December Goals Check-In/January Goals

In December, I decided to start making small, month-long goals. Aside from New Years resolutions, I've never really sat down and written out goals that I could see myself achieve in the short term. I usually make goals such as losing weight, drawing closer to God, and graduating from college. And long-term goals are important. But so are short term goals. Short term goals map out how you get to achieve those long-term goals. So while losing weight isn't a bad goal to have, my monthly goals help me achieve it.

A recap of my December goals:
1. Start running again. Not only did I not achieve this, I didn't run at all in the month of December! Epic fail.
2. Stick to the program and lose weight. Another failure since I decided to stop attending Weight Watchers in December after falling so off-track during Thanksgiving. I hope to go back to WW but I'm waiting to see if I still have a job after mid-January. It's all depending on a certain class. If I get into the class, I lose my job. If I don't, I keep my job but there's a good chance this (required) class may not be offered until next spring. Yikes! (And I need the job to pay for WW.)
3. Start writing again. Man, I promised myself once classes were over that I needed to get back to writing. I have all the time in the world yet I still haven't opened that document in months.
4. Finish my 101 in 1,001 Days. Yay, complete! This was a monster to finish but I did get it done, just in time for New Years.
5. Start a strength-training program. Yikes! Another epic failure. Actually, I had planned to get together all my tear-out pages of Shape magazine of exercises I wanted to try. And then I spilled a Stouffer's dinner on them and it was so yucky, I had to throw them all away.

That's pretty bad. One goal out of five completed. Oh, well! New month, new year, new decade! I'm ready for some change!

Complete or start at least three items on my 101 in 1,001 list. I made the list, posted it, and now it's time to get to work! I'm starting small with just three in the hopes I can actually achieve this. There are two goals I'm already working on but I would like to have at least one, if not two, of those goals marked off by the end of January.

Make one new meal a week. My mom and I have been in a cooking rut this past month. It's been a crazy month so we haven't felt like cooking too many times. We're hoping to get back into the groove of things, start eating healthier, and cooking at home more. She was given a Crock-Pot for Christmas so we'll definitely be utilizing it! We have a bunch of go-to dinner choices that we use frequently (spaghetti, Shake-N-Bake chicken, tacos, etc.) but we both get a little nervous to step out of our comfort zone and cook a new and different meal. But I think we need to.

Start running, using the Couch-to-5K running plan. I haven't ran since Thanksgiving and I really want 2010 to be the Year I Lost Weight And Became A Runner. My goal is to run in the 5K Bay to Bay race on March 21st. This gives me a little less than 11 weeks to be in 5K shape. But it also gives me a goal and something to work towards.

Start paying at least $50 to Credit Card #1 and Credit Card #2, as well as paying something to Credit Card #3. For the past year, I've just been paying the minimum balance on two of my credit cards which is always less than $20. And then there's the third credit card of which I have a rather large limit on and have gotten very behind on payments. So my minimum balance is quite high. But I want to start paying them something, just to show I'm trying. I really want to get rid of two of the credit cards and stick to the one my bank gave me. Credit card debt is never something I thought I would ever find myself in, especially seeing how my parents struggled with it. But I have and I'm ready to pay them off, get rid of the cards and build my credit back up.

Establish a time of the day to have quiet time with God. I desperately need to get back to having quiet time with God. It will probably have to be at night, since I have to be at work very early in the morning. But I need to map out the time, what I want to accomplish during that time, and start doing it. I need to get back to reading my Bible, praying, and seeking God more. I don't do it enough.

Also, I started a blog dedicated solely to my weight loss and fitness goals. I'm still going to talk about them on here but this blog delves into everything in much greater detail. It is not a blog where I list what I ate for the day and my exercise. Instead, it's a blog where I'm trying to figure out how I got to the weight I am, how I'm going to change my habits, and follows my weight loss journey. Check it out: Blogging to Lose.