goals

Oh, look, it’s 2023!

/ Brienna / Leave a comment

It’s New Year’s day, and with that normally comes new year’s resolutions.

I’m not a big fan of resolutions and usually focus on goals instead. While I have goals this year, I’m also picking what’s known as a word of intention for the year. This word sets the theme for the year and is much broader than any set of specific goals.

This word should help me on my journey and should be something that can provide a focus to my choices throughout the year.

For 2023, I’ve chosen HEALTH as my word of intention. In support of this, I have some goals to eat better (no Monster – day 1 is today!), exercise more (yoga, running, walking), and make sure that I’m taking care of my mental health.

Today is also the first day of #Bloganuary, a month-long challenge from Automattic and WordPress.com to blog every day in January. Each day comes with a writing prompt to help inspire.

What is something you want to achieve this year?

This writing prompt ties in nicely with my intention word. What do I want to achieve this year? I want to live a healthy life. In achievement terms, that means eating better, losing weight, improving my cardiovascular fitness, being mindful of getting enough sleep, and meditating more often.

I haven’t set specific metrics for anything, preferring to let my intention be my guide and see where it takes me. I don’t want to fall into the trap of self-loathing due to numbers on the scale, calorie counting, or missed goals. Each day is a new opportunity to make healthy choices.

To kick off the year with an intention of health, this morning I started a 30-day yoga challenge from Yoga with Adrienne. Skipping is totally allowed, so this might take more than the next 30 days to complete.

P.S. Here’s a great, related video that Wil Wheaton shared with me. It’s short, and while they call it a theme instead of an intention, it explains the concept well in this very short video.

goals for 2014

/ Brienna / 1 Comment

2013 is over, and now it’s time to see what’s in store for 2014.

2014

I have so many interests and desires, that it’s hard to pick just a few goals. However, I do know that setting too many goals can be counterproductive. For 2014, I would like to categorize my goals and have just a few goals per category. My categories will be running, self-improvement, and reading.

Not surprisingly, these goals are very similar to last year’s. Ideally, I will do a monthly check-in to keep myself accountable.

Fitness:

Self-improvement:

  • Make yoga a habit
    • Practice once a week
  • Finish Fluenz Spanish 2 and 3
  • Improve on learning Romanian
  • Focus on weight loss but don’t obsess
  • Complete Music Theory book including practice exercises (book and audio CD)

Reading:

year end goal update

/ Brienna / 1 Comment

Well 2013 is almost over.  It’s been quite a year!  I went way over on some of my goals, and fell short in other areas.

me and Dad, Maui
Ada, Jocelyn, me, The Louvre

Here’s a quick look at how I did:

Blogging – PASS. Pretty good, although I would like to be more consistent in frequency and more evenly spread across topics of running, reading, and recipes/foodie posts.

Run more miles – FAIL. Only 284 miles so far, just over 30 miles behind goal. However, I was injured AND had surgery this year, so all things considered, I think I did pretty good.

Races – PASS. I made the goal of 6 races (barely), but missed the stretch goal of 10. I missed 2 races due to my surgery, so I am pretty happy with 6.

Spanish – PASS. We completed Spanish 1 (easy goal), and 17/30 lessons from Spanish 2. I really wanted to complete Spanish 2, but David has been struggling with it, as it’s getting harder and harder now. I have been studying on the side using Duolingo on my phone, and I love it!

Romanian – FAIL. I don’t think I made any significant progress this year on learning Romanian. I wish Duolingo or Fluenz had Romanian!

Read the Classics – PASS. I finished Les Miserables, and The Catcher in the Rye. Anna Karenina was postponed until January as I tried to reach an additional goal this year of reading 70 books. I’ve also decided to skip On the Road, while Lolita will be on the list for 2014.

The additional goal of read 70 books – PASS! I’m already reading number 75 and I still have a few days left. I’d love it if I could make 80, but I’m not sure. We have a 14 hour flight to New Zealand on Saturday, so I could easily make it to 76 or 77. How does this stack up with last year? Well, last year I read only 61 books, so this is quite amazing!

Happy New Year and Happy Holidays everyone!  Check back next year for my 2014 goals!

September goal update

/ Brienna / 2 Comments

I realized it’s been quite a while since I did a goal progress check.

  • Run more miles –
    • last year at this time, I was at 187 miles.
    • so far this year, I’ve done 200. 🙂
  • Run more races –
    • last year 5
    • this year 2 so far, but I have three, maybe four more scheduled  – Color Me Rad on 9/14, Turkey Trot, and the Santa Run.  I might also do the “ugly sweater run.”
  • Spanish –
    • I’m on lesson 9/30 in Spanish 2.  Not going as fast as I’d hoped because I’m doing it with my husband.
  • Romanian –
    • hardly any progress 🙁
  • Reading more “classics”

I guess I better get start reading more classics and start doing more language practice. If anyone wants to come tudor me, that would be awesome.