Tag Archives: goals

My 2021 Goals (or Preparing For A Year With Lots Of Unknowns)

Posted on January 1, 2021 | Comments Off on My 2021 Goals (or Preparing For A Year With Lots Of Unknowns)

Happy New Year! I hope that you all had a great New Year’s Eve, even if you were home alone like I was. I’ll be writing more about my New Year’s, but for now, I wanted to kick off the year with my 2021 goals.

Setting goals for this year was a little different from what I normally do. I have no clue when things will be more normal and we won’t have to be isolating ourselves. I hope that by the summer, things will start reopening again, but we have no clue. So I had to create goals that wouldn’t be affected if a majority of the year is spent at home and isolating myself from others.

The first goal shouldn’t be a surprise since it’s one that I’ve had a lot. I want to do at least 200 workouts in 2021. My plan is for these workouts to mainly be Orangetheory workouts, whether it’s in the studio or at home. Once I can go work out with others, I plan on the workouts all being at Orangetheory. But at home, I’m a bit more open to trying other workouts that are available online. I do love the Orangetheory at Home videos, but I also want to allow for some flexibility in case I feel in a rut or that I need a bit of a change. It’s still not easy for me to work out at home by myself. But I know I can do it and I feel confident that I will be able to do at least 200 workouts again this year.

My next goal is another repeat and one I’ve talked about recently. I want to work on my budget this year. I know that this won’t be easy because my job situation isn’t as stable as it’s been in the past, but I cannot let that be an excuse anymore. My hours with my new job are going to be pretty stable starting next week. And I should know soon about my hours with my data entry job, and once those are figured out they should be stable as well. The only big unknown for my income is my box office job. I don’t know when I’ll be asked back or how many hours I might get. But I still need to budget with what I do know and start making a plan so that I have things in order when I do have more steady income and I have things I want to use my money on.

Next is something that I’ve been doing a lot since I’ve had to isolate myself at home. I want to keep my house organized and continue to find the best way to maximize the space that I have. 2020 was a year that I discovered that I have a lot of things I don’t use or don’t have in the best spot to make sure I use them. I have things in my kitchen that I know I don’t use, and they are taking up space. And I have gotten new things for my kitchen and nowhere to put them. I’m looking at storage solutions for inside my house, but with space being limited I have to be careful what I bring in. The same goes for my bathroom. I don’t have any counter space, so I have to keep things on a shelf I have and in my medicine cabinet. The space is limited and I know I have things there that I don’t use or need. Organizing my house will be an ongoing project throughout the entire year, but I’m excited to see what my house will look like as I continue to work on this.

The next goal is a combination of a few ideas. I want to try more, take more risks, and be ok with accepting possible failure. Now, this doesn’t include my health or safety so I will not be taking risks by going out until it is safe to do so. But this is more about not limiting myself to things that only make me comfortable. If I want to take a chance in my acting career, I should go for it so I don’t wonder “what if?”. If I want to take a chance with online dating and say how I really feel to a guy, then I should do it without worrying that I might scare him off. If I want to try cooking something new, I don’t want to be afraid that I will ruin it because that might happen and that’s ok. It’s not easy to accept failure, but it’s a part of life and I want to be better at dealing with it.

And my last goal is a bit more about whatever time we are still isolating at home. I want to be ok with asking for help and support. There is no question that 2020 was a difficult year for me in so many ways. Being lonely and isolated is something that I’ve never dealt with to this degree. And I wasn’t as open about how much I was struggling as I could have been. I never reached out to a friend saying I needed a phone call or video call instead of just texts. It’s not easy for me to do this for a few reasons. One is that I don’t want to feel like a burden, even though I know that isn’t how my friends feel about me. But the bigger problem is that I haven’t been good at recognizing when I need to ask for support. Sometimes I don’t realize I could have used the help until I get over that feeling. I need to be a bit more aware and mindful about this and make sure I reach out when I need it.

I feel like these are some good goals for 2021. I feel confident that I should be able to make progress on all of them. I might not end this year saying I was successful in all of them, but I don’t think that I will be a total failure in them either. Hopefully, these goals help me to make 2021 a good year for me. Whether the entire year is spent in isolation or if I am able to go out and be social for a part of the year. I feel like I’m prepared for almost any possibility of what this year might look like, and that I will find ways to continue to better myself and grow as a person.

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Looking Back At My 2020 Goals (or Some Wins and Some Not Wins)

Posted on December 31, 2020 | Comments Off on Looking Back At My 2020 Goals (or Some Wins and Some Not Wins)

We are finally at the end of 2020! I know that things won’t magically change tomorrow because it’s a new year, but the new year brings hope that we’ve all been needing. I fully believe that I will be able to get the vaccine in 2021 and that some sense of normalcy will be returning. It may not be until the end of 2021, but it’s still something to look forward to.

And as I do at the end of every year, it’s time for me to look back at the goals that I set for 2020. Obviously, the pandemic changed a lot in my life and about 75% of my year was spent isolating at home. But I’m happy that I was able to get a few of my goals done, even if they weren’t the way I expected them to happen. And I’ll take a look at each goal on its own.

My first goal was to do at least 200 Orangetheory classes. As I am writing this post, I haven’t done my last workout for the year. But when I do, I will have done 204 workouts for the year. These workouts were not the way I planned on doing them. I was only in the studio until mid-March and then every other workout was done at home. I’ve built a nice little home gym setup, something that I never expected to have. I’ve been able to motivate myself when nobody is holding me accountable. I might not have done as tough of workouts as I’m used to, but I still did over 200 workouts this year.

My next goal was to cook more often. And that definitely happened. I might have ordered more delivery food than I would have liked, but I didn’t really go out to any restaurants this year. So I think it probably balanced out. I found some new easy recipes that I can make with minimal effort. I still don’t love cooking the way that I want to, but I’m getting much closer. This is one goal that I think the pandemic helped me with because I was forced into it.

The next goal was to work on my home organization. If only I knew then how often I’d be working on organizing and cleaning my house this year. A lot of organizing was more about staying busy and having something to do that day. But I still got myself more organized. I have more projects that I want to work on, but those have been figured out as I work with new systems in my house and seeing what I’m missing or needing. Having limited space does make things tough, but I’m looking at new options for storage that will help me keep all the new organization I’ve done.

The next goal was to work on job hunting and my budget. I think this one was a bit of a fail, but not a total fail. I’ve already written about my lack of budgeting work this year. It was hard to feel motivated to budget when I wasn’t working. And I wasn’t planning on job hunting to be during a tie when so many people were out of work. But I did continue to apply for work and hope for the best. And I did get a new job this year, but it wasn’t from my job hunting efforts. But it was because I was being open about needing work and continuing to build skill sets. I hope that I will be able to get my budget in order soon again, but not doing it for the majority of 2020 really did set me back a bit.

Next is a goal that almost makes me laugh. It was to be more social and have more fun. I actually wrote about how being home was something I do too much of and need to not do as often. Again, if only I knew then that I’d basically be trapped at home for the year. I don’t know if I can say I was more social. I did create new virtual social opportunities like the Movie Club I run twice a week. And I’ve become really good friends with many of the women in that group. Many of us agree that our becoming friends has been the one good part of this year. But my goal was to get out more and I clearly couldn’t do that.

And my final goal was to be more active in union service and working on my acting career more. I think I have become more active in union service. Just creating the You Are The Union live-stream has made me more involved. And I’ve had a lot more time to be involved and stay informed. So that’s good. But as far as my acting career goes, besides getting better at doing self-tape auditions, I haven’t done much. But I’m hopeful that soon I’ll be able to do more as things become safer again.

Considering this past year, I am proud of what I did. So many of the goals I didn’t do were out of my control. And I did find ways to make some of these goals happen when the original way I planned no longer was a possibility. Also, the goals I set for myself are not requirements for the year. Failing to accomplish one or two is ok. But overall, I’m happy with what I did and how I didn’t allow this crazy and challenging year to stop me from trying my best.

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Christmas Week Workouts (or Hitting Milestones and Missing Traditions)

Posted on December 28, 2020 | Comments Off on Christmas Week Workouts (or Hitting Milestones and Missing Traditions)

This past week of workouts was my last full week of workouts for 2020. Christmas week has always been fun for me at Orangetheory because of some of the traditional things that happen during those workouts. Sadly, since we are all doing the workouts at home, some of those traditions couldn’t happen this year.

For example, I love the Christmas Eve workouts and the Naughty or Nice stockings. I have always enjoyed the workouts that are luck of the draw and the Naughty or Nice ones are so fun. They can be really tough and sometimes that makes me feel a bit crazy during the workout, but after the workout is done I’m always happy.

And along with the workout on Christmas Eve, I have a tradition of taking a photo with one of my coaches. This would have been the 7th Christmas Eve that I was at Orangetheory, and we’ve only missed one photo together. But sadly, that photo had no way to happen this year and we’ll just have to make up for it next year. But I will probably add something funny to our collage to represent this year.

And this year, I didn’t even work out on Christmas Eve. I always have before because Orangetheory is closed on Christmas. It’s the only day the studios are closed. So if Christmas falls on a day I normally work out, I make sure I go on Christmas Eve instead. This year, if things were normal, I would have done that. But because all the workouts are online, I decided to keep my normal workout schedule. So I worked out on Christmas this year. And in a year that has so much that doesn’t feel normal, keeping my normal workout schedule was a good thing.

But there was one tradition that I didn’t miss. Almost every year, I have hit my workout goal. And this year, there was a brief moment when I thought the time I took off when I was sick with vertigo would ruin my chances of doing that. Fortunately for me, my math was just very off and I was still on track for getting to my goal before the end of the year. And I did exactly that this past week.

I still have a few more workouts this year, so I will be over 200 workouts by the time the year is done. And yes, over 75% of my workouts were done at home and not in the studio. But I think that it should still count. I do hope that I have more workouts in the studio next year, but we have no idea when it will be safe for the studios to reopen. So at least I know that I can hit my goals while working out at home so I won’t let that be an excuse for me.

As far as the workouts went, this past week was pretty good. I had a few things that made it tough on me (like being in a lot of pain for a few reasons), but I was in a much better mood than I had been in recently so I was able to push through. I had a few moments of working out hard enough to feel sore, which still makes me happy.

All of my workouts were online videos. It’s actually been this way for a while now. Sadly, because of my schedule with my new job, I can’t do the Zoom workouts anymore. I do miss my Zoom workouts and how those felt so different from the online videos. But I have to prioritize my work schedule, especially when there are other options for doing the workouts at home. And maybe another one of my coaches will do Zoom workouts that fit into my schedule. But for now, it’s just the online videos for me.

This week will close out my workouts for 2020 and kick off my workouts for 2021. I still need to think about some workout related goals to set for myself. But I will be setting them with the assumption that at least a portion of my workouts will be at home. I need to find goals that will work for both home and studio workouts. But I feel like I’m kicking off the end of this year on a good note and proud of what I’ve done so far. And that’s an amazing feeling.

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Hitting A Workout Milestone In Isolation (or Still Working Toward A Goal)

Posted on September 28, 2020 | Comments Off on Hitting A Workout Milestone In Isolation (or Still Working Toward A Goal)

My recap of the last week of workouts is going to be split up into 2 posts. I’m going to write about my first 3 workouts today and my Saturday workout tomorrow. And that’s because this past Saturday was the Dri-Tri. And even though the studios I go to are still closed, Orangetheory created Dri-Tri at Home so I did that! But I want that to be a different post from the rest of my workouts.

I didn’t have a Zoom workout last week due to schedule issues. I missed doing that class, but I didn’t let that get me down too much. I had so many weeks without a Zoom workout, so I knew I could be ok with doing just the video ones. I know I don’t work quite as hard when I don’t have a live coach, but I’ve been trying to push myself more. It’s not easy to motivate myself that way, but I know I need to try my best.

I keep hoping that things will continue to get better here so that the studios can reopen, but I also know that it could still take a while. It’s so crazy to me that I’ve been doing workouts at home for 6 months already. This past week, I did my 150th workout of the year.

And a majority of those workouts have been at home alone. I never thought I would be doing workouts toward my goal for the year outside of the studio. I didn’t want to do them on my own. If it was up to me, I wouldn’t be doing this. I have some friends who go to different workout studios who have said that they don’t know if they will be going back. They have found a great way to work out at home and they are loving it. I’m not someone like that. I crave the community and encouragement. I am proud of myself for not giving up and still being on track for my workout goals for the year, but this is not the way I want to do them.

I will say, the one thing that is making me a bit happier with my home workouts is having my new set of weights. Using those has been a big change for me and I like having the ability to really push myself and get my strength back. I’m still so far from where I used to be in terms of how heavy I can go with the weights, but I have noticed some improvement already. It’s all about the small steps toward getting back to where I was.

I had some really great ideas for this year with goals I wanted to hit with my workouts. And now it’s almost impossible to do most of them. The only one I feel like I can accomplish is doing at least 200 workouts this year. I am on track for that and feel confident that I will get there. But I wanted to do more than that. Showing up for a workout is good, but seeing results and improvement is so much better. I am trying to see improvements with my strength. But I won’t be able to get to where I wanted to with my cardio. I have some cardio stuff I do at home, but I have no way to test my rowing like I can do in the studio. I wonder where my rowing ability will be when we do get back. It’s going to be so weird and I’m sure I will be very sore for a while.

I am proud of myself for seeing some improvements with my strength and for hitting a workout milestone this past week. And I’m proud of doing the Dri-Tri at Home (at least, what was created to do at home). And I’ll write about that Dri-Tri tomorrow.

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2020 Goals (New Year, Not All New Goals)

Posted on January 1, 2020 | Comments Off on 2020 Goals (New Year, Not All New Goals)

Happy New Year! Even though I know that the start of a new year (or a new month or week) doesn’t have to mean a lot, I like the idea of a fresh start and kicking off the time with something new. And that’s exactly what I’ve been able to do for the past few years.

And just like the last several years, I’m going to be using a Volt Planner to do my goal tracking and monthly challenges. They are really beautiful planners and they are laid out perfectly for what I want to. They do keep me organized and I spent some time this past week working on what I wanted my goals to be for 2020. Some of them are new ones, but there are several that I feel like I have tried to do multiple times. But just because I didn’t accomplish a goal in the past doesn’t mean I can’t get it done this year.

My first goal shouldn’t be much of a surprise. I want to do at least 200 Orangetheory classes this year. This goal is one I have been setting each year (or at least I would have a target number of classes I wanted to get to) and it’s a goal that I know I don’t have to think about much. I typically go to 4 classes a week which will easily get me to 200 classes. It also allows for a bit of flexibility if there are a few weeks that I can’t do 4 classes. Of course, something could come up that would prevent me from working out, but I’m not expecting anything to do that so this goal should be one that in a year I can say I was able to do.

My next goal is that I want to cook more often. I have had this goal several times and the reasons for it have always been the same. I know that it is healthier for me to cook at home plus it is a good way to save money. I have the ability to cook, I just don’t have the motivation. I need to work on finding the motivation because I know that it’s the main thing holding me back. I also want to work on finding recipes that inspire me and can become something I cook regularly.

The next goal is one I already have started. I want to continue to work on my home organization and be able to maintain it. I have slowly been going through my house and seeing what I really need and what I might be able to get rid of or donate. I’m also getting things that help me organize what I do keep. For example, my bathroom is tiny and there is no storage space. But I finally found a little basket I can use to keep my cleaning supplies together so they don’t look as cluttered. It’s not necessarily organized, but it looks that way. My big challenge will be organizing my desk, but I’m giving myself plenty of time to work on it.

Next is a bit of a combo goal. I want to get back to my job hunting as well as working on my budget. I’ve been doing ok with my budgeting work. The app that I use has made huge changes and I finally had to switch to the new system. There is a bit of a learning curve with it, but that’s why I want to make budgeting one of my goals. I can see how easy it would be to let this slip, and I don’t want to do that. I do not want to get back into credit card debt and the best way to do that will be to budget carefully. And along those lines, budgeting would be easier if I had more income. And that’s why I need to get back to my job hunting. I am so lucky I have the job I have right now, but it’s not enough. It’s never made me enough money and I can’t keep ignoring that fact.

Another combo goal is to be more social and to have more fun. I have a tendency to be a bit of a homebody. And even though that is something I choose to do, I get a bit lonely when I do that and I crave going out. I need to be more productive in making plans with friends and seeking new ways to go out and have fun. And part of this may be working on expanding my circle of friends and finding different groups to be a part of. It’s not easy making friends at my age, but it’s not impossible either. And I can’t make an excuse to not do it because it might be difficult.

And the last two go together even though I consider them very separate goals. I want to be more active in union service and I want to focus more on my acting career. I have gotten very involved in union service and it has been an amazing addition to my life. I love what I have been able to be a part of and how much more I understand my union. But I know there is so much more I can do and I want to work toward that. I have more ways to be involved and I want to get more people involved. And along with that, I need to focus on my acting career. That is my goal in life and I need to get things back in order because I didn’t prioritize them enough in the past year. Some of the things I need to do cost money and that was holding me back, but I need to find ways to make it happen because my career is important to me and I don’t want to waste time not doing it.

I think I have a good variety of goals for 2020. Some of them I know will be easier to do than others, but they cover a variety of areas in my life. And even if I only get half of them done this year, my life is going to be so much better with them accomplished.

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Posted in Acting, Fitness, Food, Fun Stuff, Saving, Work

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Looking Back At My 2019 Goals (or I Might Have Forgotten To Work On Some Of These)

Posted on December 31, 2019 | Comments Off on Looking Back At My 2019 Goals (or I Might Have Forgotten To Work On Some Of These)

I can’t believe that it’s the last day of 2019! I know I’ve been saying this for a few weeks already, but it’s true. Every year seems to be flying by faster than the year before and I still am in shock that this year is over. And part of that shock is the fact that I might have forgotten to work on my goals as much as I usually do. But I did try my best with many of these goals and it’s time to look back at what I set out to do and what I actually accomplished.

I had 2 categories for my goals this year. My normal goals and my Orangetheory goals. Even though I had separate posts for each category, I’m going to do my end of the year wrap up in just one post.

For my normal goals, I wanted to do 200 Orangetheory classes, find a new job, reduce and eliminate recurring spending, work toward living a more minimalistic life, spend my free time in a better way, and take my blog and social media to the next level. I feel like I was 50/50 on these goals.

I will have done 207 Orangetheory classes this year (my last class will be after this post goes up). This was the easiest goal for me and I didn’t question that I would be able to get it done. I also was able to eliminate some of my recurring spending and looked more carefully at what recurring charges I had in my life. There weren’t a lot of things I eliminated, but there were a few things like magazine subscriptions that I wasn’t aware was charging me that I was able to cancel. And I didn’t exactly get into a more minimalistic lifestyle, but I took a lot of steps toward it and I feel so much better about my home and how things are organized here.

While I did do some job hunting, I wasn’t successful in finding a new job. And over the past few months, I haven’t really been working on it the way that I know I need to. My contract for my data entry job did get extended for a few more months, so I do still have a bit of a buffer. But I know that I can’t keep putting this off and I need to get more serious about my job hunting. As far as spending my free time in a better way, I don’t think I really accomplished this. I did end up having less free time this year due to new responsibilities in my life, but I don’t feel like that counts as doing better with my free time. But I have been figuring out better things to do with my time and I hope I can start implementing those soon. And as far as taking my blog and social media to the next level, I took some tiny steps toward this and I know the next big steps I need to do for my social media. But those big steps require some more prep time and I just haven’t been able to do them. But I have found that I might not want to take my blog to the next level the way I used to. It’s something I’m still looking into, but for now, I think taking this year to try to do that made me realize how I don’t necessarily want to.

And for my Orangetheory goals, I wanted to do 200 workouts, use the bike more than the treadmill, get a new PR on the rower, track my work on the floor like I do for cardio and rowing, and bring more friends to class with me. These goals are not quite 50/50, but I actually feel like I was more successful with them.

As I wrote above, I did over 200 classes and it wasn’t that hard for me to do that. I’m still impressed that I have been able to maintain the schedule that I have set for myself. And I can’t believe that a few months ago I did my 1,000th class! And I only used the bike for my cardio work this year. I never stepped on a treadmill and I’m so happy about that. I honestly don’t think I will use the treadmill anymore because I have found I can do much better work on the bike. It’s no longer something I do because I’m nauseous. It’s something that I put energy into doing better with and that is exactly the mindset I wanted to get to when I set this goal.

But for the rest of my Orangetheory goals, I really didn’t accomplish them. I didn’t get any new PRs on the rower, although I did come close. And I only tracked a few of my floor workouts, but I discovered that it just wasn’t easy for me to do it since there is so much variation with what we do on the floor. And while I have talked to so many friends about coming with me to a class, I haven’t quite gotten them to join me. But I know they will soon. But one of the things I wanted to get out of having more friends come to class is to have more friends in a workout with me. While I didn’t get friends into class, I have made more friends in my class. I have more friends in all of my classes so I am working out with more of my friends. But they are friends I made at Orangetheory and not friends I brought into Orangetheory. Technically I didn’t accomplish the goal, but I did accomplish the result I wanted.

Even though I wasn’t really successful in accomplishing about half my goals, I feel like I did way better than that. I think I had set new goals for myself that weren’t ones I set in January, so I’ve been thinking about revamping my annual goals more often. But I’m still debating on that. I’m so proud of what I was able to get done and what I learned when I wasn’t able to get other goals done. And I think all of that will be helping me with my goals I will be setting for myself in 2020!

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Under 90 Days Left In The Year (or Doing A Bit Of Reflecting)

Posted on October 9, 2019 | Comments Off on Under 90 Days Left In The Year (or Doing A Bit Of Reflecting)

Life has been crazy for me lately, but I’ve had a bit of a break over the past few days. I spent a lot of the time when things were calmer getting stuff done that I had been putting off. I also spent some time catching up on social media. While I do run some social media accounts, I haven’t really done a lot on social media for myself. And when I was catching up on seeing what other people have been up to, I saw a lot of posts from a few days ago talking about how there are only 90 days left in 2019.

I have said this a million times, but I have no clue where the time went. I was just thinking about how I should figure out if I was going to do something for my birthday, and my birthday was 2 months ago! I think I missed the chance to do that, but there’s always my half birthday. I know that time flew by because I have been very busy and my life is quite repetitive. From week to week, things do tend to stay the same for me. I have a similar schedule every day and even the things I do outside of work tend to be similar. And things have been crazy with trying to fit a lot of stuff in when I’m not working and things tend to chunk up together so I have a cycle of being extremely busy followed by a time where I don’t have much planned.

But I started to think more about what I have done this year and what I still want to do. I took another look at the various goals I set for this year and I’m glad that I have been making some progress on them. I don’t think I’ll be successful with all of the goals I set this year, but it would be a miracle if that happened. The goals I set are a mix of those that I know I can do and some that are more difficult. My priority is to get the ones accomplished that I know I can do plus a few of the harder ones. I think I’ll be able to do that this year, but I also want to make sure that I’m not being complacent and just doing the goals that I can do without much thought.

But I also can add some more goals for the last 90ish days of the year. I don’t exactly know what I want to get done, but I want there to be a change in my life. I have been living a life that doesn’t seem like a lot gets done or changes. And I need a change in my life. I am tired of living the same day over and over again. There are so many things that I want to change about my life that I’m not in control of, and I need to think beyond those. If I just focus on the changes that require someone else, I won’t make the changes that I can do on my own. And I think my focus has not been on the ones I’m in control of. I don’t quite know what those changes are just yet, but I know there are things I can do. And I’d love to work on them (or at least figure out what they are) during these last 90ish days of the year.

This is all still such an abstract idea for me because I have just been doing some thinking about it and not planning or doing any action steps. And I know I have been aware of this before and I haven’t been able or willing to make changes. I don’t know how many attempts it will take in order to finally make the change, but hopefully, it will happen one day. I don’t want to have 10 years go by and realize I’m still living the same life. I’m shocked when I realized how many years I’ve been working at this job because I don’t know how time went by without a lot of changes. I want to make sure that my life is as awesome as I want it to be, but it’s not there yet.

I don’t always love using the calendar to set goals and plans. I do set goals at the beginning of each year, but sometimes those goals are already things I’ve been working on. I don’t believe in waiting until the first of the month or a Monday to start a new plan. But for some reason, knowing there were only 90 days left in the year connected to me and got me to think about how I want to end out this year. I want to have some things to think about as accomplishments for 2019 and it’s not too late to start working on them.

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A Mid-Point Check In (or Some Slacking and Some Progress)

Posted on July 3, 2019 | Comments Off on A Mid-Point Check In (or Some Slacking and Some Progress)

Since it is halfway through the year, I wanted to do a check in with my goals for 2019. I’ll be doing a separate check in with the goals I have for Orangetheory, this post is just about the personal goals I set for myself this year.

The first goal I have for the year technically is an Orangetheory goal. And that is to do 200 workouts this year. This goal is the one that I was worried the least about. I felt very confident when I set this goal for myself and I still feel confident. I have already done over 100 workouts so I’m making great progress toward this goal. It almost felt like a bit of a cheat goal because I don’t feel like it’s that hard for me to do it. But I am going to 4 workouts a week which I guess can count as hard work. But because that is almost a routine for me, I don’t have to work hard to get my workouts in. I shouldn’t be discounting this goal and making it seem like I’m not trying, but that’s how I feel especially when compared to my other goals.

The next goal I have for this year is to find a new job. When I wrote my goals post, I didn’t have my temporary job that just ended. And that temporary job did pay better than my past few contracts that ran for a full year. So hopefully with some smart budgeting, I should be ok this year. But I want to be better than just ok. I want to feel secure with my money and not have this feeling that I constantly need to find my next job. I know I’ve been slacking on the job hunt because of the hours I put in with the temporary job, but I still would love to have a new job situation before the year is over.

The next goal I have is to reduce recurring spending. This is one I feel like I am making a little progress on. I have canceled all my magazine subscriptions which helped. I was almost done with all the magazines I was getting, but some of them still showed up and I discovered that I had auto-pay set for them. So I made sure to cancel them all and that was one of the specific things I wanted to work on. The other recurring spending has been a bit tough to get rid of, but I’ve been working on finding products that are either reusable or that work for more than one thing so I don’t have to shop as often. And I’m still looking at what I throw out regularly so I can see if there is an alternative to what I’ve been using.

Next, I said I want to work on living a more minimalistic life. This one I’m a bit unsure if I’ve made progress or not on. Some of the things that have helped have been the reusable things I have been buying to help with my spending. And I haven’t done much clothing shopping even though I do plan on doing that and working through the clothes I have. But as far as random clutter, I do think I have gotten better at not buying things and that has helped. But I know that I need to do more work on getting rid of things.

I also want to work on spending my free time in a better way. And this one is still one that I need to really start working on. I have been doing some more productive things between customers like working, but there’s still a lot of time that I spend doing mindless things and I need to work on making this better. I don’t know what I should be doing, but I have been looking into finding some hobbies to help fill my free time. I don’t have a lot of hobbies outside of reading and I’d love to find something that feels a bit creative or leads me to create something physical so I see the end result of my work. But I don’t know what that is yet and I don’t want to do a lot of things that cost money just to figure out what I like.

And the last goal I have for this year is to bring my blog and social media to the next level. This one I don’t feel like I’ve made any progress toward. The only thing that can count a bit is the work I’ve been doing on social media for my union slate because that has helped me learn some new tricks. But I haven’t been applying them to my personal social media much and I do need to work on that. And the blog is still in the same place it has always been and I’m starting to wonder if I’ll be ok with that. My motivation to step things up isn’t where it was before and I have other things I’d prefer to put my time and energy toward right now. So I might just give up on this goal until I feel the push to do it again.

Overall, I really wish I was in a better place with the goals I have for this year. I have made progress with some of them, but I feel like I should be further along with most of them. I know that I’ve had a bit of a rough beginning to the year with a lot of things on my plate, but I can’t use that as an excuse for not working toward things that I want to do. I just need to step it up more for this second half of the year so my recap at the end of the year is a bit better.

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Wondering How To Complete Some Goals (or I Have An Idea But Not A Plan)

Posted on January 10, 2019 | Comments Off on Wondering How To Complete Some Goals (or I Have An Idea But Not A Plan)

Because there were so many goals in 2018 that I didn’t complete, I am working hard this year to make sure that doesn’t happen again. I always set my goals with the expectation that I will be able to complete or accomplish them. Sometimes they don’t seem that hard for me to do, but I’ve realized that is also my downfall. When I assume that I will be able to complete a goal without too much work, I can slack off on doing that. I’ve seen that happen a lot recently and I don’t want to continue that bad habit.

I think this all started when I started to do more abstract goals and challenges. When I don’t have a way to track and measure, I can tell myself that I am doing the right things even if I’m not. That’s why budgeting and tracking food and weight is important. I don’t want to ignore the signs that things are going the wrong direction. I will admit, I haven’t been great in budgeting and food tracking lately either. Budgeting is a weird one since I know that I am not making enough to support my lifestyle. I don’t need to get a bunch of alerts and red numbers telling me I’m over budgeting for my rent when I can’t reduce it. But as soon as I find a new job, I will be back on it since I know I need to.

One of my goals for this year is to use my free time in a more productive manner.  In a perfect world, a lot of my current free time would be getting used by a new job. Unfortunately the job hunting isn’t going as well as I hoped it would be and I’m still looking for a new one. I guess the job hunting could be considered a productive use of my free time, but because I was getting so burnt out from looking I’ve had to limit my job search time to 4 hours a day. I know that probably seems like a lot, but I need a job now and for some reason I’m struggling to find one.

I’ve also been doing online class stuff during my free time, but that’s not taking up as much time as I have. I’m trying to limit how much time I’m doing mindless things online or watching tv or movies, but sometimes I just don’t know what else to do with that free time. My biggest issue is while I’m working because I have to be on my computer then. I can’t go out and do things and I can’t really be doing things in different parts of my house. Even though my house is tiny, I can’t be in my kitchen cooking if my phone rings or a customer reaches out via online chat. I’m stuck at my desk and looking at a computer.

I have added a few educational apps to my phone like the New York Times crossword and I’ve gotten pretty good at it! But each of these little things I’m adding just doesn’t seem like what I need to have in mind when I’m thinking about spending my free time more productively. I’m honestly opening it up to suggestions because I don’t know where to start or what to consider.

I think realizing that one of my goals this year doesn’t really have a plan yet is a good thing. I’d rather realize it now instead of 6 months later and figure out that I have been wasting the time that I have. And with many things in my life, being hyperaware that there is something I want to fix is always a good thing and is very useful to me in making changes. I’ve been considering trying to track how I spend my free time, and I know there are apps I can use for that on my computer, but I’m not sure if that’s the right move for now. I really just want to figure out a plan for how I can change things and make them better before I try to see what my current screen time usage is like. Hopefully when I have that plan, my screen time during work will be limited to just my work stuff and perhaps whatever productive things I find to do between customers if they are things I do on my computer.

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Orangetheory Goals (or A Blog/Vlog Partnership!)

Posted on January 4, 2019 | Comments Off on Orangetheory Goals (or A Blog/Vlog Partnership!)

I am so excited for this post! For the past few years, I’ve written about my personal goals at the beginning of the year. And ever since I started going to Orangetheory, one of my goals has been how many classes I wanted to make it to that year. And while I’ve had other personal goals I wanted to accomplish that related to my fitness, I’ve never really shared a list of Orangetheory specific goals. But that changes this year!

I’ve made a list of some goals I have for 2019 at Orangetheory, but I didn’t want to do  this alone. So I reached out to Andrew Coleman Smith, who has a vlog channel with the amazing Fat Tuesday series where he talks about his fitness and health journey including Orangetheory, and he’s joining me with making 2019 our best OTF year yet! We are going to be holding each other accountable for our goals throughout the year and we will be checking in with each other at different times. When we have our check-ins he will be making an appearance (at least in writing) on here and I’ll be making an appearance on his YouTube channel! The vlog about us working together will be going up next week as his Fat Tuesday video, but this blog is a preview of our goals.

First, here are mine.

My first one is one that I mentioned in my main goals post. I want to do 200 workouts this year. This goal is the one that I look at as my easy goal, but I still need to make sure that I don’t slack off in getting in all my workouts each week.

Next is another one I’ve mentioned before in my workout recaps. I want to use the bike more than the treadmill for my cardio. I need to do this so I stop looking at the bike as not as good as the treadmill. I know I can work just as hard if not harder on the bike than I can on the treadmill and I need to remember that. I’m not exactly sure how I will decide what will be bike days versus treadmill days other than biking when I’m nauseous. But I’m going to be tracking what I use to make sure I stay on the bike more.

I also want to get a new PR of some sort on the rower. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a PR on the rower. When I started at Orangetheory, I was getting a PR almost every time I rowed because I started with so little rowing skills. It’s easy to make progress when you are starting at the bottom. When you get better, progress comes in smaller increments and that’s where I’ve been getting stuck. But I’m going to make more of an effort to be aware of where my current PRs are and use them to help me try to beat it in class.

Along with tracking my rowing better, I have another tracking goal. I want to track my work I do on the floor. I have been tracking things on the treadmill, bike, and rower for so long and it seems so easy for me to do that.  But I don’t really track my weights on the floor so it is harder for me to know if I’m making progress. I know I have made some progress over 4 1/2 years because I never used anything higher than 15lbs in the past. But now, I can’t remember if 20lb or 25lb is my record for different types of lunges or things like that. And I want to know and be aware of what I am doing and when I move to using heavier weights instead of guessing when that happens.

And my final goal for 2019 at Orangetheory is one that I need help with. I want to bring more friends with me to a class. I love the friends that I’ve made at OTF, but it’s so special when I get to take a class with a friend. I want to do that more often so more people in my life can know why these workouts are so special to me.

And now it’s Andrew’s turn!

My name is Andrew! Every week I document my journey to become #NotFat on my weekly YouTube series, Fat Tuesdays! I’ve recently fallen in love with Orangetheory and it’s changed my entire life! Every Tuesday I share about that journey and more. I’d love to have you stop by and check it out!

My first goal this year is to go to a minimum of 3 times a week to Orangetheory. My attendance the last few months of the year were spotty and we all know consistency is key, so I feel like this goal will ensure a lot more progress in my journey. Plus Orangetheory says themselves that 3 to 4 times a week is what you should shoot for, so it’s right on track with “crushing it”.

Next, I want to level up on my push pace. It’s crazy to think that when I first started at Orangetheory, my push pace was a brisk walking speed and now it’s a 6.5! That being said, after crossing over the one year mark in my journey, I think it’s now time to up my push to a 7 (while still keeping my true base of 5.5) It’s a small change that I feel will really make a difference over the course of a year.

For my third goal, I want to FULLY prepare for my classes. My typical morning workout usually looks like this: I’m late to arrive, I can’t find any of my heart rate monitors (yes, I have multiple and yes I sometimes lose them all), I have to buy a water bottle, didn’t get proper sleep the night before… a MESS. (All things I feel a #FitnessPerson shouldn’t do)

And finally, be a better tracker. I’m all about documenting my progress with my health journey on my YouTube channel, but I don’t have the right stats. I don’t know really any of my markers for benchmarks in Orangetheory nor do I have proper measurements of my body. I want to measure every few months or so and keep a detailed journal of what’s changing (since the bathroom scale doesn’t really tell the full story) I also recently took some professional before pictures as a way to get an accurate look at where I’m at in my journey at the top of the year.

So those are our goals for this year at Orangetheory! If you have any fitness goals (Orangetheory or otherwise), I know we’d both love to know more about them! And please hold us both accountable as well. Andrew and I will be making sure that we hit our goals, but having more people checking in on us will be helpful too!

Here’s to us all having our best fitness year ever!

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