Goal Setting

Goal Setting

I said in my last blog post that I was going to for sure post once a week this year—maintaining a solid schedule of Reflection Sundays. And then I put a caveat on it, barring any personal tragedies. While I haven’t had any personal tragedies (and not even anything closely resembling one)… it is easy to try to make tragedies out of small inconveniences in the name of procrastination and justification. Oh, what a dangerous game we can play in our own minds.

I’m sharing this with you in the name of being open and honest and authentic. Because I am certain that I am not the only one who does this—tack on little loopholes to goals so that when we don’t attain them it’s okay. Right? Tell me I’m not alone in this.

So here’s to not letting the big voice of rationalization take control. The lies I tell myself to make it okay will not win.

Like most people at the start of the New Year, I set out to make some goals. I detailed some of my bigger/macro goals in last week’s blog. What I didn’t share was some of the smaller/micro (that make some of the macro goals happen) goals. And that’s mostly because I didn’t accomplish most of them on January 1. Which is pretty sad. I couldn’t even make it one day!

But instead of just saying, “Welp, I guess that’s that and I’ll just go back to the way things were!” I’ve decided to re-evaluate and restructure those goals.

I haven’t written 1,000 words a day. I’ve decided that any writing, outside of work emails, counts now. Once I get into that habit I will amp it up a little. It was kind of silly to assume that I could go from a binge writing lifestyle (not writing at all, and then pumping out 50,000 words, and then back to not writing at all) to a steady, pretty hefty, habit overnight. I think that if I allow myself the time to get the writing muscle warmed up and the creative juices flowing, I will be able to get myself to a minimum of 1,000 words a day. I just need to give myself the time to get there.

I haven’t done something Mary Kay related everyday. Which is just ridiculous because I’ve already set this bar as LOW AS IT CAN GO. How do I revamp an already loosy-goosy goal? I’ve decided that this one needs to have more structure to it, and it probably needs to have a tangible reward attached to it. And that reward can’t hinge to one of my other goals. The reward cannot be, “Once I do one Mary Kay thing, THEN I can write for the day.” This won’t work for two reasons: 1. If I don’t get this done it derails my other goal, which is absolutely unacceptable. 2. Even though I like writing, it’s just another task and it creates a cycle of working to work to work to work to… you get the idea. And it’s exhausting. So I’m not doing that. I’m still trying to form the shape of this, so if you have any ideas of a good reward system, I would love to hear them!

I haven’t exercised everyday. If I’m being really honest, I haven’t exercised at all.  Clearly the goal isn’t working, but it’s still something I want to do. So I’ve been tracking my steps this past week, and my new goal is to double my average number of steps. My daily average for the last seven days was 4,600 steps. Which for some people may seem like a lot and for others may seem pitiful. I have a desk job that sometimes means moving around a fair amount. Other days it means sitting and staring at a monitor for hours. I do try to take laps around the office a couple times a day just to stretch my legs and clear my head. Anyway, my goal for this week is to take 9,000 steps a day. Once I get used to that, I’ll amp it up again.

If you all are interested in hearing how this next week goes, I think I’ll include it at the end of my next blog. It would be a good way for me to stay accountable.

I’m choosing to keep forward momentum.

I’m choosing to make 2018 a year of better habits.

I’m choosing to keep my goals.