Well the first quarter of the year has come and gone. Some things have gotten accomplished, but I’ve fallen short on quite a few other things. One thing I despise about March is the start of day light savings time—where we set the clocks a head an hour. We don’t gain or lose anything other than a little bit of our charming personalities. For the most part I can adapt pretty quickly, except I usually end of snacking a little more, and it takes me a little longer to get back into a workout routine. Plus it’s still flu season (luckily I got my flu shot last fall, so I only had a very mild case this past week). As we head into the second quarter of the year, it’s time to look back on the goals for March and see how I managed with each one.
The goals for the month included:
At least 434,000 steps (again this breaks down to a minimum of 14K/day), though I would like to maybe aim for 475,000 steps (which would break down to a little over 15K a day).
Continue with the photography challenge
Workout daily (continue to alternate between weight training & cardio)
Read (or finish) at least three non-fiction books
Try to get at least one more science post up on the blog (maybe two if possible)
Aim for a week of no spending (keep a money log)
Continue interacting on linkedin
Continue working through the various e-courses/groups and transition plan (making notes, narrowing down on cities, looking into companies, and figuring out my superpower trifecta)
Read at least one article on FiercePharma and/or FierceBiotech (weekly and work up to daily) and make notes so that I can do a blog post (or weekly recap of what I’ve read).
So how did I do with each goal?
At least 434,000 steps (again this breaks down to a minimum of 14K/day), though I would like to maybe aim for 475,000 steps (which would break down to a little over 15K a day). Well I’ve at least made it to the 434,000 steps for the month. There have been several days that I’ve decided should be rest days—so I usually end up with less than 5K steps. I did manage to get to a total of 464,960 (I was just a little over 10K shy of the 475,000 goal). This brings me to a total of 1,329,138 and I’m still on track for both the goal of five million by the end of the year, and my ~14-20 million by the end of 1001 days challenge.
Continue with the photography challenge. So far so good, I’ve managed to keep up with the challenge. I’m alternating between newer pictures and older ones that I haven’t shared. Right now the photography challenge is mainly on the blog, and then shared on either twitter or pintrest (depending on the post).
Daily workout (continue to alternate between weight training & cardio). This really didn’t happen this month. In between trying to readapt to day light savings time and just life in general—I managed to make sure that I was walking daily, but that was about it. April will be when I get back on track. I’m actually thinking of maybe trying to start transformation 20 come April 1st (it’s the new ShawnT workout from Beachbody that should be available to everyone).
Read (or finish) at least three non-fiction books. I managed to only finish one book this month and that was: “Choose the life you want: The mindful way to happiness” by Taj Ben-Shahar. With day light saving time starting, and coming down with a mild case of the flu—I fell back into a routine of re-reading some of my go to series (also there were a couple of new books out in two series, so I needed to remember what had happen so I could read those books). I have one or two other books that I’m about 70% of the way through, but didn’t manage to get them finished this month.
Try to get at least one more science post up on the blog (maybe two if possible). I have several ideas for different science posts for the science page of the blog (and even a couple of blog posts), but that is as far as I’ve gotten for those. One issue is again my poor illustration skills and the fact that I want them to look good. So the posts may just be “wordy” to begin with, and then once I’m comfortable with not perfect illustrations I’ll start to add in some illustrations.
Aim for a week of no spending (keep a money log). I did manage to have a week of no spending—it was the very first week of the month. I’m hoping to do better in April and actually maybe have a month of no spending. The money log only lasted about the first two weeks of the month, and then I kept saying I’d add in things after work—but I never did. Again this is a work in progress.
Continue interacting on linkedin—this is something that didn’t really happen this month. I think it was a combination of not getting decent sleep, allergies, and just feeling blah in general that I more or less stayed off linkedin last month. This is something that I need to be doing (interacting—not staying off of) more of, and hopefully will be doing better with come the second quarter of the year.
Continue working through the various e-courses/groups and transition plan (making notes, narrowing down on cities, looking into companies, and figuring out my superpower trifecta). I’ve made some progress on this—I have several pages of notes on the types of positions that could be of interest, and things I should be doing to help narrow down the positions from seven to maybe four (or at least ranked a little better than what I currently have). In terms of the different e-courses that I’ve bought (or saved) I’ve managed to only get through one or two (and they don’t necessarily have anything to do with transitioning to an industry position).
Read at least one article on FiercePharma and/or FierceBiotech (weekly and work up to daily) and make notes so that I can do a blog post (or weekly recap of what I’ve read). Truthfully I can’t remember if I read anything on either website this month. I may have during the first week of the month, but if I did—I forgot to take notes.
So I’ve been up and down on the goals for March—but truthfully with the time change and then battling the crud—I’m not surprised. I’ve also realized that there are several things on my 101-goal list that I haven’t been consistent with either the first quarter of the year. But that is the nice thing about life—you can realize something isn’t working perfectly and then start slowly readjusting things so that you’re hopefully hitting the goal at least 80% of the time for the month.
So as we head into the second quarter of the year, my goals for April will include:
At least 434,000 steps (breaks down to 14K/day).
Reading (or finishing) at least three non-fiction books
Continuing with the photography challenge
Being more active on linkedin
Working out daily (hopefully starting transformation: 20 or another round of LIIFT4)—or at least on a consistent basis. I’m not going to push myself if I know I’m not feeling well—so there has to be balance.
Aim for two weeks of no spending (keep a money log)
Continue working through the various e-courses/groups and transition plan (making notes, narrowing down on cities, looking into companies, and figuring out my superpower trifecta)
Read at least one article on FiercePharma and/or FierceBiotech (weekly and work up to daily) and make notes so that I can do a blog post (or weekly recap of what I’ve read).
Read at least one scientific article a week and write a 500-word summary for a potential blog/science post.
The goals are pretty much the same–which is good. If I can stick with them for a couple more months, they should almost be a habit and then I can start in with some new goals.
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