January Review
This was the first month I tried logging how I was doing on my goals and I learned a lot.
How I did
As I will mention more later, the lack of clear and measurable goals (SMART goals) means it's kind of hard to measure how I did without a kind of wishy-washy feeling of "okay?". Which means kinda nothing, as far as I'm concerned.
What I learned
I need clear measurable goals, and actions to get there
If I don't even know where I'm going, then how do I know I am on the right path? I need clear measurable goals to make it easy to know the what and the why. And to minimize the friction of moving towards them, I need clear and measurable actions. This will be harder up front, only because it's not a loose and unfocused "mission statement" that doesn't really _mean_ anything.
I need my mornings/I need my sleep
Mornings are when I have the most energy, focus, and determination. If I go to bed late, I wake up late, and then I don't have enough time to do what I need before work starts. Inevitably, I will be low on spoons at the end of the day and then will not accomplish my goals.
My physical space is important
Because of this past month's wild weather, I was not in my usual space with my usual schedule. So my rhythm was out of whack and all my usual triggers and cues were missing. I have always known from past tries at behavioral change that these contexts are huge for me, so I want to fortify these with these beneficial cues.
Next month's goals
I'm going to keep many of my routine-based goals of meditation, journaling, and exercise. But I'm going to make them more clear and measurable to make it more obvious what needs to be done to accomplish said goals.
Obviously one of my goals is going to be going to bed by 10 or 11 every night. Not quite sure which of those as of yet, but I am guessing 11 is going to be more realistic in terms of actually meeting it every single day.
The others that were more wishy-washy, I really need to start from square one. Most of them kind of fell into the same two categories:
- processing difficult emotions as I encountered them
- acting based on what I want or need instead of my anxieties
These are great aspirational _behaviors_, but are not great for _doing_ things. I have no quantificable baseline of how I am doing right now because you can't. That makes discrete actions that are planned or aren't essentially snap judgments more or less impossible without a lot of thought _every single day_.
So for those, I think I am going to set goals that are small, discrete, and actionable. Things that are essentially true or false that I did or did not do them. If they are that easy to assess at any given point in time, they will (hopefully) also be that easy to act on.
Aside from the generics, I have kind of fallen away from rock climbing. Mostly, I assume, because I have not been there much because of traveling and extreme weather. So I may end up canceling my month-to-month there and instead get back into aikido. I sense that it will appeal to me for a few reasons:
- It's a community that requires doing a shared activity (unlike rock climbing which too easily becomes solo).
- It's very physical, in that when I did it last, I almost always ended each class covered in sweat.
- It's very fun.
I'll try and make my goals by end of day today, but will probably keep refining until end of week one.