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!
I stopped eating dairy for about a year, I think, and it was definitely an adjustment at first but it wasn’t too bad. Granted, I can’t have gluten either so that does really restrict things and I found eating out difficult. But there are lots of good recipes out there and you still have quite a bit so hopefully the week of removing it won’t be to bad. I hope you get to the bottom of what is causing your congestion, though. My hunch is that it’s allergy related? But hopefully you figure out what it is so you can start to feel better!
Since I went gluten-free 2 years ago, I find that when I DO eat gluten I get really congested. May be worth a week or two of going off gluten after the dairy experiment? Has your roomie had any issues since moving into the apartment?
I did not accomplish my January goals. I haven’t set February goals. I haven’t blogged. Basically, I suck.
Lady dates are the best! I enjoy exploring our city, and it’s something that we really need to do more of. We do it well when the kiddos are here but no so well the rest of the time. Doesn’t help that no-spend month + cold = I feel like we are under house arrest to an extent.
Curious to hear about how your no-dairy trial goes!
The most important part for me of cutting out gluten and dairy recently has been meal planning and meal prep on the weekend. Actually I’ve found it much much easier to cut out dairy than gluten!! I’ve had a few minor slip ups with both, but overall I’m feeling a lot less bloated. It’s too early for me to see if it’s really going to make an impact on my health but I’m optimistic!
I think giving up dairy is a good idea! When I did Whole30, I read in the book that allergies/congestion/etc. is related to dairy consumption, so I’m trying to keep my dairy intake low during the spring bc that’s when I get really bad allergies. I hope this works for both of us!