goals

Day 39: Happy September!

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Happy September! I get older every year (obviously), but September always brings the excitement of fall and new beginnings. I no longer live in a place with seasons (Hi, LA!) and I’m several years out of school, but I still can’t wait for the cooler weather that comes with September.

At the beginning of every month I make my habit list in my journal, my new budget in excel and my monthly list of goals I want to accomplish. It’s a good way to check on how much money I’m spending, how often I’m doing the things that are important to me and what things I want to accomplish during the month. It’s SO easy to let the days pass you by and leave things left undone.

There’s only 24 hours in the day. 8 spent sleeping. 10 spent working and commuting and 6 left for everything else (fun things, chores, exercising and the like). It’s really not enough time which is why you have to have priorities. If you spend time on one thing, you’re not spending time on other things.

I find the first of the month is a good time to check on my priorities. It’s easy for a year to go by and not have accomplished anything you want, so a quick check in to go over my annual and monthly goals every month is really helpful. Maybe I don’t want the things I wrote down anymore and that’s okay. But I also have to be sure I want the things I’m working towards. And what better day to check in than the first of the month.

Off to do that now. Until tomorrow.

 

Day 35: Fantasy Self

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Eek! It’s already been 35 days since I started this blog and I feel like I haven’t made much progress. I’ve made a bit, but not as much as I wish. Still I went to ballet class this weekend and I’ve been writing pretty consistently. But I want to have done more!

One of the main problems I have with myself is that I can never live up to my fantasy self. You know the one? The one who eats healthily and jumps up at the sound of her alarm to write. The one who exercises regularly. The one who writes like she’s running out of time. The one who is always in a good mood at work and ready to help.  The one who is ambitious, but not too ambitious to be slytherin-like. 😛

I call her my fantasy self and sometimes I feel so, so far from her.

She’s who I want to be; the person I’m striving to be with this blog. Too often I fall short, but that’s not such a bad thing, is it? To have something to strive for? To aim to be the person I want to be.  To reach beyond who I currently am?

No, I think it’s a good thing, but I also have to remember to forgive myself when I fall short. Tomorrow is another day to live up to my ideal person, but it’s okay if I skipped writing for one day because I was just too tired from my job which pays my rent. It’s okay if I skip yoga one day because I’d rather lay in bed and drink coffee. It’s okay to not be perfect all the time, to not be my fantasy self (she is a fantasy after all). It’s okay to fail as long as I make a note and course correct. And then there are the days I succeed – the days I align who I am with who I want to be – even if it’s only one moment at a time.

Day 31: Monthly Check-in 1

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Sooo…somewhere along the line my days got messed up and I’ve been numbering everything wrong for the past month. Typical, but that’s okay because I just googled how many days it’s been since July 23 and the answer is 31. Back on track! (Hopefully)

I’ve decided to do monthly check-ins to see how I’m progressing in the long term and where I can improve! TO THE EXCEL DOC!

Screen Shot 2017-08-24 at 9.23.39 PM

Okay, it’s a screen shot of the excel doc. Now let’s revisit my goals in Day One.

  1. Become a Novelist – The righthand column with the bunch of “Yeses” are every day in the past month (plus some) that I’ve written. Sometimes it’s only a few minutes, and sometimes it’s much longer, but the important thing is that I work towards what I want every single day. I’m not there yet, but now I can see patterns in my behavior. Weekends seem to be tough for me to write some reason. I know 8/5-8/7 and 8/15-8/20 were the days I was dog sitting. And the end of July was when I got sucked into Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Still, I think I’ve written more consistently since I started this project and that’s a win. Hopefully next month it’ll be a row of green.
  2. Ballet! – I took a few months off of Ballet and I’ve just gone back. I’ve also tried to take up yoga, which I’ve gone to a few times and pop physique (groupon!), which I haven’t managed to go to yet. I’ve made a little progress in that I’ve started going to something once a week, but I really do need to go more and hopefully once I make it part of my routine, I’ll be more green and less red.
  3. Promotion – No movement on this front, but I didn’t think things would happen in a month, so I’m content to wait. I should ask for more opportunities at work to learn new things so I can be a good candidate when the time comes.
  4. Credit Card debt – Still chugging away on this one, but I’ve been set back a bit because I had to buy a few flights. Next month I hope to make a serious dent in it, but it looks like it’s going to take longer than expected. (As many things do.)
  5. In a relationship – Nada on this front too. Although I did try a few new activities and met some new people. Who knows what the future holds there? 🙂

So that’s my monthly check in. I’m doing better overall than I was a month ago, but I still have a long ways to go and need to put some serious work in.

Until tomorrow.

Day 25: Eclipse Day!

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I don’t really take much stock in astrology, but I like the idea of turning points and today is apparently a big one. I think big events that don’t happen very often have a way of making us reflect on where we are in life. New Year’s Eve, Big Birthdays and Historic Events whether human or celestial. They make us think about where we were in the past and where we want to go in the future.

Clearly I’m already thinking about what I want to be next year or even next month or even tomorrow. But the next Eclipse in North America is happening in 2024 – seven years from now. I put it on my calendar. And I’m wondering where I’ll be then. Will I be married with a kid on the way? In a different city? In a different country? Or will I still be in the same place I am now? Will I still be in my same apartment? Will I still be working for the same company? Will I be happy or will I be thinking how I wished I would have changed the way I lived seven years ago during the last eclipse?

It makes us think in the long term, whether in months or years or decades. It’s so easy to get mired in the everyday aspects of life: getting to work on time and eating right and exercising. But I think it is so, so important to think about where you’re going and to take small (and large) steps to get you there. After all, do you really want to be the same person seven years from now? And what are you doing to get you where you want to go?

Until tomorrow.