#Goals

This month I challenged myself to achieve goals set by someone’s Instagram post. Seems slightly ridiculous, but it struck a chord with me. The goals seemed very achievable and focused on living in the present. I can tend to fixate on the future and abandon the present, so to intentionally spend a month trying to work on a part of myself that I know needs work, maybe isn’t that ridiculous. I’ll start off saying I didn’t meet every single goal I set for myself, however I noticed myself making new goals, work oriented goals, that were impactful. Let me start with what I did not achieve. One goal was to have a night out with friends. Let’s be honest, I’m a little bit of a grandma. I don’t go out much at all. Don’t get me wrong I love to dance, and I love wine but the older I get drinking heavily, takes a toll on me quickly. The next day my stomach is wrecked, and not even in the “hangover” way, just bloated and uneasy. Even my face bloats! However, I do see the point of that goal especially for me. Since it isn’t something I do often, I should have made more of an effort to meet this goal. I am working on doing that this month. It may seem so crazy for a young-ish girl in party city, Austin, needing to make an effort to go out, but I do. That’s the truth. The only other goal I didn’t achieve was the 24-hour social media free. I actually thought this wouldn’t be a problem! I frequently leave my phone at home or when I’m home I’ll leave it in my bedroom to disconnect from the world. For some reason this month, it just got away from me. I (foolishly) tried to plan out the month and map out when I would be doing the action items on my list. But something that is so habitual, like picking up your phone and checking Instagram or snapchat, really, I found cannot be planned.

Now for the goals I did achieve, the ones I knew wouldn’t be a problem were day to yourself, date night, breakfast meet up with friends. Those I knew I could do, it’s already a part of my monthly rotation. The older you get the more of an effort you need to make to meet your friends. If you want a long last friendship, it takes a little effort. You must try to meet up with each other and take an interest in each other lives or you will just fade out of each other lives. My date night was so fun! I planned a pottery painting activity as a well as a wine tasting! We both had an amazing time, and it was so fun doing something we had never done together. In all honesty, I took a wine education class in college and have painted pottery before, BUT we had never done it together so it counts, y’all . It was so nice to reconnect and just have fun with each other. The day outdoors goal, was also special to me since I got to spend this one with an amazing friend in a new city. We spent the entire day, exploring San Diego. The refreshing sea breeze and salty air was favorable to me, as opposed to the stagnate humid heat of Texas in the summer. The goal I was unsure I would achieve was “1 day serving others”. I interned for nonprofits in college and truly enjoyed my work for them, but typically nonprofits want a minimum of time committed to them, understandably so. I needed an organization in which I could quickly volunteer as I could and didn’t require me to commit for 6 months, or need a background check, basically anything that would prolong what I wanted to accomplish this month. How I would love to commit 6 months to helping an organization and doing good, but I just don’t have that kind of free time. Anyway, I was able to register for 2 shifts to volunteer at the Central Texas Food Bank. My job offers 8 hours for us to take to volunteer, so it was perfect. The experience was great! It was a lot of work but it felt good to know that so many people were going to be impacted by our efforts. The first shift was pretty simple, laying out cheese for sandwiches, stacking trays, and sealing food. The second shift was the hard work. In the warehouse, we were sorting through potatoes, onions and carrots. Cleaning them off, making sure they weren’t rotten and packing them in sacks to be given to families. I smelled like onions the rest of the weekend, and was sneezing for days. I got home and was so exhausted, but when they told us we worked enough to feed over 10,000 families it felt so worth it. I want to take my niece and nephew when they get old enough so that they can get the experience of hard work and the incomparable feeling of giving back.

Throughout the month I felt so determined to achieve my goals, that I started to get ambitious and set more goals. At work, I am so focused on my overall career progression that I’m doing my best to meet with anyone who would listen and hear me. I’ve been trying to pick their brains on what I should do to help myself. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and started meeting with people I did not know, and just start a conversation. I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m not sure I would have been in this mindset without starting this silly challenge. Overall this month has felt really positive to me, I’ve done things for myself and for others that was solely about positivity. I want to strive to do this every other month to keep myself present, and involved. If anyone can take anything away from this, is even the most organized person can benefit from setting a goal, and feeling of accomplishment kept me accountable in many other areas of my life. Who doesn’t need that in their life? Please share your feedback! Are there goals you want to accomplish this month? Are there some you think I should try? I'd love to hear what you think!

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