I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It was so nice to take a little break and recharge those batteries. I definitely needed some down time and Max paw swears that he did too, although between you and me, I don’t believe him. Max lives a privileged life. 🙂 I have no idea who to blame for it either!
Health and Wealth Challenge Update
I am overall pleased with my results. To my great surprise, I met the exercise component of the challenge Every Single Week. This is where I figured I would fail, given my well documented distaste of exercise. Granted, the requirement was minimal but I always exercised longer than 10 minutes, even if it wasn’t a super heavy cardio workout.
I’m okay with my basic walks because what I wanted to happen did: I consistently moved my body with minimal complaining, whining and belly-aching by me. This is a victory. The exercise needs to ramp up because in order to really burn calories and lose weight, I need to get my heart rate up, but I still very pleased by this accomplishment.
The wealth side was a bit more hit and miss. However, I did save some money and took action to help earn money, both short and long-term. I would have liked to see more happen here, so this will remain a continued area of focus.
November Writing Challenge Update
I did not meet my goal to write 5 times a week for a minimum of 1 hour. I did the first week, but after that it was significantly less. Yet, I’m actually okay with my results.
Why? Because I did write creatively and started a new writing project that excites me. Ultimately, that was my goal. I wanted to get more habitual about my writing, which really didn’t happen, but is something that I will continue to work toward. Having a project in the works, is strong motivation for me.
What I Learned from Setting Short-Term Goals
I had a few key takeaways from these challenges that will really help me as I start setting goals for 2015.
- Don’t Do Too Much at Once. It’s hard to go from zero to 60 mph in a second, which is essentially what I tried to do. It’s better to prioritize my goals and avoid feeling overwhelmed.
- Be Willing to Adjust. I realized fairly quickly that I would not achieve my writing goal. In the past, I would have given myself a mental flogging and quit. This time I did neither. I accepted it and asked myself what I could reasonably do. I adjusted my goal and moved forward.
- Have an End Goal, Then Break It Down. A big goal can seem impossible. Breaking it down helps out tremendously, however if you create too many steps, it again seems overwhelming. But break it down to 2-3 steps to achieve each week, that is doable.
- Most Importantly — Know Why You Set the Goal. Why does it matter so much? Why are you willing to make sacrifices, change deeply rooted habits/beliefs for this goal? My friend, Tonya, had a great post, Answering the Question: Why Am I Really Doing This? that I highly recommend. I am guilty of setting goals that are important without being extremely clear as to why they matter. And then because I don’t know (besides a general sense) it’s easy from me to give-up on them or succumb to excuses.
I’m really glad that I took on these challenges, even if they weren’t an unequivocal success. I still feel good about the results and even better about my ability to accomplish my goals overall, which is what truly matters in the end. So all in all, Tanya is #Winning again.
Tanya