I do believe that the idea was presented to me at a moment in my life where I really needed some direction and guidance.  I had all of these ideas in my head of things I wanted to do and ways in which I wanted to live my life, but I had never taken time to write them down and organize them in a way that would allow me to take steps in the right direction.  

Writing a personal missions statement may seem unnecessary to you, but just ask yourself if you could use a roadmap to follow in order to live the life you've always imagined.  That's what my personal mission statement is to me.  

This may seem too time-consuming or overwhelming, but I have found a tool that helps you write your personal mission statement with your own words.  When I Googled "writing your own personal mission statement" one of the first links that came up was for Franklin Covey.  I always knew about them in terms of planners, but I didn't realize that they had other tools available.  

The Franklin Covey mission statement builder was easy to use and made me think about things that I never would have thought to include in my own mission statement. The final product is something that I have continually gone back to and re-read to help me assess whether or not I'm following the path I've laid out for myself.  Like their website says, I want to "live with purpose" and this tool has allowed me to figure out what that journey will look like.

Once you have written your personal mission statement I think it is important to set short-term and long-term goals for yourself, so my next post will be all about goal setting.   

If you have any personal development strategies that you would like to share or discuss, please leave a comment below.

Lately I have been experimenting with healthy dessert recipes that I have been finding on Pinterest.  It's amazing the things you can find on there, isn't it?  

The best part about the recipes I have been finding is that they are quick and super easy.  This recipe, for example, has two ingredients total.  The original post I found was on a blog called Sweet Verbena and it called for using either a yellow cake mix or devil's food cake mix. First I made this recipe using devil's food cake mix and the muffins turned out delicious.  Weirdly enough you can't taste the pumpkin in them at all.  

Next, I found the same recipe with a twist on a site called Meg's Every Day Indulgence.  She followed the same two ingredient instructions but used spice cake mix instead.  I thought these were even better than the chocolate muffins, which hardly seemed possible since chocolate is my all-time favorite flavor.  But there was something about the spice muffins that made them that much more amazing.

Next Thursday I'll be sharing another easy recipe that only has three ingredients.  Stay tuned for more!

Every Monday I plan on posting some motivational quotes that have to do with a specific theme.  This week's quotes all have to do with fitness.  It seemed like a fitting topic since I am spending so much time and effort on getting in shape and becoming healthier.  

These are some of the quotes that have given me the most inspiration over the last couple of months as I've gone on this journey.  I like the one above because it reminds me that my body is a gift to be cherished.  I need to take care of it in a loving way instead of feeling like I'm working against something that I have hatred towards.  Loving your body the way it is will allow you to love and accept yourself, which I think is the first step towards any journey.

Keep reading and I'll explain below what the rest of the quotes mean to me and how they can hopefully help you as well.

I had no idea what I was doing when I started this blog.  A year and a half later I am still figuring things out, but I wanted to take a minute to thank anyone who has spent time on here.  Without readers there wouldn't be a point in me writing, so thanks again to everyone who has supported me.  In the last year this blog has had almost 6,000 visitors, which blows my mind.  If you're reading this and have any ideas on future posts, please feel free to share in the comments section below.

Here are some ideas I have for upcoming posts:

• Hot summer movies
• My bucket list
• Things to do in Denver
• Best organizing tips from Pinterest
• Weekly posts of my favorite recipes
• Monthly book & movie reviews
• Planner updates
• Trip report of my San Diego vacation in August
• Favorite YouTube channels
• ...and much more!