January 2015 – Week 1 Results

Well, the first week of “back to normal” is done.  It wasn’t exactly normal, as I actually left work early on Friday and went away for a girls’ weekend with 3 friends, but it was a full week back at work and all the normal activities started up.

For the purpose of my 2015 goals, I am starting my weeks on Mondays, so today is the start of week #2.  I don’t think I will normally do a weekly result/update post, as I’m sure a monthly one will do just fine, but because I just started this whole process, I wanted to share some of my results and vent some of my feelings, both good and bad that came from my first week.

I have to admit that I didn’t feel like I was doing very well at getting started on my goals, and was wondering if I had perhaps taken on too much, until I started writing this post.  I felt like I was making no progress, and I was already failing.  After working through some of the goals, I realized that there were some progress.  It also may have helped that I read this post on Blonde on a Budget, I was thinking about forgiving myself, and being positive, and decided that even if I haven’t really succeeded completely at my goals for 2015 yet, they are goals for the year, so if I am making small improvements each day, week, month, etc. then that is actually succeeding at my goal for the year. (That’s a positive spin, right?)

So, I’ll just quickly run through my goals again and review what I have done to get started on them.

Financial Goals (check out the full details of these in this post)

1. I made a budget for January… but my January budget will totally not work out well… I think we are already over in a bunch of categories… I had forgotten about some expenses that were coming through leftover from December and some small weekend trips that we had planned for this month.  Luckily we had some savings hanging around from last year that weren’t assigned to anything yet, and I think that my estimation on what my fiance will bring in might be a little low, so might not be as bad as I think by the end of the month.  But I’ll have to work on not spending money for the rest of this month, and figure out a better budget for next month.  I’ll review it fully at the end of the month.

2. I haven’t added anything in to my planned spending accounts yet this month, but I think #1 above needs to be sorted out before I can do that.

3, 4, & 5.  And, I guess the same goes for the rest of my financial goals, but I did a bit of research and have updated some numbers in my spreadsheets, so I guess we can call that small progress in building a plan for these goals.

Professional Goals (see the original goals here)

1. I haven’t made a study schedule or anything for this yet, so, nothing to report.

2. This is the big one that has gotten me down on myself this week.  I really want to be more productive.  It’ll reduce my stress levels, and make me more able to concentrate on other things outside of work time.  But I have not been successful at this at all.  I haven’t actually made it to work before 8am yet, and then when I am at work, I haven’t been making a good prioritized list, and I haven’t been making the progress that I want to be making on my tasks, or following my schedule that I made.  Then I feel guilty and stressed about upcoming deadlines… However, to make sure that I don’t turn in to negative Nancy, or Debby downer, let’s look at some of the improvements that I have made. I have got to work before 8:30am every morning, so that is a huge improvement from the 9 or 9:30 that I was typically doing last year… and I am aware of when I am not being productive and am definitely trying to get focused again every time I get distracted.  Baby steps.

3. I have not read any work related texts yet, but I did look at a list of texts and readings that I need to study for my exam, so I think I know what I will start with.  I still have 3 weeks left to complete it.  I can do it.

Health & Fitness Goals (original post)

1. My weekly weigh in tells me that I am 2 lbs towards my goal.  Mostly probably because I tried to stop eating junk.  (“tried” does not mean I was successful… poutine and chicken wings were abundant on the weekend…)

2. & 3. I started running with my friend in the mornings again, and I signed up for a 10k race in April.  Haven’t decided exactly which half marathon to run yet, but will probably register and put together a training schedule this week.

4. I think this was one of the goals I was actually successful at, so “yeah me!”  I ran 2 times, went to a couple team practices and went for a pretty long walk with the fiance one night.  I will need to work on the intensity of my workouts if I am going to be successful in my goal to lose weight, but first week back I will call this a success.

5. Another success was my meal plan.  I made one, and we followed it (though because I was away for the weekend, I didn’t plan anything for those days).

6. Epic failure on this one.  I was doing so well all week, I was saving up my 7 weekly drinks for the girls’ weekend, but it’s so hard to say no when we go out for brunch and the girls are all ordering caesars.  And then watching football and hockey, and having a few drinks… My total ended up being 11 instead of 7.  So we will try again this week and see if I can make it.

Misc. Goals (again, see the original post here)

1. I haven’t quite finished up with my paper decluttering task for this week, but I have made huge progress, and I sort of forgot that I was going away for the weekend.  So, I will be finishing up the rest tonight, and will post about it on Wednesday.

2. No finite plans for the garden yet, but I did start reading the gardening book I got for Christmas.  And I experimented with a few new veggies in my meal plan last week that may be good ones to grow.

3. No wedding planning progress was made this week.

So, there we have it, my first week results.  I really was feeling really down about my progress when I started, but I feel a bit more positive now, and I know that I can improve and little improvements will motivate me to continue.

Has anyone else done a week 1 review of their goals?  How are you doing?

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