My sister and I spent a weekend in February 2022 planning and deciding what our goals and intentions were going to be for the year. I actually started thinking about my intentions in January 2022, without even knowing what would come of it. I created a poster board with sticky notes and pictures for all my goals for the year. The goals seemed to vary from saving money, to art classes, to health/activity, to starting an herb garden, and so on and so forth. As time went on, this goal list has been modified. I may have taken on too much as this is in addition to monthly weekly goals that I have made.
I created a list of goals and broke them down into monthly and weekly goals. The intention was that each month I would write about what I had accomplished. As new things often do, it started off strong. I had actually documented each month the things that I had accomplished and what worked and why other things were not working.
My Weekly Goals
~Plan the weeks meals out on a calendar. Planning the weeks meals out helps me know what I am grocery shopping for and helps me to be creative and plan ahead with recipes. I like having them written on a calendar so that I can see it all laid out and it don’t have to find something last minute to make for dinner. Plus, at the time I was doing Noom and counting calories. This helped a lot!
~Go on a walk outside four times a week. I have learned that one of my favorite forms of exercise is simply going on a walk. It helps relieve stress, gets your body moving, burns calories, and the fresh air is invigorating. With Noom, one of the goals is to get more steps in every day until you reach 10,000 steps a day. I have yet to reach this, but am continually striving for that goal.
~Do yoga at home, with a YouTube video three times a week. I came across yoga videos on YouTube and have really come to enjoy them and the way that yoga makes me feel. I rarely make the time the way I should to do yoga.
My Monthly Goals
~Blog about the months accomplishments. I thought it would be a good way to keep myself accountable if I blogged about these each month. As mentioned above, I quickly learned that I did not enjoy this part so much and decided to go a different rout.
~Find one new place to walk/hike. As mentioned above in my weekly goals, I really enjoy going on walks. I love being out in nature, and what better way then to find scenic places, parks, in my area. This is also meets the “Find a new place to explore” goal below, if I was short on meeting all my goals.
~Find one new place to explore. I really enjoy exploring new small towns, and they are everywhere. Small towns often have great shops, restaurants, and parks or scenic views. There are so many places, I realized, in my own state of Washington that I have not only never explored, but never heard of. Once a month, finding a new place, does not seem that unreasonable.
~Try a new recipe. I am a foodie. I love food and eating. A major reason why I joined Noom! I like to cook and bake and am constantly looking for new recipes to try. I have to have a variety to keep my taste buds happy. I cant eat the same thing every day. So, might as well find new recipes!
~Make freezer meals with my sister. I remember when I was a child my mom and her friends getting together on a Saturday and making a ton of food that can be put in the freezer for a later time. I would have to help prepare the food and wrap and bag things as needed. During the week something can be pulled out of the freezer and heated up saving time when time is short. My sister and I love the convenience and time it saves to be able to come home after a long day and pull something out of the freezer and just heat it up, rather than cook a full meal. Plus, it would give us more time to spend with each other. This however, only happened once.
I kept up with tracking these goals through May, then quickly realized how life gets in the way and you have to adapt to the changes. I also, realized, that the tracking I was doing was not benefiting me or my life in a positive way. Tracking and detailing the goals each month like this was more of a chore than something I looked forward to. Although, I still liked the ideas that I had on my monthly goals, I decided to let the process of tracking them go. The lesson I learned with this was that although the intentions might be good, it might not be beneficial, and it is ok, and sometimes good, to let things go and chalk it up as a lesson learned.