It’s been more than six weeks since my last goal check-in, so it’s once again time to publicly review how I’m doing. The next couple months are going to be super busy for me, so I have the feeling that this is as good as it’s going to get until the frenzy passes. (“But Karen,” I hear you saying, “if you’re so busy, why did you apply to Holidailies and do a little happy dance when you found out you’d been accepted?” Well, because I’m just a little bit crazy, I guess. Besides, when I’m busy, I have more material to write about, so what better time to sign up for a daily entries project?)
Goal #1 – Body: As those of you who peeked at my weight log yesterday know, I’m at 153 pounds now. Compared to the 179 I weighed when I started this round of goal setting, I’m doing great. I’ve lost two-thirds of the weight I want to lose in two-thirds of the time I allotted to do it, so I’m right on track. Except the critic voice in my head is focusing on the fact that I was three pounds lighter just a week ago and telling me that I could be doing better. I can explain the extra three pounds– half of them are thanks to my new friend Desogen and the other half are a souvenir I brought back from my trip to Illinois for Thanksgiving—but the critic voice doesn’t accept any excuses. I’m back to tracking points in my Weight Watchers planner and even got in a workout over the weekend, so I don’t expect to lose any more ground, at least not until I go on my next trip.
Goal #2 – Mind: I’m managing to meet my goal here, but only because I set the bar so low. It’s sad that I, a college graduate and the grown-up version of the little girl who devoured books, can only manage to sit down and read one book a month. If I didn’t put the ones I’ve listened to on my book log, it would be a tiny list indeed. I might just need to accept that a book a month is the best I can do right now given the other things I choose to spend my time doing and not fret that other people I know read so much more.
Goal #3 – Quilts: I’m close to finishing the fifth of the seven quilts I wanted to make this year, and my coworkers have babies in the making to provide recipients for the remaining two. Thank goodness baby quilts can be done quickly, or I wouldn’t be able to meet this goal.
Goal #4 – Home: I’ve actually been using the 3 x 5 card system and the house is looking better. I can envision a day when I won’t panic when guests drop by on short notice. I’m going to have to defer the organizing and decorating parts of this goal until next year, since getting the cleaning part even a little bit under control has proved more time consuming than I’d hoped. I explained the system to Mr. Karen the other day, and he called it “oppressive”, but I’ve found it to be the opposite—instead of being overwhelmed by all the tasks there are to do, I just open up the box and look at the next card and either do what it says or decide to skip it this time and move on to the next one.
Goal #5 – Work: I don’t have a lot of progress to report here. I’m back to a five-day schedule and still trying to wrap up the same things I was trying to wrap up six or seven weeks ago. If only I could go off and concentrate on them, life would be peachy, but every day seems to bring a fresh set of minor crises that need to be dealt with. I was supposed to go to another meeting on the albatross project tomorrow, but I’ve just been too busy to prepare properly and put it off until late next week. How I’m going to prepare any better by then, I don’t know, but rescheduling kept the top of my head from flying off due to stress for at least the rest of today.
I give myself a passing grade on the first three goals and partial credit for number four, so it’s really only the last goal that I’m failing miserably at. That’s a lot better than I did in goal year 2001-2002, when I’d pretty much given up just a couple months in. It could be that knowing I’ll have to write check-in entries is making a difference. I do better losing weight when I go to Weight Watchers, even when all I do is step on the scale and then leave, so it figures I’d do better with other goals now that I’ve set up a similar semi-public system for accountability. I can lie to myself, but I can’t lie to strangers.
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