A little more than 6 months ago, I sat down at my computer and came up with a list of resolutions for the New Year. I’ve never been big on setting resolutions since I know they’re scoffed at and never accomplished. By the third week of January, you fall back onto your old habits and forget what you even said you wanted to do.
The first year I ever really sat down, thought it through, and came up with a list of resolutions for the new year, was in 2009. I came up with the cute idea of “9 Resolutions for 2009”. Unfortunately, I didn’t achieve any of the resolutions I came up with. Last year was a pretty mediocre year for me and I really tried to focus on areas of my life that I felt the most out of control with, and what I needed to do to fix them.
Area #1: Finances
I have three credit card bills. Credit limits on them are: $300, $500, and $2,500. The credit card with the largest limit, we’ll call it PIMA, I haven’t paid for in a good 6 months. My minimum payment is through the roof, I owe more than $2,500, and it’s sitting in a collection agency. This is never a scenario I thought I would be in. Ever. My parents dealt with the same money problems and I always swore I would never be like them. For now, though, PIMA is a credit card I pretend I don’t have.
The other two are much more manageable. I’m working on paying off the lowest one first but I should probably tell you that this credit card is from Target. Meaning I can go into Target and be all, “I HAVE FREE MONEY! WOOHOO!” I mean, you all know how tough it is not to spend over $50 at Target when you don’t have a credit card…imagine having a credit card to be used solely at Target. Earlier this year, I had my balance about $100 away from being paid off. And then I used it. I have a little less than $200 until it’s paid off, but it probably won’t get paid off until September at the earliest. Once I do get this paid off, I’m cutting it up and getting rid of it for good. It’s really a useless credit card and charges an insane finance charge. As you aim for financial freedom and cut unnecessary expenses, you could convert hourly to annual salary to help you better manage your income and budget effectively.
My middle credit card was the one I received from my bank when I opened at checking account in May 2006. Up until this past year, I’ve been good about using it and then paying off the balance the next month. And then things got a little crazy with me being out of work for 6 months in 2008 and I’m still hovering just about the maxed-out zone. I want to get this one back up to it’s $500 balance and this is the only credit card, once I pay off PIMA, that I want to keep. The balance is one where I can’t go crazy and rack up thousands of dollars, plus it has a lot more incentive to keep than do Target/PIMA. I’m hoping to have this one taken care of by the end of the year. Those who are dealing with a significant amount of debts may partner with a financial advisor who understands liquidity constraints.
Area #2: Faith
I’ve had long and detailed blog posts, discussing this portion of my life. Suffice it to say, I’m a lazy Christian. I have faith, I know what I believe in, but I don’t put forth the effort in the relationship. I just meander along, attending church and reading my Bible once a month but that’s about it. I don’t pray (unless I have to), I don’t have a consistent Bible study life, and I don’t do anything to grow my faith.
I also think I’m suffering from the Perfect Christian Syndrome, where I want every area of my faith walk to be perfect. I want to be totally involved in the World, totally involved in church, and totally head-over-heels for God. I need to slow down, remind myself that I am human, and focus on the little things.
Area #3: Health
Here’s the part where I roll my eyes, bang my head against the desk, and whine that “fat is in.” While I have great weeks where the pounds seem to be flying off, my clothes feel amazing on my body, and I have no temptation whatever…lately it seems to be one temptation after the other. I’ve gained about 4 pounds in the past 2 weeks. I’m giving myself headaches because I’m thinking so hard about not giving into the temptations to where I just say “Screw it” and eat the junk.
I’ve come to realize how dependent I am upon Weight Watchers. The weeks where there’s no meeting scheduled due to holidays, I fall apart. I try to be good, but then I realize there’s no weigh-in so it’s a free-for-all. (And by the way, be good? Why do I call it being good? Shouldn’t being good be normal for me?!) I was thinking of stopping WW and trying to do it on my own and be motivated by my own accomplishments, not because Phil’s going to weigh me in on Sunday morning and I do not want to hear, “You’re up a little this week,” one more time. But after a pretty bad day of eating junk, I know I need WW. If it keeps me healthy, then it’s worth it.
I realize my blog seems to be turning into some sort of goal journal where I just write down what I want to accomplish in the next 30 days or whatever time frame I give it. I was hesitant to write this post because it seems to be repetitive of the last few weeks. But I did it because I’m done with setting goals I have no intention of achieving. I need to focus on these three areas first, making small changes that lead to bigger ones, before I can figure out other parts of my life.
So here we go: I’m going to write down 3 goals, each relating to the 3 areas, with no time frame giving for completing them. I’m just going to keep these goals in mind and I won’t set a new one until I have either achieved the goal or feel as if I did.
Area #1: Finance
I want to pay off my Target credit card. When this is paid off, I will focus on setting a new goal in this area. For now, my only focus is Target.
Area #2: Faith
I want to have a consistent Bible study time. Even though I know there are other areas I need to work on, for now I want to just focus on getting in 15-20 minutes a day with God. Once I feel that this is a natural part of my day, I can focus on other goals.
Area #3: Health
I want to be a consistent exercise-r. Those weeks where I just completely fall off the wagon, I seem to find it easy to fall off the exercise wagon as well. I want to exercise 5 days a week for at least an hour, even on those weeks where I know I’m going to gain weight on the scale. This is a health journey, not a weight loss journey. I need to remember that.
Who knows when I’ll update again?! I promise to wait awhile before I talk about my goals again. I want to have at least accomplished one of these before I set new ones. The first goal will be easy to know when I accomplished it, but the other two will take a lot of self-awareness on my end to know when I feel I’ve formed these habits.
The bottom line is, these are the goals I’m setting for myself with no timeline in place. I think it will do wonders for my happiness and well-being if I can achieve them and form habits from them.
I find that tackling little things always makes it easier to achieve a goal. If it looks like too big a problem they you just get paralyzed (or I do).
I love setting goals, especially making a bunch of small goals on the path to achieving something larger. I used to keep them to myself, but all too often, I'd eventually forget about them. Now that I blog, I find that sharing my goals with others not only motivates me, it helps to keep me on track and hold me accountable.
I'm a pretty obsessive goal setter. I used to keep them to myself, but now that I have a blog, I'm pretty public about them.
I am absolutely terrible at writing down and detailing my goals. It stems from my fear of failure – if I set up goals, then I have something to fail at. Even though I've put some general goals on my blogs every now and then, I rarely take them seriously.
Your goals seem very reasonable, which is good because it's easier to conquer smaller goals first and get positive energy from being successful. Good luck!
I think it's smart of you to break these things down into smaller, more achievable goals. We're all rooting for you! 🙂
Can you cut up the card BEFORE paying it off? Might help with not using it 🙂 I froze mine once until it was paid off. True story!
As for the exercise – you really HAVE to FORCE YOURSELF to do it until it becomes habit. Three years later I finally am at a point where if I DON'T sweat every single day, I feel gross. It takes time to get there though. I think an hour a day for 5 days a week is a lot to start out with. I think you should either aim for an hour 4 days a week, or 30-45 minutes 5-6 days a week. And then just literally FORCE yourself to do it! Don't go home from work until you've worked out. Get up and do it in the morning. Workout while supper is cooking. Whatever!
Good luck 🙂
I think you know what my thoughts on goals are 🙂 Which reminds me – I should be off reading or writing or exercising!!
Way to go on tackling your goals! especially when it comes to money, there's nothing worse than burying your head and pretending they don't exist. Just keep plugging away and DON'T rack up new charges!
Good luck on achieving all your goals! My goals for now are very short sighted because we have a big move coming up and I just want to get through that. Normally, I would have more goals but I can only focus on one thing right now. I guess I need to go pack for the move now. 🙂
I overate and it hurts my belly. and you've motivated me to get off my butt and well not work out since I'm at Alan's and no work out gear, but go use his free car vacuum his apartment provides. burn a little calories and clean the inside of my car? which hasn't been cleaned in over a year!
i love goals. I've set a long list of resolutions every year and usually hit at least 50-80 percent of them. 2008 was a good year for resolutions. finished all my goals up to the day before the new year. last year i was unemployed for 5 months so my financial goals suffered.
thanks for another motivational push!
It sounds like you have some really great goals! If your credit card is with a collections agency though, I would really 110% that you pay that one off first. If you need to, I would go get a consolidation loan at your bank and put all of your credit cards into one loan pot & pay them off together on a regular basis so the card with collections won't really hurt your credit rating. If that's not an option, I would look at which has the highest interest rate and work on that one first. <3
Good luck 🙂
If I tell the world a goal then in my mind, I HAVE to do it because I'm the real goal is not to fail in front of others (i.e. my half). As for the credit card, go ahead and cut up the Target credit card now…it'll keep you from racking up more charges. When Matt and I first started dating, he had three credit cards and I made him cut up two of them. It was ridiculous…he'd just put things on his cc then pay the finance fee and usually a late fee. When we got engaged, the bills got turned over to me so we at least avoided the late fees. Now, I'm happy to say his cc is at a zero balance and only used in case of emergency…or when he pulls out the wrong card and then we have a $1.87 charge for a soda a the gas station-men!
I know the feeling with the credit cards. I only have one and it's to its limit and I don't even want to tell you what that limit is but it's high enough to be scary, especially when I add that to our other financial stuff AND student loans. Yikes.
As for your health, you should seriously read Such A Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster if you haven't already. Not only is it funny but it really spoke to me about becoming dependent on a plan (such as WW) and doing things for yourself.
My only goal right now is to get on top of our money so that we aren't living strictly paycheck to paycheck. Once I get on that I'll work on other goals but money is my number one priority right now.
I can't give any advice on finances. I've never had CC debt–paranoid about it and get paid enough to live on, which I am grateful for.
As for faith, have you tried different types of things? I used to force myself to have "quiet times" (bleck, I hate that term) and then started doing my own thing: journaling, meditating, sitting in silence. It might help to find something that really helps you connect, even if it isn't traditional bible study.
As for health, I really recommend Geneen Roth's "Women, Food, and God." It's a great book and helps uncover the underlying issues of our obsession with weight and dieting.
I'm totally with you in the finances department. It's so easy to let things get out of control. Money has taken over our lives, it sucks! Good luck though, if I can get out of debt you can too! 🙂
I think goals are good! It seems like you have a lot of clarity about where you want to improve and that's such a huge part of getting there.
Good luck with all of them!
Good for you for setting these goals! I'm a big fan of taking little things, working on them, then working on more little things because that is WAY easier than working on one huge thing. So kudos for you! How's it going?