November Goals

With two days left of October, I’m here to recap the goals I set this month. I was mostly successful (3/5) and the goals I didn’t complete, didn’t get done for good reason. Let’s review!

1) Go on a spending freeze. Complete! (Mostly.) While I wasn’t 100% successful, I did spend a whole lot less this month and consciously chose not to buy things, even if I wanted them. And I consider that a win!

2) Order Warby Parker sunglasses try-ons. Complete! And I ordered myself a new pair of prescription sunglasses yesterday. I can’t wait for them to get here! I have a little over $400 left in my FSA for this year that I need to “use or lose” and these sunglasses took out a large chunk of that money. Which is good! (I don’t really want to buy ibuprofen and contact solution in bulk just to spend the money, lol.)

3) Limit my sugar intake. Complete-ish. I did two great things this month to help with my sugar intake: I started having a smoothie every day and switched out my normally sugary cereal breakfast for eggs and sausage. (I do want to switch from sausage to a big serving of fruit, but baby steps!) I definitely notice that I’m eating a lot less chocolate and sugar as a whole. I could still work on my soda intake, though.

4) Schedule a slew of doctor’s appointments. Not complete. I was hemming and hawing about this goal, and then everything changed with my company in mid-October, giving me a whole new health insurance plan starting in November. So I decided to wait until November to take care of these visits.

5) Prepare myself for NaNoWriMo 2020. Not complete. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about novel writing and whether or not this is even a dream I want to attempt anymore. The thought of not forcing myself to sit at a computer and bang out a novel feels… freeing. But it also makes me sad. So maybe there’s still some desire there? I don’t know. I’ve been talking this over with my writing partner who has given me a lot of great advice (mainly: you don’t have to do NaNoWriMo, you know. You could write, like, 100 words a week if that’s all you want to do.) and spending a lot of time thinking about what I really want from my creative life. Is it to write a novel? Or is there something else brewing inside that I can’t give space to grow because I’m so focused on this goal of writing a novel? I will probably write a more coherent blog post about this once I’ve done more thinking and journaling about this, but that’s where I’m at right now. I will not be doing NaNoWriMo 2020, and that feels like a weight off my shoulders.

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November should be an interesting month. For one, it’s my birthday month! While I’m less than jazzed about my birthday this year, I’m going to take the time to enjoy the day as much as I can. My birthday falls on the Saturday after Thanksgiving this year, so at least I don’t have to share it with a holiday! I’m also working my first election and that will be a very interesting experience (if only I didn’t have to deal with all this anticipatory anxiety beforehand—I am not sleeping well because of it, argh). And November, god willing, will involve a Biden/Harris election win and we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Please, please, please, please, please. Here are the goals I’m setting this month!

1) Schedule a dentist appointment and my annual well woman’s visit. Both of these visits will be free with my new insurance plan that kicks in on Sunday, so it makes sense to get them done this year since it’s been almost 10 months since my last dental cleaning (!) and over a year since my last well-women’s exam.

2) Work the polls! I’m excited/nervous about the opportunity to be a poll worker in this election. It’s going to be a long day, but I’m looking forward to being able to help out my community and experience this most important part of the voting process. Poll workers are so important, even more so in this election!

3) Make a new dessert for Thanksgiving. I thought this might be a fun goal to pursue this month! I tend to stick to my tried-and-true favorites when it comes to cooking and baking, but it’s fun to experiment from time to time. Hopefully, I’ll discover a new favorite recipe!

4) Go for a walk outside every day. I feel so much better when I get outside for a midday walk, even if it’s 100 degrees outside. I need the vitamin D! There have been days where I don’t go outside at all, and that’s just not good for my physical or mental health. I hope that by challenging myself for a daily walk (even if it’s just 10-15 minutes!), I can develop a new habit for myself.

5) Start my Christmas shopping. Ideally, I’d love to start and finish my Christmas shopping in November, but we’ll see if I have the willpower to not continue to buy things off my family’s wish lists in December. But I definitely need to get things started, and I think I could have at least the bulk of it completed this month.

Do you have any November goals?