Guess who’s back!
It’s been awhile! To recap, August was insane. Bad insane followed by good insane. The bad: super stressful job search (that has yet to be fruitful), and SunCat getting really sick in the middle of it. Thankfully, she seems to be responding really well to her treatment so far. Fingers crossed!
The Good: I went to Peru! I just got back from a 10-day trip with my best friend. It was amazing. This country has been at the very top of my travel wish list for some time now, and it didn’t disappoint. I climbed Montaña Machu Picchu, and so now I know that I can do anything. Seriously, that thing was really fucking hard. Side note: I’m taking the stairs at work from now on…
Before I left, I started tracking habits that I wanted to build, with mixed results.
Achieving Self Improvement When You’re Lazy…
I meant to write this post before my trip, and then life got away from me. But now I have more to say, so maybe procrastinating was a good thing??
Something I’ve started doing more of over the last few months is tracking my progress on good habits that I’m trying to build. This covers a wide variety of things, but the common thing is that I need more accountability on these.
The Psychological Motivation of a Gold Star
Tracking like this is motivating because deep down, I’m still an over-eager kindergartener teacher’s pet who is a sucker for a gold star. On anything. The only time I’ve voluntarily kept my desk clean? You guessed it—when there were gold stars involved (or, as the case may be, red ribbons that could be exchanged for prizes). No one is doling out rewards for chore charts when you’re an adult, so I have to find ways to replicate that motivation.
With this chart, it’s in my regular journal/planner, so it’s always on hand. It’s easy to flip to that page daily and track how I’m doing. I also really enjoy using bright colors in my journal, and getting to color in a square makes me happy. We’ll see; I might also pick some sort of small reward to attach to success as well. Though I’m less worried about having a perfect month and more focused on making overall progress long-term, so I don’t know what a reward would be/how it would be triggered.
My First Month of Tracking
Here’s what my first monthly tracker looked like:
My goals that I focused on and their success frequency were:
- Wake up before 6am (7am on weekends): 20/30
- 10,000 steps/day: 2/30
- 7 hours of sleep a night: 21/30
- Healthy eating: 18/30
- A side hustle activity/day: 17/30
- Blog post: 7/8
Lessons Learned
Clearly, I have some room to improve. Some of these weren’t too difficult—I was pretty consistent on getting enough sleep each night, and also on waking up before 6am. I’m going to increase the difficulty on that one on my next tracker, probably. I was also really good about eating healthy and posting on my blog regularly—both of those only dropped off in consistency once things got particularly stressful with SunCat’s health.
But wow, is it embarrassing to post the results for 10,000 steps a day…I thought I was doing better in getting outside regularly and moving, but obviously I’m not. This might have been a little too ambitious for a first goal when I’ve gotten into some bad habits, so I’m going to dial it back a bit for Round 2.
This Month’s Goals
Ok, here’s what this month looks like:
My goals are:
- 8,000 steps/day—hopefully more achievable than 10,000 right out the gate.
- 15 minutes of exercise (three times a week)—to get exercise that isn’t walking
- Blog posts on Sundays and Thursdays—staying consistent hopefully!
- Job applications submitted regularly (9 over the course of the month)
- Side hustle activity (11 over the month)—every day isn’t reasonable, but I want to make sure I’m still taking action.
- 7 hours of sleep a night – already off to a bad start on this one given how busy things are right after Peru…
- Awake by 5:30am (7:30am on weekends)—another one with empty boxes so far, but only because I got sick in Peru and don’t think it’s a good idea to limit my sleep at the moment.
- Read 15 minutes before bed—trying to build in some downtime and relaxation!
Moving Forward
I like the act of tracking, and I’m hoping that posting the results on my blog will help me stay accountable. I can definitely tell you that I have no intention of posting an update that shows another 2/30 result on it…so I better get walking!
Starting my journal (using the Bullet Journal method) has been really helpful in keeping track of goals, activities, and progress. It’s comforting, and I’ve also always been a sucker for good notebooks and pens!
In case you have a journal you’re using or just want to start a monthly tracker separately, I’ve designed a digital download for my Etsy shop that follows the format of my tracker. There’s a blank one that can be used for any month, but there’s also a full year’s worth of tracking calendars. Let me know what you think!