Happy New Years! What are YOUR Plans?

That picture is my dear hubby from last night at our New Years Party! No - don't get excited - we don't have a kid :P That's one of my "nephews" (ie, heart-adopted).

So its the New Year and everyone's making resolutions. Ironically, I'm usually not too big on New Year's resolutions because I'm sooo good at breaking them! This year though, it just happens to coincide with my health greatly improving so I'm making myself goals anyway.

One note about goals: I firmly believe that goals should be a year long process, and something that you frequently sit back and review. Why? Well life changes. I have no way of knowing today what things may happen to rock my world six months from now, or even tomorrow, and neither do you. If you don't give yourself the freedom to revise your goals periodically then you'll find yourself with goals that are now unattainable. Instead, you should set goals now, and plan on reviewing them as often as necessary. Maybe you'll be able to get through the entire year and keep every single one (or even just one!) but more often people tend to find that goals need to be adjusted, or restarted, or scrapped all together for a variety of reasons.

One good way to set goals is to follow the S.M.A.R.T method. I learned this years ago while in management and it's made a big difference in my life. So I'll share it with you!

S = Specific. Don't write down general goals like "lose weight," put down specifics such as "lose 5lbs a month."
M = Measurable. This is one way to make your goals specific. I.e. "Read 20 books this year." "Exercise 3 times a week. This can also include how you are going to keep yourself accountable. "Keep a list of the books I read." "Make an exercise calender."
A = Attainable. It might not be realistic to expect to climb Mt Everest this year (unless your already in condition for it!) but you might be able to take walks around your neighborhood, or plan on going on hikes in your area. And hey, if you plan it out, you might just be able to tackle a big peak before the end of the year! Just make sure you plan to work up to your big goals, don't just jump at them and expect to succeed. Have a plan.
R = Realistic. What's really realistic? I know myself and swearing off chocolate would NOT be realistic. However, promising to eat small portions of desert, and one piece of chocolate at a time (instead of a bag) is something that I can mentally handle.
T = Timely. This portion is one of the reasons I say that is important to revisit your goals. Timely is the concept of putting a time frame on your goals. "I want to lose 15lbs." Well when do you want to lose them by? Eventually? 3 months from now? Setting goals that are time bound also allows you to tackle a bigger goal in smaller chunks. Let's say your goal is to read 24 books this year. You can break that down and say, "Read 2 books a month." Now you know what you need to accomplish now, and not just within the next year.

So what does this look like put together? One of my goals this year is to take a photo a day. I'm calling it my photo 365 challenge. In fact, I started it at Christmas and the photo above is actually Day 8's photo! How does this fit in with SMART?

Specific - What am I doing? Taking a photo a day (minimum).
Measurable - 1 photo, per day. Posted on facebook, and every 30 pictures in a slide show on this blog, so I'm reporting on what I'm doing.
Attainable - if I carry my camera with me and focus on what activities in my life could have photo opportunities, then this is attainable. Hey, I even took a shot of my alarm clock one day when I remembered to take a photo at the last minute! The point is the picture :)

Realistic - I like taking pictures :)
Timely - This is a daily event for me, so it's certainly timely!

I have other goals and I'll post them later to share, but for now, what are some of your goals? Are there ways you can use SMART to improve them?

Looking Forward

Yesterday I talked about how I did on my goals for last quarter.  Today I want to look at my goals for next quarter. 

My big goal that I didn't achieve last quarter was starting to make money off this blog. I still want to work on that, and with my improving health, I'm hoping it will now be possible! Even if it's just a little bit here and there :) 

I'm only adding one goal at this point in time to my "life" goals. I have another big one in mind, but since I'm not ready to start it yet, I'm not going to write about it! 

My big new goal actually has two main parts. Overall goal? LOSE WEIGHT. I've actually been wanting to work on this for a long time, but do you have any idea how hard it is to eat healthy when your having daily migraines and asthma attacks? Let alone exercise?

With my recently improved health I've been working really hard on both my diet, and working exercise whenever I can. I've lost 4 lbs so far! I'm not going to tell you how much I need to lose, just that it's a lot. Being super-sick for a year and on steroids because of it can do that.

So the two parts of this goal are I'm trying to exercise for at least 1/2 hr each day, and I'm keeping a food journal to track calories and get a more realistic picture of what types of foods I'm eating. I've found a site that's helping me out with that - but I want to use it for a few days before I talk more about it so I can give you guys an accurate review :) 

Instead of making this a three month goal like my others, I've set this out for one month. I'm hoping that I can increase my exercise goals at that point :) 

I'm using Goal For It to help me record and track my goals. I wrote a review about it back in January if you want more information. If you want to join me on Goal For It and encourage each other on our goals - just look for me under roseworksjewelry! 

Looking at the First Quarter

One thing you've heard me talk about with a fair amount of frequency is my goals. I set them up at the beginning of the year to be re-evaluated after three months. I did this because I know how much life can change in just a few short months, and one of the most important things with goals is to be flexible! So, the first quarter has come and gone, and now it's time to look at what I've accomplished. :)

I am also discussing this subject right now on my other blog as well. I tend to keep the topics between my crafty/artistic side and my reading/rest of life separated between these two blogs. So feel free to head over there if your curious!

I had 3 goals that I've talked about in this blog. Some of them I did really good with accomplishing, one, well I need to move that goal forward to this next quarter :) But that's ok! That's part of the flexibility I've been talking about.

Goal #1 - Start and maintain a serial fiction story.
This is the goal I'm the most proud of accomplishing! I've published the first 7 segments of my story Aria's Quest, and the feedback I've gotten has been positive. That's really encouraging! I started this goal both because I had a story idea, and because I want to grow my ability as a writer. Having a weekly writing goal helps me with that. I'm not saying that this story is the best thing I've ever written, but I am really enjoying the process, and I hope that constant practice of writing will help me continue to grow as a writer.

Goal #2 - Finish unpacking and organizing the apartment by the end of March, 2009.
I wasn't quite as successful with this goal as the last one, but I did come really close! The only things I have left are a few pictures to put up and bringing books over that are currently stored at my parents house. Considering how sick I've been for most of the last three months, I don't mind that!

Goal #3 - Make Money off of this blog.
Um, yeah, right. I'll get to this one eventually. *rolls eyes* The main reason I haven't been more active on pursuing this goal is that writing with migraines is HARD, and we've just finally in the last few weeks gotten me to the point where I'm spending most days migraine free. But even then I'm still nowhere near 100% and I've spent a lot of time catching up on things in my shops and in my life. This is the goal that I'm rolling forward to the next quarter :)

Sometime in the next few days I'll discuss what my goals are for the upcoming quarter. :)

Looking back at March

Well it's that time again - time to review what I've accomplished this last month! It's been a busy month, and I've been getting healthier and stronger! That's both very exciting, and it means that I'm getting my blogging done more consistently.

Do you remember how I set out at the beginning of the year to do a set of 3 month goals? I'll be reviewing those in the upcoming days and setting new ones. I'll be sharing the process with you as well :) Why? Because talking about it helps me feel like I'm accountable in a sense, and it helps me to solidify what's in my mind when I write it down.

This month saw the publishing of three new chapters in Aria's Quest. I missed a week because, well I had a bad week! And this weeks was late so it ended up being an April publish instead of a March publish. Oh well - here's this month's offerings!

Saying Good-bye

Traveling

Robyn

This month saw quite a few book reviews published! I'm having a lot of fun doing these, and you guys seem to be enjoying them, so this will continue to be a regular part of my blog :)

Dhampir

The Titan's Curse
The Amulet of Samarkand
The Battle of the Labyrinth
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
A Spell for Chameleon
For Love of Evil
Thief of Lives
The Golem's Eye

I've continued to work on taking more photos of my life. There were a few dry spells, but, I did get quite a few taken this month! Want to see my photostream on Flickr? Go here!

Adventures in Getting Stronger

A few weeks ago I started going on walks in the morning. My migraines are finally at least semi-under control, and my asthma is getting better again as well since that stress is decreasing, so it was time to start trying to get into shape! It's been a long year battling with my health, and as a result I'm very out of shape and overweight. I figured walks were the best way to start. Low impact and all that :)

I was doing really good, walking almost every day, and then a cold and our trip to Pheonix set me back. I was determined not to give up though! As soon as I could I pushed myself to work on things around the house, and then once I was recovered enough, to start walking again. I've been able to go walking the last few days, and it feels great!

Today I made it to my goal of walking 1/2 hr :) Woohoo! Plus, I walked down to Winco, so I was able to pick up a couple grocery's w/out spending any gas :) That made me pretty happy too! The doctor told me he wants me walking 1/2hr a day, so I've reached that goal!

So what's next? On days that I still have even a small amount of stamina left in the evenings I'm going to start working in a few simple stretches and aerobic exercises. I started last night, and it was daunting how much harder they were than they used to be, but I'm just going to start small and work up!

The other thing I'm working really hard on improving is my diet. I was already doing "ok" with it, or at least a LOT better than in the past! But with the news that my kidney's are going south slowly, the doctor has told me that I need to start eating like I'm a diabetic. I found this information really overwhelming...but I've got a plan and I'm working through it slowly.

Being a cheap-skate (ok, broke) I ordered some books on eating with Diabetes from the Library. I'm starting by going through "Diabetes Cookbook for Dummies." I love the "for Dummies" books! Not trying to comment on my intelligence, but I've found that in general they make things easy to understand, and there's enough humor to help relieve my tension.


I've worked through the first two chapters so far and I'm learning a lot! It's still a little overwhelming, but I'm taking it slow and absorbing it bit by bit. I'm also writing down what I eat in a food journal. I'm not going to worry too much about specific caloric goals until I have a better grasp on what I should be doing, but this will give me something to look at when I'm ready for that, and help me have a realistic view of what I'm actually eating.

Oh! And I took my weight and all my measurements. No, I won't tell you :P I WILL tell you if I lose inches or weight though :)

January - Looking back.

It's been a busy month! I started out this month full of goals and dreams, and I even managed to get them written down formally! When I blogged about Goal For It, one of the things I decided was that I'd start writing monthly updates on how I'm doing in meeting my goals. A lot of my goals were more related to my business, so if you want to read more about that, head over there :)

I didn't do as well at meeting my goals for this blog as I would have liked. I only posted 17 times! I also haven't been able to do a lot of the research I wanted to do for this blog. Ah well - I can always try to do better next month right?

I can report, however, that the Goal For It site has been really helpful. It's great to have a place where I can go and check how I'm doing on my goals! It also helps me keep things in perspective. Looking at my list of goals on there I can see that while I may not have done quite as much as I wanted to with this blog, I did make significant progress on other goals. So that helps keep things in balance :)

So - now that we're a month into the New Year - how are you doing on your goals?

Goal For It

A friend of mine introduced me to the site Goal For It when she wrote about it in her blog. Since I've been thinking about my goals recently (see my last post) I jumped at the chance to look at this site! Goal For It is a site designed to help you set out, track, and find the motivation to reach your goals.

I found this site really easy to use. The sign up process is quick and painless, and they don't ask for too much information. Once your signed up - it's quick and easy to set up your goals! One of the things I really liked with the way you set up your goals is that it has you set your goals under different categories. Mine currently fall under Arts and Entertainment, Career and Employment: Small Business, and Home.

The biggest draw back I saw was that you can't really write goals and sub-goals. You write the main goal, and then go in and fill out your steps to achieve those goals. That works great, but if you have sub-levels to those steps you can't really fill them in with out getting creative.

Some other great features are; that you can pick a deadline for your goal, it gives you the option to be sent reminders (and the frequency of those), the option of who your goals are visible too, and you get to check off each step as it's done!

I plan on utilizing this site as I set out up my to-do lists for the week. I have a notebook that I use to track my to-do lists, and I'd been toying with the idea of sitting down once a week to do the initial set-up for each week. Well, this kind of gives me the motivation to do so! I'll sit down with my goals open on-line in front of me and figure out how I can work them into my week.

Want to see my profile and goals? You can search for me under roseworksjewelry or simply follow this link. If you sign up for the web-site, feel free to add me as a friend!

I'll update you in a month on how I'm doing :)
 

Resolutions vs Goals

Do you make resolutions...or goals? In the past I've tried both, and I've come to the conclusion that resolutions just don't cut it for me, but goals do.

A quick look at dictionary.com shows us the differences between the two terms.

Resolution: the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure, etc.

Goal: The purpose toward which an endeavor is directed; an objective.

Well, honestly, their not that different. The two words share a close relationship with resolution being more of a decision to do something, and goals being what your resolving to do! In my mind, though, they are worlds apart.

I look at resolutions and I think of the millions of people who set out on New Years Day with a list of things they plan to accomplish that year. Some of them will reach their goals, but many more will find themselves falling way short, some of them within the first days of the new year. I know I have often been one of those people.

I look at goals and I see myself setting out with a much more structured plan.  When I was in management training we learned to us the SMART acronym to help us set our goals, and then achieve them. I also see goals as something that can be adjusted as you go along to come closer to meeting with what's truly realistic.

This year, instead of setting resolutions, I'm setting goals. What's more, I'm only setting them for the next three months, and then I plan to review them and set new goals! Why? Well, a year is just way to long. So many things can happen in a year, and it's hard to set good goals for that period of time.

Before I tell you what my goals are, here's a brief overview of the SMART acronym I mentioned earlier, more information can be found here.

Specfic
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely (or Time Bound)

My goals:

In my personal life:
~ Finish unpacking and organizing the apartment. (I know this might seem a little silly, but believe me, it can be a challenge with my health problems!)

In my Jewelry business:
~ Open shop in two new on-line venues.
~ Make at least $100 a month.
~ Set up two consignment deals.
(note: I have much more detailed plans with each of these...)

In my Blogging world:
~ Begin making money off of this blog.
~ Start and maintain a serial fiction story (I have big plans for this)
~ Improve my writing skills through consistent practice, both with fiction writing and non-fiction writing.

What are your goals for the next few months or the next year?