Time to check in on how well (or not) I’m progressing on meeting my small monthly goals leading to the completion of my bigger goals.
FEBRUARY GOALS WITH RESULTS
FITNESS/HEALTH
-Take and record blood sugars three times per week-I managed to do this 8 of 12 times. In the future, I will schedule this in my planner so that I can (1) make sure I meet the goal and (2) make sure that the times are spread out and not all in the same time frame.
-Strength training at least twice per week–Completed 5 of 8 times. Honestly, I just got lazy and a couple of times I forgot that I was supposed to work this into my workout routine. This is another task/activity that needs to go on my planner so that I don’t forget.
I’m going to continue to track my water intake and activity goals as well.
CREATIVITY
-Organize digital photos into files for a minimum of 30 minutes per week. INCOMPLETE
Again, I didn’t schedule it in my planner so it was not on my radar. And, I continue to add photos to my library so the task is not getting any easier!!
As you can likely imagine, I have thousands (several years worth) of photos on my laptop. While I do have them organized by year, it is my goal to more specifically identify my photos as well as to get rid of bad photos and duplicates.
HOME
-Clean out my master closet! COMPLETED!!
-Clean out white t-shirt bin! COMPLETED!!
It’s no accident that these two tasks got completed. Cleaning out the master closet was a huge task which took all weekend while the white t-shirt bin project was minutes long. Ok, more like 30-40 minutes but not nearly on the scale of the closet.
Why did these get finished and the others didn’t? Because I scheduled them. I decided in advance when the best time was to complete the tasks, wrote it down on my planner, and then did it.
SPIRITUAL
-Read/listen to one of the many books I have been collecting but have not delved into yet. DONE!! I listened to The Universe Has Your Back by Gabrielle Bernstein. I listened to this book on Audible while driving. It was not a very long listen (less than 4 hours) which helped me to get through it. It was really interesting and I can see myself listening to it again in the future and perhaps at home so that I can do the lessons and practices sprinkled throughout.
I did also continue with my daily/nightly gratitude journaling and this practice is feeling like it’s becoming a habit. I enjoy writing what I’m thankful and some days find that I want expand on some thoughts.
FINANCIAL
-Write my monthly budget-Ugh! Don’t ask!! Only completed it in my brain! INCOMPLETE
-Call one utility or credit card company and see if I can get an interest rate reduction (reduction) or price reduction (cable). INCOMPLETE. Another task that I did not complete but only because I didn’t make the time to do it and because I had limited time.
MARCH SMALL GOALS
Remembering that the purpose of these small goals is so that they lead to the completion of the bigger goals, this month we will continue to clean things out and work on health pursuits.
I have also come to realize that I do best with my goals when I have some easier, less task intensive goals and one time consuming task. If I only work on the big, time consuming goal, I either get overwhelmed and don’t make progress or I finish quickly and then don’t have anything else planned.
HOME
–Clean out my underwear/bra drawer.
I think this is self explanatory but let me tell you a story. I’ve been convinced that I need a new everyday bra. One that I wear regularly had the underwire pop out and became unwearable. I even went shopping a couple of times but couldn’t find anything that felt or fit right. One morning, I opened the drawer and all of a sudden I saw how many bras I actually have that I don’t wear. As I clean out this drawer, one of the tasks will be to try on the bras to see what fits and what doesn’t. I think that I really don’t need a bra as much as I just need to take inventory of what I have and then use it.
-Clean out my “inside” t-shirt drawer.
Yes, I have another t-shirt drawer to clean out. This is the drawer that houses shirts that I clean in, do home projects in, etc…In short, shirts that I only wear inside my house and can be stained, get paint on them, etc….Now, there is no reason that I need an entire dresser drawer for these shirts so I will need to be brutal when editing this collection!
–Resume office closet clean out.
I started cleaning out this space months ago. Then my lovely niece moved in for the summer and then a week after she moved back into the dorms my mother unexpectedly came for a brief visit and so I just threw the stuff back in. It’s time to get back to it. Cleaning this space is no small task. This closet houses extra office supplies, craft supplies, and paint/DIY supplies. I could open my own stationery supply store!! I do like office supplies quite a bit-especially cute ones! It’s a good place to house these items but some serious editing needs to occur!!!
FITNESS/HEALTH
–Take and record blood sugar three times per week.
Schedule it in my planner so that I can space the tests out appropriately to get an overall reading.
-Strength training twice per week.
Again, this needs to go in my planner as an appointment so that I don’t forget. Adding strength work has not yet become a routine part of my workout routine so I need to write it down to remember to do it!
–Eat fast food no more than 5 times this month. This is a big one! Sticking to this will require that I meal plan, take my lunch to work and just be better prepared in general. I use fast food as a crutch for my laziness. I’ll have perfectly good food that I could take for lunch but just don’t feel prepping it. This needs to change. And just to be clear, this is mostly an issue on work days and at lunch. I rarely if ever, have fast food for dinner. This will be hard like when I gave up french fries for a month!
SPIRITUAL
–Finish another book on my bedside table or Audible app.
-Daily gratitude journaling.
FINANCIAL
–Call Comcast/Xfinity regarding a bill reduction.
I HATE doing financial stuff. I know this about myself and will procrastinate at times to my own detriment. Instead of having 2 financial goals this month, I focus on one. Perhaps if I have some success and gain some positive feelings, I’ll be inspired to complete another. (A-HA MOMENT)-As I’m writing this, it’s becoming clear to me that talking about my financial stuff in such negative terms is doing nothing to help me change my mindset. Perhaps if I spoke more positively and thought more positively about working on my finances, it wouldn’t feel like such a chore to perform basic financial tasks)!
CREATIVITY
–Start organizing digital photos. Work on this task for a minimum of 30 minutes each week.
In addition to writing this task down on my planner, I will also start with the oldest file and work my way forward. While this won’t give me the biggest bang, I am hoping that it will give me some much needed momentum and motivation!
For me, organizing digital photo files means going through each folder, deleting duplicates and bad photos and then putting the remaining photos into categories. As I stated previously, my folders are already set up by year and then month. Within each month folder, there are already some categories like Christmas, Thanksgiving, certain sporting events, etc….The decisions that I need to make include naming other categories without being too vague or too specific. However, I am certain that as I work on this task, categories will become clearer and it will be easier to know either what to name files or where certain photos should go.
So, there we are! I am always a bit hesitant to do these posts because I often feel like I haven’t gotten much accomplished. However, once I sit down to write it I realize that while I am never 100%, I’ve always made progress. The reality is that if I wasn’t making goals and tracking them I may not be getting anything done.
Progress not perfection is real!
How are you doing with your goals?
Share in the comments!
