Thoughts on Life

Setting Goals

Setting goals for myself is one of my favorite things to do. I love to make new years resolutions, monthly goals, weekly goals, spiritual goals, September resolutions, last week of the year goals… you get the picture.

At the beginning of the year I made the goal to read 100 books in 2019 and make at least 1/3 of them non-fiction and also to finally read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Unfortunately, I have only read seven books so far, and so according to Goodreads I am ten books behind (but that’s okau, I plan to keep making my goal 100 books until one day I make it, even if that’s only when I am 80). But the good news is that two of the seven of them have been non fiction which means that I am on track for my 1/3 being non-fiction goal. 

I also made the goal to take more photos. I am not good at taking photos and I always focus more on the moment and less on sharing it with other people. If for no other reason, I wanted to take more photos so that I had more ways to remember what took place in my life this year. While I haven’t been great at taking photos, I think I have gotten slightly better and so I am proud of myself for that.

Many times the goals I make for myself do not seem to get accomplished. Sometimes it is because I forget, sometimes it is because I haven’t told anyone else about my goals, sometimes it’s just because life gets in the way and other things take over. But that doesn’t discourage me, I just keep making the goals and hope one day to achieve them.

I think there is benefit in making goals for ourselves because it allows us to think carefully about what in our life needs to change, what we need to improve on, and what we are doing well in. It can also be fun to push yourself just a little bit further than you know is really possible to achieve and see how far you can go (like me trying to read 100 books this year when last year I only read 50). When we reach the goals that we have set for ourselves it allows us to feel a sense of accomplishment and know that we did something to better ourselves. When we fail to reach our goals then we can consider why we didn’t achieve what we set out to, reevaluate whether it is something we want to try again, and then maybe set a more realistic goal for next time or use the opportunity to push ourselves a little bit harder in order to achieve the goal on our next try.

I think one of the biggest mistakes I have made in the past when setting goals for myself, is not telling other people what my goals are. I am a fairly competitive person and so when I know that someone is going to be checking up on me to see if I am actually sticking to what I set out to do (or even better is doing the same thing with me) then I am much more likely to actually stick with things. 

I have already shared my March goals with a few people but the more the merrier. Today, I would like to share my goals with the readers of my blog.

For the month of March I aim to:

  • Eat healthier. I have left this more general but I am wanting to improve my eating habits by limiting my sugar intake and avoiding fast food while focusing on eating more fruits and vegetables. So far I have done pretty well on this and I have been really grateful to a friend of mine who has actively been keeping accountable and asking me how I have been doing on this. 
  • Write consistently. I have made the commitment to write every single day, and for the first six days of March I have stuck to my word. My hope is to reach 22,000 words by the end of the month in honor of it being my 22nd birthday this month, I haven’t made it an actual goal but I would love to see it happen and am slowly working towards it.
  • Blog consistently. I am also trying to blog more consistently this month and share my blog posts with others, this should help me build a posting routine that I am comfortable with.
  • Read more. Since I have been struggling with sticking with my reading and most of what I have gotten done has been audio books, I set a small goal for myself for this month and decided to aim for 4 fiction and 2 non-fiction books this month.

So there you have it. I am definitely a goal setter and I am really trying to stick with it for March. I have taken the leap of putting it out there for the world to see and hopefully that will be an even bigger motivation to get everything done so that I can update you at the end of the month. 

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