Tag Archives: goals

My 2024 Goals (or Things Already Might Need To Change A Bit)

Posted on January 3, 2024 | Comments Off on My 2024 Goals (or Things Already Might Need To Change A Bit)

Happy 2024! I hope everyone had an amazing New Year’s and the year has gotten off to a good start already. I had a pretty chill and low-key New Year’s (except for one thing) and that’s exactly how I like to do things. Before I went out to celebrate with friends, I set aside some time to work on my goals for 2024 and I came up with 4 that I really want to focus on for this year. But I might have to make a few modifications already.

My first goal for 2024 shouldn’t surprise anyone who has seen my goals over the past few years. I want to do at least 200 workouts this year. This is the same number I have had as my goal for a few years, and I don’t expect that I will ever change this since 4 workouts a week at Orangetheory feels right to me. I know I’ve had random weeks when I’ve done 5 workouts in a week, but I can’t imagine doing that regularly. I hope that I will do a few more than 200 this year, but this number allows me to have some missed classes if I get sick or something else prevents me from getting to a workout. But as long as I get to at least 200 workouts in 2024, I’ll be happy.

My second goal for 2024 might need to be changed. The original goal I had for myself was to find a way to save money so I could finally go on a vacation. I still want to see if I can accomplish this goal this year because it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a vacation. I think my trip to Catalina was my last vacation, which was awesome, but I’d love to get away from LA for a fun trip this year if possible. But on New Year’s Eve, my car was hit by a firework and has some pretty decent damage on the door. My car is drivable and the lock and door work, but it will need to be fixed. And I know that any work I do on my car will be pretty expensive. I’m going to work on getting some estimates soon and I’m going to look into whether I want to go through my insurance or not (going through insurance might end up being more expensive if my premiums go up after making a claim). But the amount that I was hoping to have for a vacation may have to go into fixing my car instead and a vacation might have to wait another year. I’ll just have to see how expensive the repair will be.

My next goal is a continuation of one from last year. I want to go as full force as possible with my acting career this year. I am starting the new year in a good place with a lot of things happening for my acting career. I have a new agent, I’m getting new headshots, I’ve re-edited my reel, and I’ve worked on updating my online casting pages. There are other things I haven’t had a chance to do or look into just yet, but I’ve made a lot of progress in the last month that will help to support things moving forward this year. I know that getting auditions and booking jobs aren’t fully in my control, but I’m doing whatever I can to make sure I’m ready for opportunities and I hope that I see some new progress in my career over the next 12 months.

My final goal for 2024 is another one that I feel like I’ve kind of done in the past, but it’s still important. I want to find the time to enjoy life. It’s so easy for me to wake up early, go to my workout, work my day job, make dinner, go to bed, and repeat. Week to week my schedule is pretty consistent, which isn’t a bad thing, but it also makes time go by without me realizing it at times. I want to enjoy my life as much as possible because that is the point of life. I do make plans with friends when I can, but I need to be more active in reaching out to friends and scheduling things. I have some days that are really difficult for me to do things after work, but that’s not every day. So I should take advantage of the evenings when I do have more flexibility and do things that aren’t just sitting at home and doing nothing.

I know these goals aren’t anything crazy or extreme, but I think they are good goals for me to focus on so that I can make the most of 2024. I still will have my monthly challenges that will push me to do more than just these goals throughout the year. But I think these main 4 goals are things that will really benefit my life in the long run. And I hope in a year, I will be reflecting on these goals and proud of what I have been able to do.

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Posted in Acting, Celebrations, Fitness, Fun Stuff, Saving

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Wrapping Up My 2023 Workouts (or Still Making Sure I Hit My Goal)

Posted on January 1, 2024 | Comments Off on Wrapping Up My 2023 Workouts (or Still Making Sure I Hit My Goal)

My final week of workouts for 2023 wasn’t my normal workout week. On Monday the studios were closed because of the holiday. And Tuesday had reduced hours since it was the day after Christmas. The reduced hours meant none of the class times would work with my work schedule, and since I wasn’t going to take the day off after having a day off, I just had to miss that day. But I still got in my Wednesday and Thursday workout, plus I got a workout in on Sunday for New Year’s Eve!

I knew this past week was going to be a tough week with pain and nausea, but I kind of got lucky and the worst day of the week for me was on Tuesday. Tuesday was pretty brutal for me and I was struggling a lot while I was working, but at least I didn’t have to go through feeling like that and working out. So it was probably for the best. I still wasn’t feeling great on Wednesday or Thursday, but at least those days were better for me.

And Thursday’s workout was a day I wanted to feel as close to normal as possible. First, it was a signature workout day. We had Everest, which is always a big challenge to get through and I wanted to see if I could get close to my past PR. But also, Thursday’s workout was my 200th class of 2023! In past years, I have gotten to my year’s workout goal a little bit faster than I did this time. But as I mentioned in my last post, I had a few things that set me back in and cut into my workout plans. But at least I got to my goal before the end of the year!

Everest went a lot better than I had expected. I was able to pedal a lot faster than normal for the beginning of the climb which added to my distance. As the incline/resistance levels went up, I did slow down quite a bit. That always happens and that is why I work hard at going quickly in the beginning. As the incline/resistance levels went down, I really focused on my pedaling speed and making sure I was going faster as the time was counting down. For the 3 group classes, Everest is 14 minutes long, so it wasn’t any longer than I normally am on the bike. But I knew that any breaks I might take could ruin my chances of getting close to my past PR so I pushed myself to try not to take any. I did have to take one quick break when my nausea really kicked in, but that was not that long. And when the challenge was done, I ended up beating my past PR and getting a new one!

I have no clue how I did that, but I also know I might have pushed myself too much because the rest of that class was not nearly as good for me. My nausea was hitting me really hard. But I guess I should be glad I was able to hold off feeling horrible until after the challenge was done!

And my final workout of this week and for this year was on Sunday! I didn’t go too early in the morning since I wanted to sleep in a little bit to stay up for New Year’s Eve. If I didn’t have to work in the morning, I probably would do a slightly later workout since I think my body does better in later classes (but working out after work doesn’t work for me so I have to do early morning classes). I was feeling rested and ready for my last class of 2023 and I had a surprise when I got there. The coach for that class was someone who worked at the Brentwood studio that I hadn’t seen in years! She wasn’t a coach the last time I saw her, so this was my first chance to take a class with her! I had so much fun in that class and it was awesome to see someone I hadn’t seen since much earlier in my fitness journey.

I’m so proud that I was able to get to my workout goal for the year. I don’t think I’ll ever make it higher than 200 classes in a year since going more than 4 times a week is probably pushing it for me. But knowing that I pushed myself 201 times in 2023 is something I am so happy about accomplishing!

Here’s to getting to my workout goal in 2024 and beyond!

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Goal Recap Time! (or Things Didn’t Go Exactly As Planned)

Posted on December 27, 2023 | 3 comments

It almost feels like I’m doing a recap of my 2023 goals too early, but since I’m not blogging as often as I used to, now is the time to review how my year has gone! And while I haven’t completed everything since there are still a few days to go, I have a pretty good idea of how my goals for this year will turn out.

My first goal I had for this year was to do 200 Orangetheory workouts. This is one of my goals that hasn’t been completed just yet. This will be done tomorrow, so I will get it done before the end of the year. But I really expected to be to my goal by now since I’m usually over 200 before the last week of the year. But this year, I had a few things that caused me to miss some workouts. I was pretty sick toward the beginning of the year and I missed a week of workouts. I had a day that I couldn’t get out of my parking garage and missed that morning’s workout. The hurricane/tropical storm closed the studio for a day so that was another one that I missed. And this week, I’m only getting in 2 workouts because the studio was closed on Monday for the holiday and it had limited hours yesterday so there wasn’t a workout time that I could make it to with my work schedule. But even though I won’t be getting in as many workouts as I thought I would this year, I will still get to my goal of 200 workouts before the end of the year and that’s something I’m still proud of.

My next goal I had for this year was to work on getting more sleep. This one I consider to be a bit of a success but not as much of a success as I was hoping it would be. I still am working on getting to bed earlier so I can get more sleep, but I have been a lot better about not getting sucked into a book and staying up super late reading the entire thing. I do have a time that I want to try to have my lights turned off, but I’m not always doing that on time. I have been doing a lot better with getting myself ready for bed earlier, but I am continuing to work on shifting that a bit earlier. It’s not easy to do this since I am still trying to do things after work and if I go to bed much earlier that reduces my free time a bit more, but I’m trying to remember that I can just make a sacrifice for the 4 days I have to be up early and not be too worried about free time those evenings and focus on scheduling things when I know I can sleep in a little bit more the next morning.

The third goal I had for this year was to continue setting up my condo. This was another goal that I feel like I had some success with but not quite what I had hoped I would do. I did get a new tv and tv stand for my living room, which helped the room feel more complete. I moved everything out of boxes for the most part even though I haven’t found new office furniture that I like. But I am learning to live with what I currently have because it’s not cheap to replace things. I don’t want to just buy something cheap because it works for now, I want to find pieces that will last. And with my office, I feel like I keep learning more about what will be functional and what is just a design idea that I like. But I have been looking at getting new dining room furniture and I think I have found the perfect thing. I am getting fabric samples now and I’m hoping that it will work out exactly like I hope it will so I can have a new dining room sometime this coming year.

And the final goal that I had for this past year was to rebuild my acting life. Well, this one really wasn’t that successful for me but it also was a bit out of my control. I wasn’t expecting a long strike this year that essentially shut down the entire industry. I also wasn’t planning on randomly finding out that my agent isn’t my agent anymore and needing to look for a new agent. But I’m finishing out this year on some really positive notes (which I’ll write more about when I do my monthly challenge recap), so it wasn’t a complete wash. But I had to rebuild a lot of things that I wasn’t expecting to instead of building upon what I thought I already had.

I’ll be sharing my goals for 2024 soon, but since not everything was accomplished this year that I wanted to, I set up some goals that I feel will be building upon the ones that I worked on this year. And even though my goals this year weren’t perfectly completed, I didn’t fail at any of them either. I found ways that I could succeed and accomplish them even if they weren’t exactly what I planned to do. And making steps forward is totally a win for this year!

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My 2023 Goals (or Some New Goals and Some Repeats)

Posted on January 3, 2023 | Comments Off on My 2023 Goals (or Some New Goals and Some Repeats)

As I have done each year for the last several years, I have set some goals for myself for 2023. I look at goals and resolutions as different things. Goals seem to have more of a concrete idea of what you want to get to versus resolutions that feel more abstract. I still have some goals that don’t have an exact thing to get to, but I still feel like there are better ways to track my results with goals than I do with resolutions. This might just be wording and the idea that resolutions typically are broken, but for me, I think whatever works is good. And for 2023, I have set 4 goals for myself.

The first goal is something I’ve done quite a bit. I want to make sure I do 200 Orangetheory workouts this year. This goal is the one that I feel is almost a guarantee I will be successful unless something crazy happens in my life. And if something does happen in my life that will prevent me from working out for a few weeks, then I’ll probably reevaluate this goal and make sure it’s still something I can get to. 200 workouts means I go 4 times a week for almost all the weeks of the year. I don’t have to go 4 times every week and I could have a few weeks of just going 3 times. But my plan is to go 4 times a week unless something comes up that make that impossible. But that’s why I have a bit of flexibility with having some weeks where I could go 3 times and still make it to my goal. Even though I look at this goal as something that should be accomplished with very little extra effort, I do like to have accountability.

My second goal for the year is to work on getting more sleep every night. I have been getting very little sleep for a while and I know it’s affecting me. I get up pretty early to be able to work out before work, but I haven’t really adjusted what time I go to bed with the earlier wake-up. There have been far too many nights where I get only about 4 hours of sleep, and that’s not something to be proud of. Since I can’t really adjust what time I get up, I need to work on going to bed earlier. That involves a few different things such as actually getting into bed earlier, not reading as late as I have, and not staying up late to catch up on a tv show or something. Nothing that I do late at night couldn’t wait until the next day, so I have to be better about not feeling a need to complete something at night.

My third goal is something similar to what I set for 2022. I want to keep setting up my condo. There aren’t too many things I have to do to get things set up the way I want to, but all of those things involve money. I want to get the furniture I want for my office since that will help move almost everything still in a box out of a box. I also am looking into redoing my closet since it’s not the best use of space for me. For my closet, I’m hoping this could possibly be something I do on my own to save money, but there are a few things that need to be considered first. But my parents and I are going to look into some options soon so hopefully I can have an idea of what that cost will be and when it can be done. I would love to say that by the end of this year, I won’t have anything left in a box, but I’m not sure if that will happen. But it’s something I’m going to work toward and see how close I can get.

And my last goal for the year is something I have talked about several times and just haven’t done it. I want to rebuild my acting life. I still have been pursuing acting and have been submitting myself for projects. And if I get an audition, I do everything I need to do to have the best audition possible. But I know that things aren’t going as great as they could be. Things still aren’t exactly where they were before the pandemic, but they are much closer so I should be at least closer to what they were like before. But I’m just not there. This will involve a few different things such as trying to get back into class or finding a group to work on scripts together, getting new headshots, and maybe looking into if a different agent could be a better fit for me. None of these things will guarantee that I will get more auditions or book work, but I want to do whatever I can that is in my control to feel like I’m not just playing around at being an actor but an active participant in that career. I know for the last few years I have had my focus on other things, but I’m ready to get back to what I love and hopefully see some results from my work.

I debated about doing some other goals this year and there are other things I might set as monthly challenges or just a smaller monthly goal so I can accomplish more this year, but I think for my big year-long goals, these 4 are really things I need and want to focus on and will help me to have a successful year.

And I hope in 12 months when I’m recapping how 2023 went, I will have a lot of success to share with you all!

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Finishing Up My 2022 Workouts (or I Think I Really Ended The Year On A Great Note!)

Posted on January 2, 2023 | Comments Off on Finishing Up My 2022 Workouts (or I Think I Really Ended The Year On A Great Note!)

I think I finished my 2022 workouts pretty well! I had my usual 4 workouts this past week even if they were on a slightly different schedule. But I was able to finish the year making sure I hit my goal number of workouts! I also was testing out doing my injection in a different location which is supposed to help with nausea. I’m not sure if that worked or I just didn’t have really bad side effects this week, but I didn’t have to worry about nausea in any of my workouts!

Monday’s workout happened to be my 200th workout of the year, so that was pretty special. Since Monday was a holiday, I did go to a later class than I normally go to but it was also nice to sleep in. This workout was a 2 group class so we had more time for cardio and the floor than I normally have in a workout.

For cardio, we had 2 blocks. The first block started with a 2-minute base pace with an incline followed by a 1-minute base pace without an incline. Then we had a 2-minute push and a 1-minute push without inclines with a 1-minute base between them. And the block ended with rounds of an all-out at an incline with recovery between each one. The second block was a bit more incline work. We started with a push pace at an incline and then had rounds of push paces to all-out with inclines. I never had to go too crazy with the resistance level on the bike, but it was still a challenge using them and trying to pedal faster.

On the floor, the first block started with a 1-minute all-out row. Then we were on the floor with sumo deadlifts, upright rows, good mornings, and single-arm presses. And the block ended with another 1-minute all-out row. The second block started with a 30-second all-out row before moving onto the floor. We had front raises, lateral lunges, around-the-world raises, and regular lunges before ending the workout with another 30-second all-out row.

Tuesday’s workout was a small group, but we still kept the workout as a 3 group class so we had equal time for cardio, rowing, and the floor.

For cardio, we had 3 blocks. The first block had a 45-second push pace, a 90-second base pace, a 45-second all-out, a recovery, a 45-second push pace, and a 45-second all-out. The second block was the same except the intervals were 30 seconds and not 45 seconds. And the last block was just 3 rounds of a 30-second all-out.

On the rower, we started with a 3-minute row followed by squats to knee drives. Then we had 2 rounds of a 90-second row with lunges between each row. And the last part of the rowing was 3 rounds of a 1-minute row with squats to calf raises between each row. I didn’t get through all of the 1-minute rows, but I at least got to that second.

For the floor, the first block was supposed to be lunges, jump lunges, and a bridge row. Since I can’t do jump lunges, I just doubled the number of regular lunges we were supposed to do. And I did low rows on the straps instead of bridge rows. And the second block had bicycle presses, push-ups, and hip bridges. It wasn’t a ton of floor work, but it was hard.

I didn’t work out on Wednesday since I was going to work out for New Year’s Eve, so my next workout this past week was on Thursday. Again, this was a small class but we still had the class as a 3 group class so we worked in all 3 sections of the room.

Cardio started with a 3-minute push pace followed by a 30-second base pace. We continued a pattern of a push pace followed by a base pace and the push paces were between 1 minute and 3 minutes. But the base paces were always only 30 seconds long which isn’t a lot of time. In the end, we had a 1-minute base pace followed by a 30-second all-out, but I was really exhausted by that point so I know my all-out wasn’t that great.

On the rower, we started with a 200-meter row. Then we had lunges, single-arm clean to presses, and marching in place with a weight. Then we did the 200-meter row and the exercises again. Then we repeated the pattern with a 150-meter row. The exercises were harder than what I feel we normally have when we do exercises with the rower, so I didn’t get that far into the rows.

And on the floor, we had one long block. We had step-down toe taps (which I was able to do by lowering the bench), lunges with wood choppers, plank single-arm rows, and hollow hold single-arm chest presses. I don’t know if it was from all the work in the other sections of the room or if the floor block was harder than it seemed, but this was a tough day for me and others in the class agreed!

And I had to finish out my workouts by going on New Year’s Eve. It’s been a while since I’ve had a Saturday workout, but I knew that I would be there for the holiday no matter what. This workout was an interesting one because everything was timed together so all sections of the room had 3 blocks that were the same time. The first block was 3 minutes long, the second block was 6 minutes long, and the last block was just under 3 minutes long.

For cardio, in the first block we had 1-minute intervals with a base, push, and all-out. The second block was 3 rounds of a 30-second push, 30-second base, 45-second push, and 30-second base. But in the end, we had an all-out instead of the last push. And the last block had 3 rounds of a 30-second all-out and a 30-second recovery.

On the rower, the 3-minute block was just a 3-minute row for distance. The second block was split into 75-second segments with a 30-second recovery after. For each of the 3 75-second segments, we started with doing 10 squats before getting onto the rower and rowing until the 30-second recovery. The goal was to try to match the distance you got in the first block, and I was able to exceed that. And in the last block, we had the same thing as cardio with the 30-second all-out.

And on the floor, the first block was 1 minute of squats, 1 minute of walkout push-ups, and 1 minute of scissor kicks to crunches. In the second block, we had the same timing as cardio. We had 30 seconds of a single-arm low row on one side, 30 seconds of a single-arm low row on the other side, and 45 seconds of a hammer curl to a bicep curl. Then we had 30 seconds to have a quick break before repeating that again. And in the last block, we had 30-second intervals of doing burpees, which I did using the bench. And for whatever reason, I think my burpees went smoother this time than any other workout that I could remember.

And when Saturday’s workout was done, I was so proud of my total workouts for the year.

I know I say that this is an easy goal for me to accomplish each year, but I still have to work for it. And this year, I had more struggles than normal to deal with in my workouts. But I didn’t let that stop me and I just continued going and trying to do my best. I might not have all the results I was hoping to get in my workouts in 2022, but I still put in work and I know that will pay off in the long run! And now, I’m already working toward my workout goal for 2023 and making sure I hit that goal too!

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Looking Back At My 2022 Goals (or I Don’t Think I Did As Well As I Could Have)

Posted on December 30, 2022 | Comments Off on Looking Back At My 2022 Goals (or I Don’t Think I Did As Well As I Could Have)

It’s my final post of 2022! This year has been a whirlwind in more ways than one and I think I’m ending this year in a very different place than I expected. I think things didn’t entirely turn out the way I wanted them to, but in other ways, things are better than I expected. I don’t think there’s usually a good way to predict how things will go over 12 months, but I try to do what I can that is in my control. And that’s why I’m always setting different goals for myself. It’s important to try to stay on the path you are hoping to go down. Even if you don’t get things completely right, you usually have at least made strides toward that goal.

And that’s how I feel about the goals I had set for this year. I really thought I picked out some great goals for myself and things just didn’t happen how I thought they would so I don’t feel like I’m as successful as I expected to be. But I still had victories even in the failures.

The first goal I had for myself was to do at least 200 Orangetheory classes. This is the goal that I felt very certain I would be able to achieve and I like having one goal that doesn’t feel like a stretch. But there were moments I was worried I wouldn’t make it to that number. After taking a week off after my foot surgery, I knew I had to limit how many rest days I took. I didn’t have that many weeks throughout the year that I only did 3 workouts in the week, so I was able to make up for that missed week in January. And I will be ending this year with 203 workouts after I do my workout tomorrow. Even though this was an easy goal for me to complete, I like having it because it held me accountable. I am in a routine right now, but I also know how easy it can be to get out of a routine and get into bad habits. So I’m glad that I was able to get this done.

My next goal was to move into my condo and get everything set up. I would say that I was almost fully successful with this goal. I am moved in and have nothing left at my old place (which is a big relief at this point), but I don’t feel like I have everything set up just yet. There are a few things that I haven’t bought that will help me complete my place. But some of them need me to save up money and some I just haven’t picked out the right things yet. I don’t want to buy something just to buy it, so I’m taking my time and being picky. But it’s just a matter of time before I can get everything done on my list. But even without having everything set up, I feel very much at home here and that’s probably the most important thing.

The next goal was to be more mindful of my time. This one was a real struggle for me and something that I will be continuing to work on in 2023. I got a bit better at managing my time and allowing myself to make plans outside of my work schedule, but I still had struggles with organizing my work time with completing tasks in the most efficient way. I’m getting better at it, but I know there is a lot of work I still need to do. And I need to be better about my free time because I also know that I’m wasting time there too. But there are other things I want to work on that I think will help with some of my wasted free time and I’ll be doing those in the new year.

One of the goals I didn’t do so well on was getting out of my house more. I was allowing myself to be more social and go out with friends, but I wasn’t being productive at making plans. I was depending a lot on others to ask me to do things and that wasn’t great. But I know I was doing things outside of my house a bit more than the year before even if it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping to do. I think there are a lot of reasons why this was a failure for me, but issues with free time and still being cautious with the pandemic are the main ones and I don’t know how I could have changed both of those as much as I needed to. But it’s not a total failure because I did do more, so that’s at least something.

And the final goal I had for this past year was to work on my budget more. This one wasn’t that great either, but it was for some things I wasn’t expecting. I am definitely doing better with my budget than I was before, but my tracking isn’t where it needs to be. I should be able to track better than I do and I’m still trying to find what system will work best for me. I was doing ok with this goal occasionally throughout the year, but then I’d have some sort of change that just brought me back to where I started. Whenever my salary changed or I went from an independent contractor to an employee, things should have been easy to change in my tracking but they just weren’t. I sound like I’m making excuses, but clearly, something in the way I was trying to do this wasn’t working for me and I just need to keep trying to see what will eventually work so I can feel better about my financial situation and start planning on how I can enjoy the money I have and not just survive on it.

Overall, my goals didn’t really go how I wanted them to go, but they also weren’t all failures or a waste of my time. I just ended up having different priorities or thoughts as the year went on that made these goals not the ones I put my time and energy onto. But I still had some progress with them all and I know I’m doing better with these things than I was 12 months ago. And I’ve got some goals figured out for 2023 that I’ll be sharing soon that hopefully will be some good ones that I will reflect back on in a year and feel a bit more successful with.

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Halfway Through The Year (or Focusing Again On My 2022 Goals)

Posted on July 1, 2022 | Comments Off on Halfway Through The Year (or Focusing Again On My 2022 Goals)

Happy July! It’s crazy to think this year is half over. It seems like so much has happened in the past 6 months but also that time has been dragging on. And as always, the start of a new month brings the end to one monthly challenge and the start of another.

In June, I had another challenge about organizing. But this time, I wanted to focus on organizing digital clutter. I’m very happy with how I did with this challenge. I did work on going through my DVR again and reviewing what I have set to record so I could get rid of any series that I am no longer interested in or that I don’t seem to be watching. There wasn’t much to do on my DVR since I had done this when I got a new device during my move, but it was still good to review what I had set up and what I really didn’t need to keep.

And I was really good with getting rid of podcasts I don’t enjoy anymore. There weren’t that many on that list, but it was good to think about what I really want to listen to and what I listen to just because I have been subscribed for so long. But besides unsubscribing from shows I don’t listen to anymore, I also went through individual episodes that I have been holding on to for one reason or another. These are from shows that I do enjoy, but they might have interviewed someone I wasn’t super excited to hear about or it was a subject that I wasn’t interested in. I kept telling myself that I would listen to those episodes eventually, but I know that I would never get to them because there were so many new episodes I would listen to each week. It’s weird to feel a sense of relief from getting rid of those, but they no longer feel like they are things I need to catch up on. I also went through all the shows I was subscribed to and looked and when they did their last episode. There are some shows that haven’t done a new episode in 6 months or longer. Unless I knew the show was taking a hiatus and would be back, I unsubscribed from shows that didn’t seem to be doing new episodes. I can always subscribe again if they start up, but for now, I don’t need that cluttering my podcast app.

And for July, I’m focusing on the fact that this year is half over and I feel a bit behind on my 2022 goals. I had that realization when I was looking at my tracking for my workouts and I wasn’t at quite 100 workouts for the year yet. Normally, I’m ahead of 100 by now. I know I had a setback with my foot so I missed a week of workouts and this wasn’t a huge surprise, but I still didn’t think about it too much until I saw it. And I do normally reflect on my annual goals halfway through the year so when I noticed I was a bit behind I wanted to focus on them for this month.

I’m not behind on all my goals. I am technically all moved into my condo. I might not have everything put away yet, but I am out of my old place. There will be things I can’t put away for a while because I’m saving up money to add furniture, but I am continuing to do what I can to get things put into the places I want them to be and to make my space look less like a moving zone.

I’m not doing great about being mindful of my time or getting out of my house more, but I have been making steps toward improving those. I need to work on these more, but I also know that I have made efforts to both of these goals. But I don’t want to settle and only do the goals halfway if I can help it. And I think remembering that I set a goal to get out of my house more is a good push for me to keep reaching out to friends to see who might want to go do some things this summer. I have been reconnecting with friends who I didn’t see as often, and it’s been so much fun to revive these friendships that may have slipped into acquaintances in the recent past. And I think a lot of people have been doing the same thing, so it’s not weird to be reaching out to people that I haven’t seen in a long time.

And while I have told myself a lot that I want to get my budget set up again, there were always excuses of why I wanted to wait. I need to stop using that as an excuse and really set aside time to buckle down and get to work. I know I don’t need things to be perfect when I set them up, but there are a few things I want to get in order and planned before I set up the new budget. It’s mainly about reevaluating my regular payments and looking at my recent bills to get an idea of what the charges are. Even with the same bills that I used to have, the price I pay is different between my old place and my new place. There’s nothing crazy, but the amounts I’m used to paying might be slightly higher or lower and I want to set up my budget with the new amounts.

I think that I could make some great progress toward most of my goals this month. Obviously, my workout goal is limited to how many days there are in the month so I just have to keep moving along with that one and making the best effort to go 4 times a week. But for my other goals, I think July could be a great month to really get back to these goals and make sure that in 6 months I can share that I have accomplished what I was hoping to do.

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My 2022 Goals (or Setting Myself Up For Hopefully A Productive Year)

Posted on January 5, 2022 | Comments Off on My 2022 Goals (or Setting Myself Up For Hopefully A Productive Year)

I used to not be a huge fan of setting resolutions for the new year. I felt like those were setting me up for failure more often than not. But for some reason, setting goals for the year doesn’t give me the same feeling. I love setting goals for the year and often they allow me to create a plan for the new year. I’m usually pretty good about setting some goals that I know I can complete or that are easy to measure, so I feel like they are more possible than a general idea. Of course, I do set some more abstract ones too, but I’ve noticed those are the ones I usually struggle to accomplish by the end of the year.

So when I was setting my goals for 2022, I wanted to try to focus a lot on concrete goals that I know will help me make this year great. And I think I’ve found some really good ones.

My first goal for 2022 is a workout goal (as it’s been for the last several years). I want to complete at least 200 workouts. I would say 200 Orangetheory workouts, but I’m worried now that things might shut down again and I won’t be able to go back to the studio. Hopefully that doesn’t happen and all my workouts will be OTF classes, but I had to allow some flexibility in there. This goal should be easy for me to do. As long as I don’t have anything crazy happen to me, doing my regular workout schedule will get me to 200 workouts. I did think about trying to increase this goal, but that would mean having some weeks of 5 workouts a week and I’m not sure if I could do that. At least not yet. So this goal is the one that seems easiest to me, but at least I know I should end this year with at least this goal completed!

My next goal is to move into my condo and get everything set up. I don’t know exactly when I will be moving in, but I hope it will be this spring. And I know when I move in there will be a lot of time needed to get things the way I want them. I will need new furniture and I will probably adjust the stuff I currently own multiple times. But I want my condo to feel like a home to me by the end of this year and feel really settled in. I honestly can’t wait until I start living there. Every time I go over there to do little things, it feels more and more like my home. But I know when my things are there and I’m living there it will feel even more like mine. And knowing it is mine and not just a rental is an awesome feeling that I want to feel more!

Something I write about a lot on here is time management or feeling too busy at times. So my next goal is to be more mindful of my time. I don’t know exactly how to organize my time better, but I want to have my work time set up to be more productive and a better difference between my work time and free time. I do think this might change more when I move because my office space won’t be in the same space that I relax in, so I won’t always feel half working and half relaxing. But I also don’t want to waste my free time and feel like I don’t have the time to do what I want to do. I need to find the time to do what I want and I know I waste time in random ways. Setting up a better schedule for myself will help, but just being mindful of where my time goes is really the goal I have for myself so I can be better about planning my life.

The next goal is something that may or may not be possible. It really depends on the state of the world. But I would like to spend more time out of my house. I spend way too much time inside. I do know that this is partially to keep me safe, but I also know I am using that as an excuse too. I could make more plans out of my house that are safe to do. I also need to be ok doing things alone because I have been saying I don’t go out because so many of my friends moved away since the pandemic. I do still have friends here and I need to reach out to more of them to make plans. But there is plenty I can do outside of my house on my own and I need to start doing that. I think in a way, this goal goes with being mindful of time management because I also say I don’t have time to do things. But if I find the time, I need to find things outside of my house to do.

And my last goal is one I’ve done before. I want to work on my budget. This is something I have done from time to time, but lately I haven’t been good about it. And there are a few things that are still a bit odd that make budgeting hard for me to plan for, but that is also a bit of an excuse. I don’t need my budget to be perfect in order to have one. I can get the general idea going and hopefully get more specific from there. I do still have budgeting software I can use, but I’m looking into alternatives in case there is something that fits my life and how I want to budget a bit better.

I think these are some great goals for 2022 and if I’m able to accomplish just some of them I will have an amazing year! I know some of them are harder for me to accomplish than others, but they are all possible. I just have to make it happen. And hopefully in a year when I come back to my goals, I will have at least tried to get them all done.

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Reviewing My 2021 Goals (or This Really Was A Year Of Unknowns)

Posted on December 31, 2021 | Comments Off on Reviewing My 2021 Goals (or This Really Was A Year Of Unknowns)

Happy New Year’s Eve! I think everyone is a bit shocked this year is coming to an end because mentally it feels like we are still in 2020. I do still feel in a way that I’ve lost 2 years of my life due to not being able to live the life I love and enjoy, but I did still get things done this year. And when I was setting my goals for 2021, I set them based on the idea that I didn’t know if or when life would feel normal again. But even with me planning for the unknown and unexpected, things still had some plot twists that made accomplishing some of my goals not exactly what I planned.

My first goal that I had this year was to do at least 200 workouts. I set this goal with the idea of doing mainly workouts through Orangetheory, either at home or in the studio. I did hit my goal for workouts this year which I expected would happen since it’s not too hard for me to get to 200 workouts a year now (which is still something I’m shocked about). And a majority of my workouts were through Orangetheory since I was able to go back to the studio this past spring. My home workouts weren’t the Orangetheory videos since I switched to mainly doing weightlifting at home, but I think this still counts as a win since I did get to my goal and most of my workouts were Orangetheory studio classes.

My next goal I had for 2021 was to work on my budget. I hate that this was another failure since I’ve tried to get my budget back on track so many times. I used to be really good at it, and then so much changed. My excuses in the recent past were about not being stable with work, but things have been much more stable for me lately. There will always be a little bit of unknown with how much I’ll make with some jobs, but most of the money I make each month is a pretty stable and known amount. Even without doing a budget, I was more mindful of my spending and where my money was going. I know I need to get this more under control, but it is nice to see that I haven’t gone completely crazy without a budget. But if I want to work on having more savings and the ability to splurge on fun things without stress, I need to get a budget so I am very aware of my financial situation.

I’m going to combine the next two goals I had for this past year. I wanted to try more, take more risks, and be ok with possible failure and I also wanted to be ok with asking for help and support. When I wrote those goals a year ago, I saw them as very different things. But now, I think they go together. Taking more risks and accepting failure goes along with asking for help and support. When I had failures, I needed support to boost myself back up. I don’t know if I had as many opportunities to try more and take risks as I hoped I would, but I know I did do this more often. I spoke up for myself more and learned how to cope better when things I wanted to have happen didn’t happen. And when I was feeling down about these failures or other things in my life, I had a better group of people I could turn to for advice and support. I still want to take more chances, but I think it will be easier doing that going forward now that I have great friends to help me out if things don’t go the way I hope.

And my last goal for 2021 was to get my house organized and find the best way to use the space I have. Obviously when I wrote my goal, I didn’t know that I would be getting a new place this year. And I did get things much more organized in the first half of the year. But starting in September, I was in the mindset of how I would be hopefully moving in the somewhat near future. So organizing my house took a new turn and became more about going through all my stuff and seeing what I want to move and what I want to toss. And that’s something I’m still going through now. My house is less organized than I would like it, but it’s organized for an upcoming move. And obviously since I’m moving into a place significantly bigger than where I am now, maximizing the space I have stopped being something I worried about. Instead, lately I’ve been planning for my move and how things will work in my new place. And I’m excited to have space to get some new things and really make my new place feel like a home!

Overall, I’m happy with how I did with my goals this year. They weren’t all wins, but I did my best with most of them. And things were an unknown so the ideas I might have had in the beginning of 2021 weren’t exactly how they turned out by the end of 2021. So some of my goals had to adjust with the changes in my life. But I think I was flexible with most of them and made them work. And I’m excited to share my goals for 2022 with you all next week and seeing in a year how I do with them!

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2021 Check-In (or The Year Is Halfway Over)

Posted on June 30, 2021 | Comments Off on 2021 Check-In (or The Year Is Halfway Over)

It’s crazy to think that 2021 is half over already! And this first half of the year feels like it was split in half as well since I got my vaccines in the first quarter of the year and in the second quarter I was finally able to relax a bit more and not have so much fear every day. But I’m still not back to my full and normal life since things are not over. But I’m hopeful that maybe the second half of the year might have just as many changes as the first half of the year did!

And just like I have done for the past several years, I set some goals for 2021. It was tough setting goals this time since I had no clue when things would normalize a bit. I knew that I might spend the majority of the year isolated as I did in 2020. So I had to set some goals that could be accomplished isolated in my house or living my life again. And with the year half done, I figure this is the perfect time to check in with myself and see how I’m doing.

My first goal was to do at least 200 workouts. And I’m doing great on that goal! I passed my 100th workout for 2021 last week, so I’m on the perfect pace to get it done. And while I was keeping things going at home when I had to, I’m so glad I’m back in the studio. I know I have better and harder workouts in the studio. And while working out at home did help my mental health a bit, I know working out in the studio helps my mental health even more. It’s crazy to think that I think this is the easiest goal for me to get done every year, but it really is. I’m in a great routine with my workouts and there is very little that can stop me.

My next goal is to work on my budget. This is still a bit of a struggle for me. I’m trying to get my budgeting app in a good place, but I’m also starting to wonder if maybe I need to find a different app to use. Even though I’m not doing great at creating a budget and tracking everything, I am much more aware of my money than I used to be and I’m doing better each month with my spending and making sure I don’t go overboard. I haven’t had a month where I couldn’t pay off my credit card in full since I paid off my debt, and that’s a huge thing for me. I would like to find more ways to be better with my spending and to work on saving more money, but just being this aware of my money is a good step in the right direction. And hopefully, the second half of the year will help me get to where I want to be with budgeting.

The next goal was to organize my house more.  This one is connected to a lot of the monthly challenges I’ve been doing. And I think the idea I had for this goal isn’t exactly what I’ve been doing, but I have been working on it. I’ve been much more aware and cautious about when I buy new things for my house. I make sure that I find really want I want and not just something that will work for now. There are things in my house that need to be replaced for one reason or another, but I’m waiting until I find what I want. And I am working on finding storage solutions so my house doesn’t look as cluttered. Even the small change of putting all my workout stuff into a storage bench did wonders! I don’t just want to hide everything to have the appearance of being organized, I want to actually be organized. That takes a bit more time, but I have been seeing progress.

My next goal was to try more and take more risks. And along with that, being better at accepting failure. I haven’t had as many chances to work on this as I would have liked, but I am taking more chances. There are some things I can’t share just yet, but I am working on getting out of my comfort zone with things that do scare me. I’m also not playing the cool girl in my social life and in dating. As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, I’m not hiding my feelings. If I am dating someone and really am starting to like them, I tell them. And that does sometimes lead to being ghosted, but I’m working on being ok with that. I would rather be ghosted now when they know what I think than to let something drag on for a long time and not be getting what I want out of a relationship.

And my last goal was to be better about asking for help and support. And this one is one that I feel I have been doing much better about. I struggled to ask for help last year because so many people seemed to downplay how tough things might be for me. I stayed quiet because I didn’t want to correct my friends and let them know I was struggling. But now that I’ve been more open about it, I am getting the support I really could have used last year. And I haven’t had anyone talk down to me or judge me for asking for help and support just because my struggles are different. And that has helped to make this year much easier for me to get through some of the rough times.

Overall, I think I’m doing pretty great with my 2021 goals. I’m not doing perfectly, but I couldn’t expect that from myself. I’m seeing progress in my life and I’m adjusting my goals when I see that I need to do that. And I’m hoping in 6 months when I’m doing my end of the year recap, I will have a lot to share about how I was able to complete my goals!

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