So the moon is transitioning through Taurus today, as it
marks its new phase. We’re a third of the way through the year, and somehow
time seems to crawl by during the week and then zoom by on the weekends.
So what are some of the things that one can focus on during the Taurus new moon? Looking at “Moonlogy: working with the magic of lunar cycles” by Yasmin Boland:
Making a
financial plan.
Love
yourself.
Make
a list of your values and ask yourself if you’re living your life in a way that
allows you to honor those values. If the answer is no—figure out a new plan to
allow yourself to honor those values.
Be sensual.
Ask yourself “What would make my life better?”
Character
check. Ask yourself “Am I being too stubborn or too lazy?”
Persevere—remember
that there is more to life than racing head, there is also the journey that
should be enjoyed as well (or as much as possible). Slow and steady will win
the day.
So the new moon in Taurus is also moving through my seventh
house, or my “love zone”. This zone can also be referred to as the relationship
zone as well. So what are some of the things that one can do during this time
in regards to the seventh house?
Go through
old love letters and get rid of at least some of them.
If you’re
single and feeling brave, try online dating.
Ask your
parents about their ideas on how to make love (aka a relationship) work.
Recommit to
your partner.
If you hurt
a past lover, admit you were wrong & apologize to them.
Make a list
of the qualities you look for in a partner.
If you’re
already attached, play matchmaker for a friend.
So looking at these two lists, I can honestly say that right
now I’m going to focus on the financial/personal aspects of the Taurus new
moon. I don’t have the time or energy to put into the dating scene and finding
someone. In terms of relationships and being with someone—I seem to be one of
the odd ones that doesn’t mind being alone and unattached. I also know that I
have other things to work out on my own before even attempting to stick my toes
into the dating pool.
So my goals for the Taurus new moon include:
Making a
financial plan. I’ve realized that I’m not getting any younger, and that there
are still things that I either want to do (travel more for leisure) or will
need to be doing (moving for a new job) that will require having a decent
amount of money saved and/or invested.
Continue working
on my transition plan—since I know at least one or two of the cities that I’m
willing to relocate to (Boston, and maybe Washington DC, Chicago, or St. Louis)
now I need to start looking for say three to four companies within each area
that I think I could work for and start trying to network for informational
interviews.
Try and
finish the following two books: “Next Gen PhD: A Guide to Career Paths in
Science” by Melanie V Sinche and “Reboot Your Life: Energize your career and
lie by taking a break” by Catherine Allen, Nancy Bearge, Rita Foley and Jaye
Smith.
Box (or
bag) up the t-shirts that no longer fit well for donation (or selling online).
Get back
into a workout routine (go between weight training and cardio).
The goals might seem a little repetitive, and it may seem to
others that I’m not making progress between months/years—but slow and steady is
the way to go and not everything is publically shared.
So the moon will be moving into Taurus this weekend (as a
new moon), and we are somehow in May and the year is flying by. We’re a third
of the way thorough the second quarter of the year, and that means it’s time to
look back on the goals that I set for the month of April (in terms of the new
moon).
So my small list of things to focus on during the Aries new
moon included the following:
Making a
12-month plan. This is going to encompass both personal and professional area
of my life.
Recommit to
a workout program
Work on my
eating habits (I do know that quite a bit of my bad habits stem from both
stress and poor sleeping). Notice I didn’t say diet—but habits. I’m trying to
work on basically having things in moderation and working on serving sizes.
Read a book
on positive thinking (I’m pretty sure that I have one or two on my large
to-be-read e-pile; but I’ll look at amazon and see what I either have or I will
purchase a book or two).
Then
finally, continue to try to mediate nightly. I’ve realized lately that my mind
still races a little too much when I do try to mediate and I call it quits
after about two minutes. Also I’ve realized that my racing thoughts have also
made it a little difficult to do an accurate and decent tarot/oracle card
reading—I may need to meditate for a few minutes before attempting to do a
reading.
So how did I do with each one?
The 12 month plan is somewhat made, and will be continuously
revised throughout the year. I’ve realized that I overthink things, then try to
make numerous lists to help with the overthinking and that just puts me in the
middle of a massive week long anxiety/stress attack. I’ve also realized that
when it comes to deciding on my career—I need to start looking towards
different companies—I can’t keep saying that I’m going to be a research
scientist in “X” years or months if I don’t have an idea of where I would like
to work.
I managed to make it a week with a workout program last
month. Part of the issue was that another dog in the house (and one who likes it
if everyone is in the same area at the same time), and I wasn’t always certain
how the wifi/internet were going to be holding up. I am going to start back
with a program (though it may be going between different DVD workouts if
possible—our wifi/internet service can be spotty at best lately).
My eating habits are slowly getting better—though I spent
way to much money again on campus this month, and I bought way to much sweets.
The weight is slowly going down (I did weigh myself and I am down compared to
the beginning of the year; but I’m still at one of my heaviest at the same
time). I do know that I need to start eating more veggies during the day (when
I managed to drink my shakeology daily I was getting a good amounts of veggies
in that), and it probably wouldn’t hurt to eat a little more fruit either
during the day.
The one book that I finished reading this month could be
slightly on positive thinking—it was actually on how nice it can be to slowly
declutter your life and realize how few things one actually needs to survive.
This is something that I’ve slowly been starting to do, and it does take time
and constant evaluation of things to ask yourself if you really need to spend
money on “X”, “Y”, or “Z” and if you need the thirty or forty different t-shirts
you have hanging in your closet.
In terms of meditating nightly—this is something that I am
still working on daily. Some days are better than others in terms of being able
to quiet my mind. I know that isn’t the total point of meditating, and that I
should just be able to acknowledge my thoughts and let them pass—but sometimes
I’ve found that I sleep just a little better if I can try to quiet my mind
before bed. So there are times when I’m then meditating again after reading
before falling asleep.
All in all, I think that I may actually have a plan (more or
less) in place for trying to get things accomplished over the next coming year.
I’ve realized that every April/May/June I fall into a mild bout of
anxiety/depression and while I can usually pull myself out of it—it also has a
habit of potentially causing other problems (namely not working out and eating
too much junk food). I’ve also realized that I need to do the search for
companies to work for on a smaller scale (so that I can keep my anxiety under
control), and have decided that I’m going to aim for three to six at a
time—have several documents/pages of notes on them so that if I get to the
point of interviews I know what I’m talking about.
So I had posted earlier this week that I was in the process
of developing a new 12 month plan that encompassed several different areas:
health and fitness, career, finances, and spirituality. These areas were picked
because they can more or less feed off of each other and once you have some of
these areas under control everything else can then hopefully fall into place.
So I know that starting out I probably won’t reach 100% on each area, and that there will be some weeks when I subconsciously focus on one more than the others. The purpose here is to keep moving forward (even if it seems to be at a snail’s pace).
I decided that each week I’d set two to three goals per area, and then on Saturday and Sunday review how I did the previous week and then adjust the goals accordingly for the following week. Today’s review/check-in will cover my goals for health and fitness, and finances. Tomorrow will be career and spirituality/personal development.
Since my main fitness goal is to get into the best shape of my life.
So my goals for fitness and nutrition this week were:
Set up a
new workout schedule for the week.
No sweets
at work.
Hitting my
step goal daily.
So how did I do with each one?
My workout schedule for the week was to do the following
workouts:
Monday—LIIFT4: Chest & Triceps
Tuesday—LIIFT4: Back & Biceps
Wednesday—Country Heat: Country Swing
Thursday—LIIFT4: Shoulders
Friday—LIIFT4: Legs
Saturday—Country Heat: Giddy Up
So today I will be probably doing a double workout (as long
as the internet/wifi behaves) of Country Heat: Giddy Up followed by LIIFT4:
Legs as I took yesterday off as a rest day. Also for full disclosure,
Wednesday’s workout was only 20 minutes of the 30-minute workout (because the
wifi in the house blinked out and then reset itself—and I wasn’t in the mood to
do the entire program again or try to get it back to where it was). But I have
managed to do a workout basically daily—which is a lot better than what I’ve
managed to get done the past couple of weeks. I’m also starting back a little
light on the weights and hopefully working my way back up to where I was when I
finished my first round of LIIFT4—my NSV goal is to be able to do bicep curls
with 14-20 pound weights.
In terms of no sweets at work—I managed to go three out of five days (60%) of not getting any sweets at work. I had bought coffee and breakfast on Thursday (which included a candy bar—that I ate with my lunch on Friday), and I guess I bought some candy Tuesday afternoon as well (though I had forgotten about that candy splurge). While it short of my goal of five days it is a lot better than what I’d been doing the previous couple of weeks.
In terms of hitting my step goal daily—yesterday was the day
that I fell short of the goal of a minimum of 14,000 steps (I finished with
11,518; which was 82% of my daily step goal). But every other day this week I
managed to get at least 14,000 steps; so even though I didn’t hit yesterday—I’m
still close to my weekly goal of 98,000 (Sunday-Saturday).
So I managed to hit the goals 75% of the time—rest days are
important so I’m not going to beat myself up on the fact that I took one
yesterday instead of doing my workout. I also know that stress/anxiety and
having a bad night sleep are usually the culprits for me going to look for
sugar fix on campus during the week. Know what the triggers are is helpful—but
now I need to find a different way of reacting that doesn’t include sweets or
spending money.
I am also trying to get back into the routine of writing down what I eat daily (usually at the end of the day; though sometimes I remember to start my daily food journal at lunch). This is just so that I can maybe start trying to determine if certain foods are also making me feel uncomfortable and then adjust what I eat accordingly.
So my goals for the coming week in terms of fitness and
nutrition, are going to be more or less the same (as I’m happy with being at
about 75% for all three):
Set up the workout calendar again (LIIFT4 with either
Country Heat or Yoga Booty Ballet)
Trying to avoid buying sweets on campus (this also helps
with the no spend challenges)
Hitting the step goal daily (this way I can work towards my
monthly and yearly step goals).
In terms of my finances—I realize that I’m going to be 39 this year, which means that I should be thinking about making sure that I have enough money when I retire (in basically 25-30 years; or possibly sooner if I can swing it). Currently my finances are okay (mainly because I’m living at home and have very few monthly expenses).
Finance goals–broad, but currently better than not having any.
I have managed to get
my credit debt back to down to basically zero from the astronomically high
amount that I owed when I moved back home six years ago. I probably could have
had it paid off sooner, but I was also trying to build my savings account back
up at the same time.
By the end of twelve months I would like to hopefully have
my savings up another 10-15K (or at least steady—which means having saved
hopefully an additional 6-8K to cover any moving expenses for when I get an new
job and have to move out of Oklahoma). I always want to start getting my
retirement account a little higher (which means having some money set aside
that I can put into another type of retirement account that is separate from my
current one).
My goals for this week were:
Fill in my money log for the first part of the month (I know
that I’d spent money during the first part of the month—but I didn’t fill in
the sheets; so I need to have gotten that done).
No spending money at work.
Check all credit card accounts and readjust my monthly
budget accordingly.
So how did I do with each one?
I filled in my monthly money tracker. This was more of
trying to keep track of money spent on campus—so there were one or two things
that I had forgotten to put on it (like the e-book that I bought or the two
journals that I’d bought for note taking).
I did spend a little money on campus this week—two out of
the five days (but that is one day better than the week before where I spent
money three out of five days).
I’ve done my credit check, and my monthly budget that I set
up is looking like it is still good—I’ll probably readjust it after the next
biweekly paycheck comes in so that I can set up for my May budget.
One thing that I will be doing is making a list of monthly
re-occurring fees and looking to see which ones I might cancel. I know that I
do support a couple of non-profits via monthly donations that I charge to a
credit card; plus I have several other things that come in monthly that are
charged to a credit card as well. My goal is to try to have a monthly sum (via
all credit cards) of less than $750 dollars—that way it can also get paid off
monthly as well (and there will be no interest charged). So we will have to see
how this goes.
My goals for the coming week in terms of my finances are:
No spending any money at work (keep money log up to date).
Transfer about half a paycheck to the savings account.
Resubmit the declutter order and sell quite a few DVDs back
for a little bit of money.
So overall I’m pleased with the first week’s progress for
both my fitness and nutrition journey and getting my finances back on track. I
realize that there may be weeks that I have a set back in both areas—but I need
to remember that small setbacks are okay (and even expected)—I just need to
keep moving forward and not allow them to derail me like I have in the past.
