Welcome to Saturday! I hope your week has been above average to exceptional!
It has been a bit since I’ve done a recap of how my “2019 goals” are going. The biggest reason for not updating you was my being in Budapest for a month, which provided me with a fair bit of content. However that isn’t the only reason… the other reason is that some of these things have really been a struggle, or I’ve become a bit complacent and have convinced myself from time to time to skip/ignore some of them.
At any rate, it’s time to face the music. Part of why I wanted to start blogging again was for the accountability that it provides. As a possibly somewhat vain human I find that putting my work, and the things that I’m working on out in the public, provides a good source of “encouragement” to actually do the things!
So, with no further ado, let’s dive into the list of things I’ve set out to work on this year.
Before We Go Any Further
I’ve noticed something occurring as I’ve been pursuing these specific goals. It is something that I wasn’t really thinking would occur, but none the less have found interesting. Several of these goals have morphed and evolved into something a bit different than what I originally set out to do.
Looking back I should have expected this to happen, but it is also kind of freeing to realize that at any point I can decide to set something aside and focus instead on another area, if that seems like it would be better to do that.
However, I also find it quite difficult to not kill of any particular goal. I guess it’s partially my pride sticking its head up and saying that I need to make sure to carry through with what I set out to do. I don’t want to be too stuck on the original list of goals to not allow myself to change directions a little bit and head towards a possible better goal.
I don’t know if that makes sense. Hopefully it does a little bit. 🙂
Ok, now for the actual goals. We’ll cover a few specific ones and then I’ll summarize a few more at the end.
Publish a Video Each Week
Originally I was planning on this being publish “any video” as long as I publish one each week. However, this has slowly morphed into something a bit more specific, and in turn has made life a bit more complicated, at least in some ways.
As I started to publish videos on my YouTube channel I remembered how rewarding it is to stick to a schedule, and to click the “publish” button consistently. So, I am currently attempting to publish weekly on my personal channel. Any other videos I produce for the farm, or any other projects are above that.
I have given myself the freedom to skip a week should the need ever arise. I’m not planning to skip a week, but my schedule has a way of getting rather complicated at times so I am ok with allowing myself the “out” of skipping a week if I need to.
I have been successful in this goal so far. A couple of weeks were a bit on the late side, but I think they are all there. 🙂 You can find all of these over on my YouTube channel, and here is a direct link to the latest video.
Reading a Book Each Month
I won’t get into all of the “why this is a good idea,” but I am pretty sure that reading is an important exercise of the brain. Besides it is a downright enjoyable pursuit.
I don’t think I specifically covered this in the original post, but I’m pretty sure this is going to need to allow for “listening to books” as opposed to only reading real physical books. Although I do plan to do more of that this year than I have in past years.
I recently finished the acclaimed biography of Bonhoeffer written by Eric Metaxes. I won’t wax eloquent about the contents of the book except to briefly state that it was a fascinating look into Germany and the German Church, as well as the assassination attempts on Hitler during the time leading up to and into the Second World War.
That brings the book total for the year to four, so technically we are ahead of schedule!
Becoming a Morning Person
Not all of these goals are going too well right now. This is one of the ones that I am struggling with currently. Before I left for Budapest I had pretty much gotten into a routine. Most weekday mornings the alarm wouldn’t be able to ring at 4:30 before I had already woke up and cut it off.
That would lead to a lovely morning routine involving coffee, reading and meditating, as well as two or three workouts each week. Budapest kind of “messed me up” in this regard. I struggled for the first week with jet lag and not being able to sleep… my sleep pattern was all messed up.
Towards the end of the month in Budapest things got back to something of a schedule where I’d get to bed at a semi decent time and then was able to get up most days around 6 or a bit after.
Since I’ve gotten back home things haven’t gone that well. My alarm still goes off at 4:30 and I quickly silence it before going back to sleep for a couple of hours.
I’m pretty sure the biggest factor has been not going to bed on time. I know that’s the issue and yet I still find “reasons” to stay up till 10:30 or 11. So, this is me calling myself out publicly… I fully expect the next week or so to go better. 🙂
Being in Tune with Money Matters
Over the past number of months I’ve become more convicted of how I use and view money. Maybe convicted is too strong of a word, but money is important so I guess it doesn’t hurt to use a somewhat strong word.
For probably 7 years I’ve kept track of all my finances jointly (business/personal). This has become a bit cumbersome over the last two years or so, and the first few months of the year have seen me working to separate the business finances from my personal finances. I’m still not totally there, but we’re getting there.
One of the big chores that happens every year around this time is to get everything together before going to see my tax folks. I’m just about done pulling everything together, so its good to see the end of that particular project slowly coming into view.
Am I more aware of where my finances are? Yes… but I still have some things to work on.
Shorter Summaries for A Few Things
I don’t have a lot to say about a number of my yearly goals… so I’ll cruise through a number of them shortly.
- I planned to review my goals weekly. I’ve skipped a couple of weeks. With some separation, I’m seeing even more clearly that it is important to remind myself of things I said I wanted to work on.
- Publish one blog post per week. We’re still plugging away on this one! I do need to do better about writing throughout the week (I’m cramming again on Friday evening), but I have been making the “deadline”.
- Continue to grow as a web designer. As things have turned out I haven’t had a lot of chance to work on web designer things lately. But I am restarting a project for some friends of mine next week. I’m looking forward to getting back into Figma!
- Start a podcast. So… its too early to say anything specific, but this is in the works. 🙂
- Work on my health. I haven’t been to the gym since before I left for Budapest. I’ve been eating fairly well, and have lost a few more pounds, but I need to get back in the gym.
- Continue working on one of my side projects to launch in June. This has been at a standstill as well. I may be reevaluating whether I want to pursue this particular project or not.
- Create more than I consume. I know for a fact that this has been out of balance again over the past month or so. It’s soooo much easier to do something “mindless” instead of working on my weekly blog post, editing some photos or working on the video for the week. Here again I’m calling myself out. I need to remind myself of this more frequently.
Conclusion
And that’s all I’ve got time for… this weekend I’m helping at a Women’s Conference that my sister (along with a very fine committee) has put on. It has been incredible to watch her dream of hosting a conference go from an idea, to a dream, to a plan, to actually happening.
Have a great week!
P.S. How did this article get to 1500 words… I should probably feel sorry for anyone who reads this far!