February- Goals

As far as goals are concerned so far in 2013, January was a pretty good, self-motivating month for me. I split up my 30 goals for the year into 6 separate categories, and I noticed that my focus was easily on two of those; reading/blogging and time. I sped my reading up, wrote some reviews, read some non-fiction, prepared some guest-blog spots, have been keeping vigorously organized with study/life schedules, and made a point of “suffering for 15 minutes” as many times a week as I could handle.

But as any New Year’s plans go, once January comes & goes, it gets easy to forget about the plans you put in place. I remember I did that last year around this time, and I know that if I don’t pay attention, I’ll do it again in 2013. I don’t want to forget about these goals though. I put a lot of thought into what kinds of things I wanted to accomplish this year, and I don’t want to reach 2014 and think to myself that I didn’t put all the effort I could into accomplishing each of these things.

I keep a printed list of my goals on my desk. I look at them all the time, and sometimes that’s enough.In fact, often I will look at my list and think of what I can focus on to cross it off once and for all. I know I’ve been purposely ignoring some of them, though *cough* fitness *cough* and I think if I get back into the habit of holding myself accountable for goals, despite my complete and utter lack of time, maybe more of them will get done!

Here are some that I’d like to work on in February:

1. Continue to read every day, read 4 more books.

I read 7 books in January, but I know that won’t be likely to happen again for a little while. I’m heading into midterms and I want to focus on them very much. But I’d like to keep up the reading momentum and maybe read another non-fiction or even re-read a favorite (The Book Thief? now that it’s becoming a movie, it would be a great reason to knock that one off the list!)

2. Continue to focus on scheduling my time, however focus more on planning out specific study periods & stick to them.

I’ve been doing really well at remembering everything I need to be doing, but there is always room for improvement. I want to work on my the way I schedule my time in February, and start to really break down the free hours of my day so that I’m being more efficient and less of a procrastinator.

3. Start. Exercising. 

My goal is to exercise at least once a week, every week of the year. We are currently week 5 and I have not done this goal once. I have some catching up to do, and I really need to stop pretending I don’t remember that this is an important goal for me.

4. Break down the budget. 

No buying music. No buying books, except the few that have strict sale dates and that I have been waiting for all year (I can only think of two coming up!). No unnecessary shopping purchases. No buying a ridiculous amount of Starbucks, coffee, snacks and other such things while I’m at work and at school. I should be bringing more food with me, rather than constantly spending the little money I’m making these days. I have a goal to save a percentage of my paycheck each month, but I can’t do that until I’m more financially stable. This month is about getting my spending practices in order, for real.

5. Be truly, really, HONESTLY more aware of the food I am eating. 

health, fitness, and vitality are all must-accomplish for me this year. It’s all about little steps, and the first little step I’m taking is to become more aware of the junk I am eating, and slowly cutting it out & replacing it with healthier food choices. I’ve started this, but I want to really work harder on this. I think I’ll see myself feeling much better when I’m not constantly *cheating*, but rather sticking to a more healthy diet.

What are your goals this month?