Goals – Page 24

Categories: Goals

Third Quarter Goals – An Update

If you can believe it, we’re nearly halfway through the third quarter of 2016! Time is flying by. The first half of the quarter has been a flurry of freaking out about finding a place to live in September, freaking out about moving costs, and freaking out about living alone. It’s been fun times in this brain of mine.

But I also found a place to live (with a sweet rent price!). I have picked up freelancing work to ease the burden of moving costs. And, well, there’s not much I can do about my worries about living alone. I can only prepare myself and make sure I have lots of romance novels, comforting Netflix shows, and boxes of brownies on hand to help me during the transition. 🙂 Self-care, right?

Let’s take a look at the goals I set for this quarter and see how I’m doing!

1) Write at least 20,000 words in my novel.

As of today, I’ve written 8,000 words in my novel. It’s a little under where I should be at, but I’m not all that worried. I think I’m going to have a lot more time to focus on writing in September, as I’ll be on a social media and blogging break. I’ll make this goal!

2) Start a freelancing side hustle.

Yes! I am working with four different clients, two of which could potentially turn into long-term contracts. (Fingers crossed!) My weeknights and weekends have been a lot crazier since I’m now working an extra 5-10 hours a week on freelancing, but I can’t lie: I LOVE IT.

I mean, it’s exhausting, too. The hustling side of things can be really hard sometimes, which is why I don’t think I’d ever want to freelance full-time. I like the safety of a regular paycheck, having benefits, etc. But it’s nice as a way to earn some extra income to ease some of my financial burdens.

3) Have a smooth, seamless move into my new home.

Well, I haven’t moved yet so I can’t say if this goal will be a success or not. I hope so, but ugh, moving is just the worst, isn’t it? Especially because my lease ends on September 10 and I don’t get keys to my new place until September 9. So that Friday and Saturday will be crazy with moving and cleaning the old apartment. (I’m planning on taking the following Monday and Tuesday off work to decompress!) Hopefully, all goes well!

4) Take a social media/blogging sabbatical in September.

Another goal that I won’t complete until the second half of the quarter! I am really excited to take some time away from the internet for 30 days. It’s much needed and will be nice to just slow down and stop needing to document every moment, think about blog topics, or keep up with my social media feeds. (I love all of the above, but sometimes you just need a break, you know?)

5) Lose 10 lbs.

Ehhhh… no. I’ve been doing better with my eating habits and workouts, but I’m not seeing a ton of results on the scale. Oh, well. The important part is I’m trying, right?

6) Find a new primary care doctor or dentist.

I have made zero progress on this goal. Oops. But I’ll get this done. Promise.

Final thoughts:

Well, I’m considering the first half of this quarter a success because I managed to make progress on my biggest two goals: working on my novel and earning money via freelancing. And two of my goals can’t even get started until September, so I think I’m doing great! Go me! 🙂

Categories: Goals

Quarterly Goals | Third Quarter 2016

I’ve always loved the process of setting goals. It’s why I’m constantly doing so. In the past, my goal-setting M.O. has been to set long-term yearly goals and short-term monthly goals. But I’ve been toying with the idea of setting quarterly goals and doing away with yearly and monthly goals.

Yearly goals are fun because it’s always exciting to envision what I want out of the year and to set goals to make it happen. But I usually wind up looking at my list of goals three or six months later and thinking, Why did I want these goals in the first place?

Monthly goals allow for this constant refreshing of goals and envisioning all I want to get out of the month ahead. But then I feel so much pressure to achieve the goals and become disappointed in myself when I don’t put in the work.

So, for now, I am going to set quarterly goals. If I like this process, then I’ll keep setting quarterly goals. If not, no biggie. It’s just an experiment.

So, with all that said, here are the goals I want to achieve in the third quarter of 2016:

1) Write at least 20,000 words in my novel.

I’m trying to write 500 words a day, which means, ideally, I’d be able to write 45,000 words in three months. But I also know myself very well and I know that I don’t want to write myself into a hole if there are days (or weeks…) when writing falls to the wayside due to life and other projects. So, I am committing to 20,000 words, which is a little less than 1,700 words per week (or three days a week of writing 500-ish words). That feels completely doable!

2) Start a freelancing side hustle.

I have put this goal on the back burner for too damn long. I want to freelance. I know I have the skills and the experience to build a solid side business through my writing. I just haven’t put in the effort. A few weekends ago, I added a “Work With Me” page on my blog and pulled together some of my writing samples. And last weekend, I began to apply for freelance writing gigs and gathered a list of websites to pitch to. I’m so ready for this.

3) Have a smooth, seamless move into my new home.

My move will take place in September, and I am not looking forward to it! Ha. The packing, the unpacking, the physical act of moving from one apartment to another, the buying of new things… it can be so overwhelming and stressful. I just want to move to go smoothly and easily – and that my anxiety remains relatively at bay as I settled into my new home.

4) Take a social media/blogging sabbatical in September.

I like to take one month off social media and blogging every year, and I’ve decided to make that month September this year, since that month will be crazy. And I’m worried about my anxiety levels because moving usually wreaks havoc with them, so I figure that forcing myself away from being online will help me focus solely on the present moment.

5) Lose 10 lbs.

I continuously have a goal to lose weight, and maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I should focus more on building healthier habits, less on the result of weight loss. And yet… I like to set these weight loss goals for myself, even if I rarely achieve them. Health-wise, I need to lose weight. I really want to lose 30-40 lbs to be at a place where I feel good about myself and happy with my reflection. I want that for myself. I deserve that. It all starts with those first 10 lbs.

6) Find a new primary care doctor and dentist.

Oof… it’s been a while since I’ve had a regular doctor and dentist. I’m putting this on my list to hopefully inspire me to finally knock these tasks out. Adulting… not always my strong suit!

What’s something you’d like to accomplish over the next three months?

Categories: Goals

March Goals

Every month, I go back and forth about blogging about my monthly goals. It feels so silly sometimes. You know? Writing down arbitrary goals every month… chasing after these little dreams… sometimes succeeding, most times failing.

And yet… I love setting monthly goals. Even when it feels silly and first-world-problem-y. It’s just fun to chase after something. It’s fun to envision the little things I want to accomplish – some that are tied to bigger goals I have (like losing weight or writing my novel), while others are just small, one-off goals.

So, monthly goals are here to stay. And here’s what I want to accomplish in March:

1) Spend five hours weekly working on my novel

I barely spent any time on my novel in February, mostly because I hit a roadblock with my novel that made me think I needed to change my novel’s entire plot. And when I did create a new plot, I just… hit a creative wall. I didn’t feel like writing and, quite honestly, it broke my heart to give up the novel I had (mostly) written. I love that original novel and I finally figured out a plan of how I can keep that manuscript. Here’s to lots of writing in March!

2) Watch a documentary on Netflix

I never watch documentaries because I’m either using my TV time to catch up on my DVR or binge on Gilmore Girls. But I want to watch something this month – anybody have any recs?

3) Use MyFitnessPal daily and exercise three times a week

I set a quarterly goal to lose 5 lbs and… I’m a few lbs from doing so. I know I can easily lose the weight as long as I stick to eating well and exercising. So, logging my food on MFP is exactly what I need to do!

4) Find out my Enneagram type.

I love everything about personality tests, and the Enneagram is something I keep hearing about. A few months ago, an Enneagram coach was interviewed on The Lively Show and it was fascinating. Everyone knows about the Myers-Briggs personality assessment (I’m an ISFJ!), but while that test simply tells us what we are, the Enneagram is billed as showing us why we are the way we are. I am so here for that. It’s time to figure out my type!

What’s one thing you want to accomplish in March?

Categories: Goals

February Goals

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to blog about my monthly goals this year, mainly because I feel like these posts can be a little tedious to read. And I sort of revamped my goal-setting process for this year so that my monthly goals reflect my yearly intentions.

Alas, per Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies framework (which is how you approach goals and form habits), I am an Obliger, which means I find more success with my goals when I have external accountability. Hence, writing my goals out on my blog.

Here’s what I’m hoping to accomplish in February:

1) Write 20,000 words of my novel

This serves my main priority goal, which is to finally finish my novel so it’s ready for agents to look at in early 2017! I want to be finished writing the novel by the end of June, so I have five months to do so – that equals out to 20,000 words per month. I’ve written 50,000 words in a month twice, so 20,000 words should be a piece of cake, right?

2) Go dairy-free for a week

This serves my goal of figuring out what is causing my chronic congestion. I am not sure if my chronic congestion is related to my diet since I was 100% healthy before moving to my new apartment in Tampa, but I want to exhaust all of my possibilities before resorting to an ENT specialist. I honestly didn’t think I ate a lot of dairy until I started examining my diet and realizing everything I would have to cut out. Eeks. It’s only for a week, though! And I can still have Dr. Pepper. 😉

3) Begin looking for a home church

This does not actually fulfill a yearly intention, but finding a church family is something that kept appearing in my worksheets during the Holiday Council. I need a home church badly. I would love to go back to my old church but, eh, that’s a 35-minute drive away and I’m not sure I’m willing to do that drive on a weekly basis. I’ve found a few churches in Tampa to try out – I just need to get over my fear of being the new kid and go.

4) Drink 16 oz of water daily and exercise three times a week

These goals serve as my weight loss goal for the year. I want to lose 20 lbs, but mostly, I want to get into the habit of regular exercise and drinking lots of water. Obviously, my water intake is painfully low right now as I am struggling with just two glasses a day! As the saying goes, a little, little by little, makes a lot. Taking small steps can lead to big change.

5) Visit Sunken Gardens

One of my yearly intentions is to take a monthly adventure, big or small. This month, I want to mark off one of the tasks on my Tampa Bay Project list and visit Sunken Gardens. I think I’ll propose a lady date with my mom for this one!

Categories: Goals

My Goal-Setting Process for 2016

I love goals. I think that’s quite apparent from this blog, as I set yearly goals and monthly goals and I have been doing so since I started writing here in 2009. I just think there’s something really fun about setting goals, about envisioning the things you want to achieve.

I don’t set goals because there’s any part of me that needs to be fixed. On a day to day basis, I am generally happy with my life and proud of what I have accomplished with the odds that have always been stacked against me.

But life isn’t perfect and I’m not the best version of myself yet. Can I just admit that and admit that yes, I want to be better tomorrow than I am today. I have areas of my life that I need to work on. Some of that work will happen in therapy and some of that work happens with me taking serious, deliberate action to achieve my goals in order to live my best life.

Lately, though, I feel as though I have not been as intentional with the goals I set nor have I been putting in the work to achieve the goals I make. It feels as if I’m setting these goals just to set them, you know?

I want to change that in 2016. One of my themes for this year is “deliberate action.” What I mean by this is I want to be very deliberate and mindful about how I am spending my time and my energy. I want to set goals that get me closer to where I want to be. I want to spend my time doing the things that bring me joy, peace, and fulfillment. I have very specific plans for this year and I want to come to the end of it feeling good about the choices I made and the goals I accomplished.

So, I made a list of long-term yearly goals. And then I took that list of goals and I figured out what I wanted to focus on during the first quarter of the year. Because I can’t focus on all of the goals. I can only focus on some of them.

After making my yearly goals, I drafted up a little worksheet to brainstorm what goals I wanted to attack during the first quarter. (My nerdiness when it comes to goals has reached new heights this year, and it makes me the happiest.)

So, let’s talk about the brainstorming session. I started with my main goal, which is to finish my novel and prepare it for publication. (Side note: even though I had written more than 70k words in my novel last year, I felt the need to change up my story a bit because the conflict between my two main characters didn’t feel authentic. It’s going to require some major rewrites, but the story will be much stronger because of it.)

I know I want to have my novel completely written and ready for the lengthy editing process by the end of June, which puts me at writing 100,000 words between now and then. But I also need to rework the outline I had written, which is my focus for January. So, I decided that my Quarter 1 goal for this category is to finish outlining this new version of my novel and to write 40,000 words. (Obviously, Quarter 2’s goal is already set in stone: write 60,000 words.)

From there, I broke this large quarterly goal into three monthly goals. So, this is what it ended up looking like:

Now, it was easy to figure out my focus for my main goal because it’s just one goal. What does this goal-setting process look like for the other categories that have multiple goals I want to complete? Well, this is where the fun starts!

Let’s focus on the health and fitness goals I want to achieve this year. This year, I want to lose 20 lbs, drink more water and less soda, exercise consistently, start therapy, and to figure out what is causing my nighttime congestion. That’s a lot of goals! But it feels less crazy when I break it down into what exactly I want to achieve this quarter and how it works out on a monthly basis.

First, I knew I needed to set a goal of losing 5 lbs in order to stay on pace to lose 20 lbs this year. I also wanted to start working on my exercise and daily water drinking habits, as these are the two habits I want to really focus on in 2016. I also had to start figuring out this dang nighttime congestion this quarter because I am very tired of it. So, with all that in mind, here’s what I came up with:

So, you can see that I’ve broken down these goals into manageable, actionable steps. Step One is January, in which I am solely focused on drinking 16 oz of water a day and exercising three times a week. Baby, baby, baby steps.

Step Two in February adds in using a neti pot (in the hopes this clears up my nighttime congestion) and to research therapists.

Step Three in March adds in the super simple, itty-bitty goal of making an appointment with a therapist (as well as continuing with drinking water, exercising weekly, and using the neti pot).

It is my hope that by making simple additions to my diet – for this quarter, drinking water daily and exercising – it will lead to slow and steady weight loss. I’m only shooting to lose 5 lbs this quarter! That’s not even 2 lbs a month… a completely doable goal. (This is why I’m aiming to only lose 20 lbs this year, even though that will take me less than halfway to my goal weight. I don’t need to lose all my weight at once. Being 20 lbs lighter would be amazing and it won’t take huge, sweeping, drastic changes to get me there.)

I want to be much more intentional with the goals I am setting each month and to make sure that they lead me to complete the majority of the yearly goals I set. To be honest, there are really three main goals for me this year: to finish my novel, to lose 20 lbs, and to build an emergency fund of $1,000. Those are the goals that would leave me feeling majorly successful if I can mark them as complete by the end of 2016.

Okay, so all that said, what are my goals for January? Well, I have more than a few, but I won’t be sharing all of them on the blog. But here are some of the goals I want to achieve this month:

I want to finish outlining my novel so that I have a good idea of how I plan to rewrite my story.
I want to exercise three times a week for 30 minutes at a time.
I want to drink 16 oz of water per day, using my new handy-dandy water cup.
I want to re-read the first Harry Potter novel and I want to watch Forrest Gump for the first time (I know, I know – how have I not seen this movie yet?).
I want to get in the habit of using my planner and budget notebook on a daily basis so that I feel more in control of my goals, my schedule, and my money.

What’s a goal you’re working towards this month?