I love having monthly goals back into my life. There’s something about the ordinariness of them that I need and I like ticking off specific goals in my bullet journal. I don’t have a ton going on in February, for which I’m grateful. My grandpa is having back surgery, my mom is hosting her annual Super Bowl party, and I’m going to try to get out to some trails for long walks. (The weather has been unseasonably gorgeous lately.) I also need to file my tax return and it will be my first time declaring freelance earnings, which has me all sorts of nervous. (Anybody with experience with this want to help a girl out? Please?!)
Anyway, let’s get into my monthly goals recap! Here’s what I hoped to accomplish in January:
Write 2,000 words weekly in my fiction novel. Complete! I’m so thankful for my weekly writing dates with my friend, M. We usually try to meet on Sunday mornings and I’m able to knock out my 2,000 words within two hours with her. And then she forces me to read aloud to her what I’ve written. I’m currently at 10,000 words in the novel and I’m enjoying the process so very much.
Walk 5,000 steps daily. Mostly complete. There were a few days when I didn’t hit my step goal (and two days when I didn’t wear my Fitbit at all, whoops), but generally, it wasn’t too difficult to get to 5,000 steps. On particularly sedentary days at work, it forced me to go for a walk in the evening, which is never a bad thing!
Update my “Work With Me” page on my blog. Not complete. I forgot I even made this goal in January. Oops.
Submit one personal essay. Not complete. My weekends in January ended up being pretty busy and I was given a freelancing assignment that I had to prioritize over other writing (and paid writing > unpaid writing, sorry not sorry). I do have a great idea for a personal essay, so I just need to find the time to write it.
Work out three times a week. Mostly complete? Ish? I fell apart towards the end of the month (whenever I’m feeling particularly anxious, it’s hard for me to exercise, even though I know that’s exactly what will help me), but it’s a goal I’m constantly striving toward.
Not too bad! Three-ish out of five completed, and I’m happy about that because January ended up being a crazier month than normal. February should be a bit calmer, and here are the goals I’m setting:
No pizza February. Since I really want 2017 to be the year I finally get my health under control and lose some damn weight for once, I’m taking measures to slowly cut out the bad stuff from my diet. January, I gave up fast food and, aside from one slip-up early in the month due to not planning properly, I didn’t have any fast food. February, I want to give up pizza because I eat it, no joke, at least 5-6 times a week. If I order a pizza for dinner, that usually yields leftovers for 2-3 days and then, last year, I fell into this habit of eating pizza rolls whenever I didn’t want to make dinner and end up eating those at least twice a week. It’s just… it’s bad, you guys. Too much pizza! I want to cut it out completely for 28 days and then allow it back into my life but with restrictions. As in, I can only eat pizza from non-chain restaurants. No more Dominos. No more Pizza Hut. Their pizza isn’t even good pizza anyway!
Update my “Work With Me” page on my blog. This is back on the list for February because it’s a task that really needs to be completed. Fingers crossed I don’t forget about it!
Work out three times a week and walk 5,000 steps daily. I’ll probably have some sort of exercise/step goal every month because I need the accountability of coming to my blog and reporting. At this point, I just want to go for three long walks a week and maybe in March, I’ll finally join a gym so I can start getting in more high-intense workouts.
Stick to a 9:30PM bedtime. I feel my best when I go to bed early and lately, I haven’t been shutting the lights off until 11PM or later. Sometimes, this is due to working at my computer until late in the evening or just spending too much time scrolling through my social media feeds on my phone when I should be turning off the light. I’m committing to a 9:30PM bedtime in February and I know I’ll feel so much better for having done so.
Write 10,000 words in my novel. This equals to 2,500 words per week, which is a little more than I wrote in January. Since I can usually write 2,000 during my weekly writing date with M., I’ll just need to schedule extra writing time during the week… only about an hour or so, which is totally doable.
Do you have any goals for February?
That is great that you have this writing partner! I would be intimidated to read my writing out loud, but if you want to get published, you have to get comfortable with things like that so how great that you have a friend to read your content to!
My February focus is my relationship with Phil. We have a great relationship but there is always room for improvement. I want us to eat at the dinner table 1/week (we are guilty of mostly eating on the couch), I want to work on relaxing more when he is around and my goal is to not be on my phone or computer after 8 pm as that is a big distraction for me! I also need to file my taxes. I am usually excited to do this but this year I am not for some reason!
Mostly this just made me want pizza…!
J/k, good luck this month. 🙂
Good luck girl! You got this!
My goals for this month are to save more money, less eating out or ordering in. And definitely more working out as well. We can do this, woo!
Going to bed early is my nemesis. I’m such a night owl & getting in bed early is so difficult for me! Good luck with these goals.
This month I have to start searching for wedding venues (eeeep!) & find a new daily exercise thing to do. I was doing Yoga with Adrienne so I need something to replace that. Also, I’m trying to just… get a handle on my life? Even throughout January I’ve still been flying by the seat of my pants & doing things last-minute, so I need to figure out a way to get more done.
Great goals for February! Looking forward to reading more about the progress with your novel!
As for me, I would like to look into joining a book club (or even starting one), stay consistently on track with my health goals, and nourish and improve my relationship with my boyfriend even more. I feel like February will be a calmer month too. Although January was relatively slow for me, some bad news, being annoyingly sick the entire month, and plans every weekend got to be draining.
On the upside, it’s Valentines this month which means dates of all kinds (boyfriend and girlfriends)!
You’re doing so great with your monthly goals. I think this really works for you.
My goals this month are to continue with high water intake, run three times a week (including one long three-hour run per weekend), yoga every night (starting tonight, I did it a lot in January but dropped off on 2/2 for some reason), and purge all the clothes in the house, my nightstand, and the microwave stand (which has an insane amount of paperwork in there for no good reason). I’ve already done my dresser and closet and yielded three trash bags of goodwill stuff. Onto the rest!