goal setting – MamaBlogga

12 for 30 check in!

So after my birthday last month, I decided to set 12 goals for the next 12 months, until I turn 30. (I honestly didn’t care about turning 30 until it was upon me.) And today I’m checking in for my first month’s goal: Lose some weight (and get a scale so I can figure out how muchâ€¦)

I can tell you straight up I failed at the second half of that goal. Never got a scale. But I did make some changes in my life to work on the first half:

I started paying a lot more attention to how I eat. This included keeping a food journal for a week, cutting down on snacking (especially snacking on chocolate chips!), looking for low-calorie but still healthy meals, and learning more about portion sizes nutrition. However, I’m not good at depriving myself for very long, so if I want to keep this up, I’ll definitely need to build in some sort of treat into my usual schedule.

I exercised. Ryan got a free subscription to Fitness magazine, and I’ve tried a couple of the toning workouts in there, which are supposed to be coupled with 2-3 aerobic/cardio sessions a week (and a healthy diet—also tried some of the recipes). The biggest drawback, aside from not being able to walk the first week, was that my appointed exercise time took the place of my appointed scripture study time. I have a really limited time to do those things (if Rachel catches me doing situps, she takes it as an invitation to sit on my stomach), so I need to figure out a better way to balance.

I had a goal in mind. I was asked to co-present the Best Novel by a New Author award at the Whitneys this year, so I wanted to look good. But more than that, I was tired of feeling fat. I didn’t look particularly fat, but I wanted to feel better.

And on that scale (since I don’t have any other kind, LOL), I do feel better (and I feel fat less often!). I think most of the changes food-wise will stick for a while now that I’m more cognizant of my diet. I’ll still have to figure out a good exercise schedule to make sure that sticks. (It really doesn’t help that I have to wait 2-3 hours after eating or drinking anything to exercise or I get stomach cramps!)

And for my May goal . . . I don’t know! I’m just trying to get through my big writing conference this weekend—then I can think about the rest of the month.

What goals are you working on?

Photo by Sean MacEntee

30 by 30 (or not)

So on Monday, I turned 29. I have a good friend who’s a few months older than me, and just over a year before her impending 30th birthday, she set a goal to go on 30 dates (among other fun goals).

Don’t worry, Ryan, I’m not setting the same goal.

I was thinking about coming up with 30 goals to accomplish by the time I’m 30, but . . . we’re down to 363 days here and my biggest weakness with goals is setting them waaay too high, so I don’t know if I have time for that. Also, I can’t think of 30 things. Isn’t that sad?

So, instead, I took a cue from my sister (who has a 26 by 26 list, but who’s also doing this) with a monthly focus goal. Now, twelve goals, I can do (in no particular order):

Get back into the habit of keeping a journal after, you know, skipping probably the biggest decade of my life—college, courtship, kids—just that).
Lose some weight (and get a scale so I can figure out how much…)
Be a better sister/daughter/friend
Write more personally
Declutter my home & establish routines to keep it clean
Get around to the home improvements I’ve meant to do since we moved in. (Six and a half years ago.)
A goal for writing, possibly another book.
A month of reading
A month of playing (some time in the summer)
Read and work on The Anger Diet
A month of creating: cooking (knife skills!) and other crafts
A month of intensive gospel study

Now, a lot of these aren’t quantifiable in this form, but don’t worry—I’ll fix that when I get to them.

What do you think? What do you want to do or wish you had accomplished by 30?

Image by Luis Hernandez