Posts Tagged ‘Goal setting’

31
Dec
2015

My Word

Without making this post huge by trying to put everything I’ve missed from the last few months into one long rambling essay (not much happened but I had such a good break from life online and it was exactly what I needed), I simply want to briefly close up 2015, and introduce you to my word for 2016.

Turns out the most popular moments of this year on Instagram contained either food, cats or Christmas (aka my 3 favourite things)

2015 was a strange year. It started with the best and worst days, where we came home with a fluffy feline called Merlin, and then were burgled a day later. There were some pretty small and subtle changes, like me spending a day without my phone and realizing that I need to step back a bit from social media, or walking up One Tree Hill and realizing that nothing is too hard to try. It also had a pretty big moment where I handed in my resignation for a job that I’ve loved (but have grown out of) so that next year I can try something new which has been my dream job since I was about 5.

Overall the main things I learnt this year was how hard it is to be true to myself, but also how damn important that is. I learnt that I’m a better person when I am honest with myself and with others, and how I don’t need to be ashamed of my responsible/boring/nanna side (in fact I can be proud of how good I am at adulting when I do it well) but that I can also aim to challenge myself with new things and attitudes around being more flexible and spontaneous.

With that being my main little learning from 2015, my word going into 2016 is Strength. This whole one word instead of ten billion goals suits me well, because as much as I love lists I’m super talented at writing all my goals down and literally never looking at them again. So I loved the idea of having a little mantra for myself to take into 2016 and whatever that may bring.

Strength:

Strength in my body and the way I want it to be able to physically cope with more
Strength in my mind and how it responds to things that happen in a healthy and helpful way
Strength in evaluating and discussing opinions with those who help me learn to do this better
Strength in my abilities to take on new challenges and push my old boundaries each day
Strength in finding the things that make me happy and allocating my time and energy accordingly
Strength in my spirit and in the way I allow myself to grow and be myself

I could go on but I guess you get the idea. It feels a bit awkward at the moment but I think that’s actually a sign that this is something I need to be more mindful of. Strength would never be a word I would associate with myself, and yet its a quality I admire in others and want to try and have create more of.

Something that helps is being surrounded by strong people who make me want to up my game and be more like them, so thanks to all the incredible humans I am lucky enough to be around.

tl;dr 2015 was cool but confusing, and in 2016 I want to give myself permission to be stronger

Do you have a word for 2016? Please share if you do!

25
Nov
2015

101 things in 1001 days

categories: 101 in 1001

101 things in 1001 days has a certain ring to it. After seeing many others do versions of this I couldn’t help but create one for myself. It’s like a 3 year long bucket list (well, slightly under 3 years) of things I would like to achieve or experience before August 22nd 2018. I have this really annoying ability to put off things I want to do indefinitely, so I’m hoping this might help.

To read more about the whole idea you can go here, and if you create one or have already created one please link it in the comments so I can read along!

101 things in 1001 days

1. Go to a wine, cheese and space night at Stardome
2. Write a completed short story or novel (if I’m feeling extra ambitious)
3. Learn some basic Japanese
4. Go to Japan
5. Travel to Melbourne
6. Road trip around the South Island with Edd
7. Read the first Harry Potter novel in French
8. Teach my first class of primary school students as a qualified teacher
9. Watch the first dirty dancing movie
10. Have a Harry Potter movie marathon weekend
11. Walk up Rangitoto Island
12. Do the Tongariro Crossing (without dying)
13. Blog for 7 days straight
14. Attend a wedding (hint-hint, someone get married pls)
15. Send a care package to someone I love
16. Learn to make crème brulee
17. Write a letter to myself to be opened on day 1001
18. Learn some basic coding
19. Compliment someone different every day for ten days
20. Ask 5 friends to suggest a book, and read them all
21. Take a photo of myself every week for a year
22. Write a list of 20 places want to visit and why
23. Write and illustrate a children’s book
24. Lose 20 kgs and keep it off
25. Go to Hobbiton
26. Do a 365 day photo challenge
27. Get my first tattoo
28. Learn to make homemade tomato relish
29. Spend a day without technology
30. Wake up early and watch a sunrise
31. Go Kayaking
32. Go one month without ordering take out
33. Go one week with daily meditation
34. Start a collection
35. Run a 5k
36. Make someone I love breakfast in bed
37. Give 5 ‘just because’ gifts
38. Do my first ever spin class
39. Brush up on my French
40. Spend a long weekend at Raglan
41. Watch an outdoors movie (e.g. at Silo Park)
42. Have one month where I exercise 5 days a week, each week
43. Complete a DIY/craft project from Pinterest
44. Learn 5 more cupcake recipes
45. Bake a loaf of homemade bread
46. Try something new with my hair
47. Create a photo collage for someone special
48. Provide positive feedback about 5 separate people to their managers
49. Complete my graduate diploma in teaching primary school
50. Host a cocktail night
51. Try 5 new cocktails
52. Create a budget
53. Put together a collection for Woman’s refuge
54. Complete a medical test I have been putting off for forever
55. Write a letter for my future child (the cornier, the better)
56. Plan and execute a bachelor style date day
57. Create a canvas painting
58. Write a “if anything ever happens to me” letter
59. Go on a picnic
60. Watch the sunset out West at the beach
61. Start a house deposit savings account
62. Visit a famous landmark that I’ve never seen before
63. Spend a winter weekend at a cosy bed and breakfast
64. Read 10 classic novels
65. Take 101 photos with my instax camera
66. Buy a guitar
67. Host a big 25th Birthday celebration
68. Save $10 per month for a fun reward at the end of this project
69. Go to 5 concerts
70. Conquer a fear
71. Read a book in a day
72. Grow a plant from seed
73. Watch a movie that was made the year I was born (1991)
74. Make my own blend of tea
75. Host a high tea
76. Memorise 5 poems
77. Write a 100 things that make me happy list
78. Watch at least one season of Gilmore Girls
79. Go Vegan for 1 month
80. Buy myself a massage
81. Send flowers to someone
82. Go camping (a big deal for me as I have an irrational fear of camping)
83. Read the Chronicles of Narnia series
84. Host a fondue night
85. Give a piece of furniture a DIY makeover
86. Go fruit picking
87. Do a guest post for someone
88. Try 10 new restaurants
89. Start a new tradition
90. Reconnect with someone
91. Donate to 10 different charities
92. Create a master list of meals we love to have on the fridge for inspiration
93. Learn 50 new things by clicking the random articles button on Wikipedia
94. Start a new blog series
95. Make a list of 101 quotes that inspire me
96. Complete a 30 day yoga challenge
97. Buy myself a beautiful watch
98. Make a set of handmade greeting cards
99. Have an animal encounter at the zoo (I’m thinking red panda or otter, but I’m pretty flexible)
100. Read a book with more than 700 pages
101. Write 101 things to do for the following 1001 days

Wish me luck, I already have a few of these in the back of my mind to tick off soon! And if you wish to volunteer to do fondue night with me, or help me watch Gilmore Girls then let me know.

I’ll post updates every now and again, and possibly blog about one single item if it turns out to be interesting enough.

Hope everyone’s week is full of caffeine and smiles and all that good stuff

06
Jan
2014

A Mindful 2014

categories: General/Life

Hey Guys!

So I haven’t really posted in a while due to the crazy, psychotic time that was Christmas and New Years! I spent some of it working, some of it drinking with friends and a lot of it with lovely family. Still, we are 6 days into the New Year so time to start thinking to the future and what 2014 may hold. 2013 was a great year in some ways and awful in others but there is no way but forward and this year will be something different again.

The best goals involve cheese

So goal setting doesn’t seem to be that effective for me. I am only being honest when I admit that I did not look at my 2013 goals once, the entire year. Which is extremely sad but also kind of demonstrated that this year would need to be different. So instead of a list of specific goals I have one theme for 2014 and that is going to be Mindfulness. Confused? Don’t be. Mindfulness for me relates to being present in each moment, attentive to each event whether it be a beautiful sunrise or an unexpected emotion. According to Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn mindfulness relates to “paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment to moment.” and so in my mind this translates to being more aware and contemplative of what happens in our present moment. Being receptive and contemplative in life I guess. Ok so maybe I am a little rusty on the concept but hopefully you grasp the idea.

So for me this year is about being more aware and accepting, of my external environment but also my internal one (thoughts and feelings in all their weird, complicated wonderfulness).

Basically this year I want to be more mindful in general of different aspects of my life. I think a theme is easier for me to refer back to as it is simple and easy to remember without referring to a list of goals that really don’t change from year to year.

So having a theme doesn’t mean there aren’t specific areas that I think this will be most applicable to. The first one is my health e.g. how I look after it in terms of exercise and eating. One life change (in relation to what we eat) Edd and I have chosen to make and started on the 1/1/2014 was to become vegetarian which terrified me before hand but now that I am doing it seems like the most natural thing in the world. Other areas I think will benefit from some mindfulness include how I treat myself mentally and how I let others treat me. Lastly I don’t think a blogger could blog about New Years resolutions without referring to their blog so of course I am hopeful that by being more mindful of what I enjoy about blogging and what I find stressful I can optimize my little hobby and get the most out of it possible.

Other things that this year will bring include the start of my first ever book (and wine) club and I am VERY excited. Although not quite as excited as I am for the two month Europe trip that Edd and I are planning for May/June (tickets to be booked asap!).

All in all 2014 will be an exciting year with lots of new things and challenges and hopefully with a bit of mindfulness I can make the most of it!

What are your goals this year?

If you want to read a little about Mindfulness Google brings up a host of easy explanations such as here and here. I should warn you that my idea of mindfulness may not be 100% the same as the technical definitions but it is a theme I would still like to incorporate more of into my life.

11
Nov
2013

4 Simple Goals… before 2014

categories: General/Life

Happy Monday!

Today I may have become slightly preoccupied with the idea of Christmas…I realize it is only early November but I decided its time to start preparing Christmas decorations for my workplace (anything to make it slightly less grey and office like). With some Christmas themed paper and a pair of scissors my Christmas bunting got underway! Regardless of my slightly premature Christmas excitement, today I wanted to post on a task that A Beautiful Mess has done the last couple years and I keep meaning to take part (4 Simple Goals before 2014).

The idea is to come up with 4 simple goals to try and focus on before 2014 comes along (in case that wasn’t grasped via the rather self-explanatory title). To be honest I am pretty terrible at goal setting (I dread this part of New Years almost as much as I dread waking up after New Year’s Eve) but maybe this slightly less intimidating task will fare better. With the focus on keeping the goals easy to achieve and on small lifestyle changes/trying out new things, I tried to stick to little changes that weren’t negative or too goal orientated. Despite being a little late to the party I enjoyed choosing 4 little areas of focus and I hope to bring little updates in the lead up to 2014 on how it all goes.

Pretty self explanatory but I will elaborate on each goal more in a specific update later on. These are small things that I would like to introduce into my life and I look forward to seeing how I can bring them to life.

Also check out a lovely blogger Tegania and her 4 Simple Goals (and enjoy her beautiful blog while you are at it).

Short post today but more on these later Hope you are all having a great start to the week (if not try introducing a little bit of bunting…it’s very therapeutic!)

P.s I just have to mention that I am going to the Wicked stage show tomorrow night and I am VERY excited. I have had these tickets for a couple of months now and waiting has been excruciating.

P.p.s CHRISTMAS IS 43 DAYS AWAY !!

02
Jan
2013

Looking forward: Goals for 2013

categories: General/Life, Health

Hi All!

So I find it hard to believe it is already 2013. Where did 2012 go? Every year that flies past and leaves me breathless makes me a little uneasy because, as I am sure a lot of people feel, I want to feel like I am getting the most out of each year I am lucky enough to be alive! And yet I know this year, it felt like I scraped by day by day, a bit of an emotional wreck just trying to finish University and deal with Life’s lovely challenges. So 2013 I want to try harder. Now I have this lovely wee corner of the internet I think trying out some goal-setting may be useful. Having my goals up here to see whenever I want makes me feel a little more accountable and I plan to do either 4 monthly goal review posts to see how things are going. Anyway, after that rambly introduction here are my rather random goals for 2013.

1. Look after my body better. Ok so I resisted my usual “lose 15kg” type of goals (although that would be great) because as much as I would love to be a skinny wee thing, I’m not and I don’t think its a particularly healthy goal, for me anyway. Instead 2013 will be a year to focus on health. This includes more balanced meals (not just skipping meals to make up for naughty takeaways the night before), more vegetables and fruit (which have been seriously lacking in my student budget diet of 2012), more exercise (3 times a week for half an hour, any kind of exercise I feel I can motivate myself for) and other generally healthy activities. All at once this probably won’t happen but over time I hope to make some small and manageable changes that will move me in this general direction.

2. Put myself first. In terms of my relationships I want to learn how to put the needs and wants of others aside every once in a while in order to focus on my own mental health and priorities as well as my relationship with Edd. I love my family and friends but life is complicated and putting my needs second in order to please everyone is the habit of a lifetime that I want to keep working on reducing. This doesn’t mean I don’t care about all these wonderful people but just want to put a bit of care into myself as well.

3. Make blogging more regular and less stressful. I love this little blog but I would like to improve the regularity of my posts. I want to become one of those people who has multiple post planned and drafted so that I am not constantly doing things last minute. Having a journal where I can keep a plan of when I want to post certain things is something I am going to start doing to keep things less stressful and more organised.

4. Become more organised in other areas of my life. This ranges from cleaning schedules, keeping my makeup and nailpolish under control, keeping more written records, sticking to my list making which helps me more productive on a day to day basis and so on.

5. Read more books. I love books and I don’t read enough thanks to 4 years of university which made me feel guilty every time I wasn’t reading lecture notes or text books. After seeing people do the 50 book project in 2012 I think 50 books is a good number but we’ll see how manageable it is once I get into a better routine. I would also like to share more about what I read on the blog, although I’m not sure people would be particularly interested haha.

6. Go on more dates. I love spending my evenings curled up on the couch with Edd and Callie, watching movies and eating pizza and popcorn, but I want to try more things with Edd and go out more often. As lovely as it is to stay home variety is the spice of life so 2013 will bring some new restaurants, new activities together, new holidays overseas and who knows what else!

7. Develop a more positive outlook on life. This something I started working on this year with my Made me smile posts which I found so helpful in encouraging me to look back on the past week in terms of the highlights and the positive moments. I hope that I can continue to improve in this area as my default position in life has always been more on the stressed and pessimistic side.

So there are 7 pretty general areas of my life that I want to work on in 2013. As I mentioned in my What I learned from 2012 post, change in these areas won’t come without some hard work and perseverance from me so I’ll do my best to use this year to its potential and enjoy each moment!

Does anyone else still set goals? I know they go in and out of fashion but I think setting goals is useful as long as there isn’t a lot of guilt and self-punishment involved when things don’t go to plan. For me I just need a little direction in life that keeps me on track and stops me losing sense of myself and what I want from the year to come. Let me know what you think and if you have set any goals or resolutions for 2013!

p.s. Last night I read this great post by a fellow tweeter and blogger which talked about the importance of Values as opposed to goals. Sarah discussed rather brilliantly the danger on having incongruent goals and values in life which makes achieving one’s goals harder than it should be. After reading her post I went and thought about the kind of values I want to focus on for 2013 and things that I wrote down were happiness, health, love and relationships amongst a couple others. I then used these to edit and refine some of my goals, removing a couple that I felt weren’t in line with the values I wanted to focus on. I highly recommend checking out her post (Here!) and her blog in general