Jan wrap up & Feb goals – 2018

Somehow January has ended so it is time to reflect on the first month of my new monthly goals series! I started off the month feeling motivated and thought I’d totally nail these goals. It was not to be but I did fairly well! Over the past couple of weeks I have been pretty exhausted and a lot of my drive went out the window. But all was not lost!!

January update:

My bookish goals included:

Read one poem a day. I thought this would be easy as I love poetry and it seemed a simple task. However, I just didn’t get into the swing of it! This is disappointing and I am determined to get on top of this goal so I will be taking this one into February with me.

Read one short story a week. I was successful with this one! I have been listening to Tom Hanks’ new short story collection, “Uncommon Type”, on audiobook.
I am not loving the collection but some of the stories are good. I will do a full review when I have finished it.

Begin a non fiction book to increase how many I am reading. I am currently reading “Daily Rituals: How Artists Work” by Mason Currey, which looks at 161 great people, such as novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists and mathematicians, and their daily routine and how they use it to create and work. It’s really interesting so far and is good to dip in and out of.

My health goals included:

Increase my protein intake. I’ve tried my best with this one. I have made a couple of huge batches of my granola (the recipe is here) and added protein powder into the mix of a variety of nuts, seeds, quinoa, buckwheat and more. I’ve also eaten fish most days (I can’t eat meat, but I do eat seafood) and tofu.

Return to tai chi and begin clinical pilates. I started back at tai chi! I do the health recovery class, which is really good and also filled with lovely people. I’ve made it to two of the three this month (I was too unwell the second week) and have been able to keep up with most of each class with regular rests. And I began pilates on Monday! I am really excited to see how this goes. Let me know if you’d like to see updates about doing clinical pilates from a spoonie’s (a person with chronic illness) point of view.

My writing goals included:

Do research related to a story idea I have and make an outline of the story. One big giant FAIL here! NNoooo!! This one I really wanted to go well with. I am determined to do better in February; it’s important I get started before uni starts back in a few weeks so that I feel able to work on it alongside uni work.

February goals:

I want to continue all of January goals in February and really focus on fulfilling them well. Alongside these, my goals for the month are…

Time management/priorities goals:

Be in bed by 10 pm most nights.

Read in bed instead of scrolling through social media and YouTube.

Health goals:

Walk at least once a week. It doesn’t have to be a long walk but I want to try to move a little more, keeping in mind my health limitations.

Eat no more than three refined sugar foods each week. This is important for one of my new health conditions along with the high protein intake (though it is obviously good for overall health!).

So this is the plan for February! It seems like a lot now because I am sticking to January goals as well but they do say it only take a couple of weeks for goals to become habits, so hopefully they will blend seamlessly into life soon!! Feel free to give me a prod now and again and keep me in line!

How are your goals going at the moment? I’d loved to hear what they are. Maybe we can even help each other with motivation and encouragement! 

I hope the start of 2018 has been a good one for you all. Happy dreaming and planning!