Ceaseless Goal-setter: Themes
For the last few months, I've been setting goals and tweeting them. I think it gave me just enough responsibility to feel like I would stick with it, but not enough to feel guilty when I didn't meet my own set criteria.
For April, (#earlyapril) I was going to get up every day at 7:00 am. This was in hopes of finally flipping my schedule to a more "grown-up" and "morning person" one in which I didn't have the luxury of staying in bed until 8:30 or 9 am. I actually do like mornings. Sunrises and hot chocolate and cinnamon toast are some of my favorite things. In being a crazy late night workaholic for so many years, I'd lost sight of the goodness of early waking. Don't worry, as a lover of data, I graphed it:
Things I can observe about this graph:
1) There is a huge variation in between 7 and 8 am in which I finally got out of bed.
2) There are a couple of places that were total outliers in terms of when I should have gotten up.
3) In general, I did get up before (or at) 8 am.
Things I can say about success: I did get up earlier on average. Also, I had continued through May and June to get up earlier. As it is now July, I have once again slipped.
For May, (#multilingualmay) I told myself I would finish learning French. I purchased some cd's almost 2 years ago, and I had gotten halfway through. I ended up not finishing in May and actually just got to the same spot. This may not come as a surprise to most of you, but French is hard. Learning this language, even by cd, requires a time commitment and concentration that I could not provide. Because I have reached the same place twice, I now know that I will have to actually commit some quiet time and actual effort to finish this language. Then I'll have to go back to a different one, like maybe finish learning German, or learn Spanish. Did I mention French is hard?
Things I can say about success: A friend recommended Duolingo, which I found to be a great website for learning languages. Also, I learned that the German that I do know, is dormant since I would often find myself responding to the cd in thinking German and then trying to remember the French.
It's been fun to remind myself to do things every month. It has taught me about my own self-discipline and which things are easy for me to do and which are difficult. I have kept it up, but I find that when I think about my goals in a broad sense, that in doing them and setting them and striving for them I do make progress, it helps me know whether or not it was a good goal to make. For example, the goal I set for July, I am epically failing at. So instead of being a slave to the goal that isn't working, I'll have to throw it out and start again.
Making and keeping goals and the idea of progression is something I think I'll always be able to get behind.
June, (#nosugarjune), was the most strict, and the most successful.
Because I have a lot to say about it, it will warrant its own post.
For April, (#earlyapril) I was going to get up every day at 7:00 am. This was in hopes of finally flipping my schedule to a more "grown-up" and "morning person" one in which I didn't have the luxury of staying in bed until 8:30 or 9 am. I actually do like mornings. Sunrises and hot chocolate and cinnamon toast are some of my favorite things. In being a crazy late night workaholic for so many years, I'd lost sight of the goodness of early waking. Don't worry, as a lover of data, I graphed it:
 |
| Graphical representation of my sleeping schedule in April. |
Things I can observe about this graph:
1) There is a huge variation in between 7 and 8 am in which I finally got out of bed.
2) There are a couple of places that were total outliers in terms of when I should have gotten up.
3) In general, I did get up before (or at) 8 am.
Things I can say about success: I did get up earlier on average. Also, I had continued through May and June to get up earlier. As it is now July, I have once again slipped.
For May, (#multilingualmay) I told myself I would finish learning French. I purchased some cd's almost 2 years ago, and I had gotten halfway through. I ended up not finishing in May and actually just got to the same spot. This may not come as a surprise to most of you, but French is hard. Learning this language, even by cd, requires a time commitment and concentration that I could not provide. Because I have reached the same place twice, I now know that I will have to actually commit some quiet time and actual effort to finish this language. Then I'll have to go back to a different one, like maybe finish learning German, or learn Spanish. Did I mention French is hard?
Things I can say about success: A friend recommended Duolingo, which I found to be a great website for learning languages. Also, I learned that the German that I do know, is dormant since I would often find myself responding to the cd in thinking German and then trying to remember the French.
It's been fun to remind myself to do things every month. It has taught me about my own self-discipline and which things are easy for me to do and which are difficult. I have kept it up, but I find that when I think about my goals in a broad sense, that in doing them and setting them and striving for them I do make progress, it helps me know whether or not it was a good goal to make. For example, the goal I set for July, I am epically failing at. So instead of being a slave to the goal that isn't working, I'll have to throw it out and start again.
Making and keeping goals and the idea of progression is something I think I'll always be able to get behind.
June, (#nosugarjune), was the most strict, and the most successful.
Because I have a lot to say about it, it will warrant its own post.
Comments