Tag: dayatatimeweekatatime

The moon is moving through Taurus: New Moon Goals for May.

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.

No Comments AstrologyfinancesNew Moon GoalsPersonal Developmentprofessional development

New Moon Goals in Review: Update on the Aries goals

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.

No Comments Fitness ChallengesNew Moon GoalsPersonal Developmentprofessional development

12 month plan update: starting slow and trying to stay moving

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.

No Comments 101 GoalsfitnessHealthPersonal Development