Well we’re now a third of the way through the year—and I’m pretty sure we can all agree 2020 isn’t going the way any of us thought it would. While the world is still in the grips of the global pandemic, things are shifting to more remote/online—though at some point we will hopefully be able to transition back to a in-person society. The numbers of coronaviruses are still climbing around the world (worldwide the total number is over 3 million, and the US has over 1 million cases). Travel is still frowned upon (especially for leisure), which means that any trips that I had been thinking of taking this year are on hold for at least another year.
April came and went, and I realized that I spent a good portion of the month in a pretty bad mood on and off. I realized that most of my bad mood was being caused by looking at the news and seeing the daily total for the coronavirus. I’m now trying to figure out how to balance staying informed about the news and world, but at the same time keeping my mood more leveled. This isn’t to say that I’m not going to have bad days (because I am—I’m human), but I want to try to limit them, and at the same time figure out the best methods for working through moods so that I can become productive again with things.
I’ve realized over the month while looking back at some strength assessments, that I’ve been letting certain thoughts/feelings control how I’ve been going about doing things. I made a post quite a while ago about acknowledging that I’m stuck in the “fear zone”—which is the zone between your comfort zone and your learning zone. The three main aspects of the fear zone are: 1) being affected by the opinion of others; 2) a lack of self-confidence (since you’re trying to branch out from your comfort zone), and then 3) finding excuses (because you don’t want to look like an “idiot/fool” if you make a mistake with learning something new). I’ve realized that I’m still allowing all three of these aspects affect how I’m dealing with both the pandemic and trying to figure out my transition into industry.
I also realized that I’m going to have to be better adapted at doing online networking sessions (I missed both last month, due to forgetting about the time change, and not totally having my resume updated). It is true, that we are our own worse enemies, and while I’ve acknowledged everything that I do to sabotage myself, I have yet to figure out ways of working around those self-sabotaging methods (something to work on during May).
So what were the goals for April? The goals for April included:
1) At least 300,000 steps (should try to aim for ~10,000 steps/day)
2) Reading at least two non-fiction books
3) Working out daily—continuing with Morning Meltdown 100 on BOD
4) Personal/Professional development—listening to podcasts, working through various e-courses and other course bundles, work via the accountability group, networking, and interacting more on linkedin
5) Money log/Weekly-check in/No Spend days
6) Work on developing an editorial calendar(s)—blog, personal/professional development/fitness & health/mental health. Also still try to determine the best direction(s) for the blog to in for the rest of this year and beyond.
So how did I do with each goal?
1) At least 300,000 steps (should try to aim for ~10,000 steps/day)
Well I have no idea how many steps I actually managed last month. While I had noticed that my fitbit was flashing that it had a low battery—it was still keeping track of my steps, but since I never synced it with the online platform—any steps after April 5th have been lost.
I would say that I’ve probably managed to get roughly 150,000 steps. This is half of what I was aiming for, but with the fact that there was the shelter in place order for the month of April—not a bad number of steps.
Hopefully now, I will remember to put a fresh battery in my zip so that I can keep track of the steps I’ve taken over the month of May (starting probably on the 2nd).
2) Reading at least two non-fiction books
This is something that I feel a little behind on—I’ve started several books, but they have been more on the contemplation side (so there are questions and exercises that you are suppose to work through as you read the book), and at times I haven’t been totally up to doing that much soul searching and work. Therefore I didn’t finish a non-fiction book during the month of April.
3) Working out daily—continuing with Morning Meltdown 100 on BOD
Well, I feel short on this one as well this month. Once my mood started to slide, I started with the excuses and basically stopped working out for the month of April (I did try to do a yoga booty ballet workout at the end of the month).
I really have no other excuse other than I wasn’t in the mood to do a workout—though I know that if I pushed play, I probably would have been in a better mood (and probably would have slept a little better as well).
4) Personal/Professional development—listening to podcasts, working through various e-courses and other course bundles, work via the accountability group, networking, and interacting more on linkedin
This was something that I did a little better with in comparison to other goals for April. The biggest development (for both personal and professional) were more mental breakthroughs—realizing that I was still sloshing through the fear zone, and still feeling fairly burnt out from the previous decade of work.
The next month or so (since I will still be spending it in isolation (I don’t believe the numbers are down enough for states to actually start opening, and won’t be surprised by a spike in cases over the coming weeks), I will be diving deeper into my personal and professional development.
5) Money log/Weekly-check in/No Spend days
This is something that I haven’t been keeping up with—while it wouldn’t seem that I’ve spent a lot of money over the month (self-isolation was the agenda for April), I did spend quite a bit more than I should have on Amazon (mainly on that silly match-3 game (homescapes)). So again, this is something to aim for during May—limited spending and working up to no-spend-weeks.
6) Work on developing an editorial calendar(s)—blog, personal/professional development/fitness & health/mental health. Also still try to determine the best direction(s) for the blog to in for the rest of this year and beyond.
Well, I wrote down ideas of what I wanted to try to get accomplished, but I didn’t put it into a calendar format. I’ve realized that one problem is that I try to plan out way to much for a single day (an issue I discovered when trying to keep an bullet journal going), and then I got irritated with myself and quit doing it.
So I’m going to try to implement a couple of different ideas into one:
Start with figuring out my long-term goals (this ties back in with personal and professional development)
Break those down into say 3, 5, and 1- year goals
Break the 3-year goals down into 1, 2, and 3-year
Break the yearly goals down into monthly goals
Break the monthly goals down into weekly
Finally break the weekly down into daily.
In addition, I’m only going to try to focus on 1 or 2 areas at a time for say 3-months, and then switch up one (or both) of the areas. That way I don’t get overwhelmed with everything that I would like to accomplish, and at the same time I don’t get burnt out on focusing on just one or two areas.
So I wasn’t really focused and willing to put in the work during April—and that is truthfully totally okay during times like this (pandemic and worldwide uncertainty). But I also know that I need to slowly start getting back on track and working towards various goals (lists such as the 101 goals will be getting updated to reflect current global issues). The main thing is that I need to figure out what I want out of life, and then devise different ways of meeting those goals.
I also have to keep reminding myself that there is no such thing as perfection (as everyone has a different view of it), but there is progress. Progress this month was 1) realizing that I’m still in the “fear zone”, 2) my tolerance level for stupidity is at an all time low, and 3) it is still okay not knowing what I want to do with my life—I have the time, and resources to figure it out, therefore I’m on my own time clock and not someone elses.
The goals for May will include:
Moving more (exercise, yard work, walks)—if I can’t get the battery replaced in my fitbit, I will have to order a new one (as my other fitbit is also on it’s last legs as well—only holds ~20% of it’s charge for claiming it is “dead”). Therefore I’m not sure when I will be getting around to keeping score of my steps, and since that is up in the air—I’m not really going to set a step goal for May.
Exercise daily (included in the above moving more goal). I will probably restart Morning Meltdown 100—and that will take through the summer and into August.
Since we will still probably be self isolating most of the summer, I have a couple of ideas for the yards to help add color to the yard and also attract birds, bees, and butterflies.
Read at least two non-fiction books
Personal/Professional Development—listen to podcasts, work through various e-courses, networking, and interacting more on linkedin.
Money log/weekly-check ins/No Spend Days—try to work up to no spend weeks, and have a bare minimum spend month
Start devising goal list to break it down and work on various different ways to translate those goals into a editorial calendar for the different areas—blog, personal/professional development/fitness & health/mental health/crafts.
And continue to remember: “Progress over Perfection” and “Don’t fear failure. Fear being in the same place next year”
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