If there’s one thing I know about myself and my work style, it’s that I need accountability. I’m the type of person who works well on a deadline, requires that pressure, and can tend to banish a goal to the back of my mind if it’s not staring me in the face.
So that fact that I haven’t written a monthly accountability check-in since February, over half a year ago, seems, well, problematic.
But what matters isn’t the failures or slip ups of the past, but what you do moving forward (right?!). So here I am, taking this moment at the beginning of August to check back in on my goals and make a plan for moving forward.
Habits
I did pretty well at developing new habits for the first few months of the year. I got into the habit of preparing the night before, and going to bed by 12 pm, and got a lot better at making both lunch and dinner. Somewhere along the way, though, almost all of those habits fell along the wayside, even though I could clearly see the positive impact on my life (like, I wasn’t tired all the time!). Part of my problem was that life got busy, and I consciously prioritized other things, thus undoing all the work I’d done to develop the habit. I was also never very good at habit tracking, or at planning ahead for what the next month’s habit would be.
With 5 months left in the year, I have time and space to try and adopt 5 new habits:
- August: Bed by 12 p.m. We’re re-establishing this
one, because it honestly made such a difference. - September: Schedule blocking. I’ll be balancing work and school starting in September, and I’ve always struggled to get schoolwork down during a work-week. I’m hoping schedule blocking can help.
- October: Make lunch. As much as I like eating hot dogs and pizza all the time… I can probably do better.
- November: Shower without procrastination. This one sounds weird, I know, but I seem to have a habit of coming back from sports and putting off showering as long as possible. Just do it.
- December: Breakfast, then get dressed. I also have a habit, on days I’m not working, of getting up, eating breakfast, and then crawling back into bed. It derails the entire day, all the time.
Goals
Writing
Year after year, writing seems to continue to be the unrealized dream. Honestly, none of my writing goals have been moved forward in any substantial way- I haven’t been writing consistently, and I haven’t been producing content. While I did do a lot of writing in July, it was largely because my grad program forced me to. And I loved it. I need to bring that love back, every day!
I’m hesitant to make too many commitments here (you’ll notice I didn’t make writing one of my habits above), because I suspect I’ll be doing a lot of grad school writing this fall as well. But I will make a few.
- Write monthly updates for three of the next four months
- Finish and publish five Grad School profiles, and have an additional five in the queue.
- Publish three different deep dives (although I have to admit, even this feels ambitious!)
- Submit an article to SA-Exchange (I’m adding it to September’s work to-do list)
Continuous Learning
Learning is actually a goal area in which I’ve done quite well. Hooray! I’ve completed one (of three) online course, I finished my UofT certificate program, I’ve read 33 books so far, and I not only applied to a masters program, but I started one!
I might try to fit in one other online course this year, but again, grad school.
Community
This goal area has been a bit hit-or-miss. I’ve volunteered a lot with Victoria’s Participatory Budgeting Committee, but haven’t really ventured beyond that. I probably haven’t hit the event attendance or adventure numbers I was hoping for- although I do think I’ve been better than in past years. I have travelled some, although largely for work, which wasn’t the intent. Although I do have a few travel things planned in the next few months.
Where do I go from here?
- Reach that 100+ hour mark (this is going to require some math first…)
- Volunteer 2-3 additional times (at events, etc.)
- Plan 1 trip somewhere new
Health & Wellness
Oh, this category feel laughable. None of these goals are anywhere near checking off status. I may have erred in setting up many of the goals in this category as results based, rather than do-the-work based. I haven’t yet met any skating goals or running goals, and I’ve ruined all the habits that I had started to develop earlier in the year. Plus, I’m still on day two of my 30 days of yoga.
To be honest, I think this category needs progress, at least of a sort. I’ve been feeling all around unhealthy as of late, and I think that’s become my least favourite feeling.
- Train for (run min. 2x per week) and run one additional race (probably in October)
- Complete 30 days of yoga
- Create a core and arm strength and flexibility plan by September, and complete two workouts per week
- Change lunch, dinner and sleep habits (see the habits section!)
Personal Projects
I’m admittedly a little stumped by this goal area. On the positive side, I do have a new website! I was kind of forced into it by my grad program, but I’ll take it. I also feel as though I’m on track to complete my 100 Things project; at the very least, I’ve been trying to keep track of the smaller things all year, which was a large part of the intent. I suspect I haven’t completed (or made much progress on) the three major and smaller projects, but I also can’t find my list of projects, so that seems like a problem. I’m feeling some confusion as to the line between a small project and a deep dive (see the writing goal area), so I need some self-clarification here. I think that’s the major next step.
This review has actually been pleasantly surprising. While I suspect if I did some math on my goals I would find that I’ve completed less than half, I’ve accomplished more this year than I had realized. More reason for doing this accountability checks in the future!
Featured image by Estée Janssens on Unsplash
