September Goals

Lately, a lot of people have been asking about my goals and how I’m working towards those goals. I’ve been searching for ways to write everything down and keep myself accountable, but have noticed a lot of bloggers post about their monthly/yearly goals as a good way to keep themselves accountable.

In college, instead of doing a New Year’s Resolution, which I generally dislike and don’t necessarily agree with, I did monthly goals instead. The only problem was at the time, I wasn’t breaking my monthly goals up into smaller weekly goals, so I often got overwhelmed by everything I said I wanted to do and never actually did anything. This time, I’m going to create monthly goals and then each week break those down into weekly goals with daily tasks to help complete them. That way, at the end of the month I’m not looking back and kicking myself for not completing or making progress towards goals I had set for myself.

So with that being said, here we go with September.

• Slowing down: Recently, I’ve felt the need to rush. Let me rush through my inbox to get through all my emails, let me rush through a yoga practice so it can be said and done, let me rush through the grocery store because I hate grocery shopping. I’m rushing everywhere I go trying to cram as many things and events into one day and then at the end of the day I feel scatterbrained and only really accomplished one or two things. Some days, I actually feel out of breath, as if I’ve been literally running from one thing to the next. I haven’t, but in all my rushing and multitasking I’ve forgotten to be mindful of my breathing. Literally rushing, like if I’m running behind or am actually late, also just generally puts me in a shitty mood and there’s an easy solution to that problem- slow down. So for September, I’m going to focus on slowing down. This primarily means I’m going to focus on the task at hand or whatever I’m doing and not try and do five other things at the same time. I’ve been a proponent of multitasking for a long time, but it stresses me out, so I’m going to focus on one thing at a time. This will also help me be more productive.
• Track my time: To help with slowing down, I’m going to be tracking my time. For work, I use toggl to track how long I’m spending on certain projects. This can also be used in my actual life when I’m on my computer to track how long I’m spending doing various activities. I’ve also been looking for an app for my phone that would track how long I spend on my phone and track my app usage and just downloaded the Moment app today!
• Break up with the snooze button: I have been in a very serious, long-term relationship with the snooze button since high school and I just think we’re at different points in our lives now and we need to move on. I’m always saying “I was a psych major! I’ve read the studies, I know how bad the snooze button is for your body!” and the few days I do wake up without hitting snooze, I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER! This goal also leads to…
• Morning routines: The days I hit snooze 10 times and am subsequently running late are the days where my mornings start off rushing and I’m in five different places mentally at once. No more of this. Also no more waking up and immediately checking my email or social media. I want at least 30 minutes of journaling/yoga/meditation time before actually checking my phone.
• Get involved in Raleigh community: This means volunteering my time, attending networking events and getting out to some of the awesome festivals/conferences that are happening in Raleigh this month! I’m researching local nonprofits to see which ones I want to get involved with, so stay tuned for more about this!
• Eat actual meals: Aka stop eating crap and calling it “dinner.” No, my mother is a dietitian, I know what I should be eating. Also, stop skipping lunch.
• #yogaeverydamnday: I hate that my yoga practice has been slipping and I haven’t been as consistent. Doing yoga makes me feel 110% better, always. Even when I’m too tired or too sore from a previous practice. Even when it’s 6 am, I just need to get on my mat. This also applies for meditation. Yes, it’s hard. Yes, it gets frustrating. But yes, I feel better. So at least five minutes of meditation a day!

Friends, help me stay accountable to this! Seriously, text/call/DM/tweet/comment to ask how I’ve been doing with these to help me stay on track! What are some of your September goals?