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Goals – Checking In & Moving On
March 31, 2003
My personal goal year ends today, so it’s time for another check-in. Not a lot has changed since my last review, but I need closure. Also, looking at what I’ve done and failed to do is a good preparation for setting goals for next year.
Goal #1 – Body: I declared success on this one a couple weeks ago, and I’m sticking to it. I was 148.5 pounds as of Saturday morning, which is in my newly defined target range of 145 to 150. I’ve been doing a little better with exercise the last few weeks, but I’m still not up to the frequency where I want to be. Sure, I’ve got excuses: the weather’s been too nasty to walk at lunchtime, and I’ve been spending so many hours at the office getting ready for the April 1st go live date on this big project that I haven’t been getting home in time to work out in the evenings and my weekends have been filled with all the other things I haven’t had time to do during the week. Excuses do not make me strong, however.
Goal #2 – Mind: I set the bar too low on this one. Reading a book a month was easy. Still, it got me back to the non-glossy printed page, so that’s not a bad thing.
Goal #3 – Quilts: I’ve finished six solo quilts — Birdseed Baby, Soccer Baby, Kitty Baby, Chuck’s CD Quilt, Zoo Baby, and Ellie’s Friendship — and was a major contributor to one group quilt, so I think that counts as achieving my goal of seven for the year.
Goal #4 – Home: I’ve at least looked at the 3 x 5 cards lately, even if I haven’t done all the cleaning chores on them. I did the least well on this goal of all of them, which isn’t surprising because it was the biggest challenge.
Goal #5 – Work: Status quo. Still have unfinished albatross business, but that will have to wait until after go live on my current project.
So that’s it then. Three of five goals achieved and at least some progress on the other two. That’s acceptable. I think declaring myself in this public forum helped a lot. Knowing I was going to come here and report gave me a little extra motivation. I’m definitely going to continue, starting tomorrow with a new set of goals, startlingly similar to this past year’s.
On March 31, 2004, these statements will be true:
1. I weigh no more than 150 pounds and feel fit, strong, and healthy
2. I have read at least two books (or 500 pages) each month.
3. I have completed at least 8 quilts in the past year.
4. I live in a clean, organized, and harmoniously decorated home.
I feel comfortable attaching a specific weight to the Body goal this year because I’m already there and think I can maintain it. I upped the book and quilt numbers; this year’s goals weren’t hard to achieve, and I’ve got a lot of Purple Systems babies to cover this year. I pondered dropping the “harmoniously decorated” part of the Home goal, because that’s a lot to take on but decided to leave it in because I still want to achieve it. It’ll be my stretch goal. I’m not setting a new work goal because work takes up enough of my time and energy that I don’t need to place a special focus on it by including it on my list of personal goals.
Following up on other stories:
I’ve forgiven Sally Hansen for her deception. She made it up to me with the Pink Diamond Nail Prisms. She’s still using her “paint the bottle” trick, but in this case, what’s inside the bottle is a lot closer to what’s outside, plus it’s so sparkly and fun on my toes that I can’t stay mad.
I can stay mad at Major League Baseball, which insists on holding opening day way too early in these northern climes. There was snow on the ground this morning; this afternoon the Tigers start the season at Comerica Park. That ain’t right.
Another thing that’s not right is my AlphaBytes performance. I only managed to do entries for 15 of the 26 letters of the alphabet, and that only by fitting entries I would have written anyway (like this one) into the collab. Some of the other participants did a much better job. Online journaling can be a humbling place to hang out.
G is for Goals