Recommitting to my New Year’s Resolutions…
I’m not going to lie, we’re a little over two weeks into the New Year and I’m struggling to get into a groove with my New Year’s resolutions. I find myself contemplating strategies like… if I don’t reach my writing, workout, or weight loss goals for the day or week, I’ll make up for it another day, next week, or the following week, as long as I reach my cumulative monthly goals. Acknowledging this in writing, yes, I feel like a slacker. While I’d give myself a C+ as far as sticking to my goals so far, it’s going to take quite a bit more discipline on my part to bring that grade up to an A.
The first week of January I didn’t know what to expect or how I would feel in my attempts to meet my weekly goals. I met 90% of my writing goals, met my weight loss goal, and worked out four of the five times I had planned but, I wasn’t satisfied because I still fell short. The second week, my grade slipped from a C+ to a D. I met 75% of my writing goals, gained back the weight I lost in the first week, and only worked out three of five days.
While I’m determined to remain positive, I’ve definitely had moments during the past week when I’ve been hard on myself. I know I can do better. I know I just need to make it happen. I know I need to be better at managing my time. I know I need to stop staying up so damn late, go to bed earlier, get more sleep, eat better, and write, write, write.
I’ve also started consciously reflecting on the way my mind works when I make excuses for myself or when I attempt to come up with justifications as to why I’m doing something other than trying to accomplish the goals I’ve set for myself. My top excuse has clearly been… I’m too tired. I know it sounds cliché but I’m just keeping it real.
I’m a night owl by nature and love to stay up late while the rest of the world is asleep to catch up on my shows or social media. I do this even though I know that in order for me to get to work by six A.M., I really need to start DVRing my shows and watching them the next day or whenever I have time later. Since many of my shows are on Sundays, I typically get off to a pretty shaky start on Mondays after having only four or five hours of sleep. That in turn, leads to me being exhausted when I get home from work on Mondays, and sets the tone for a vicious cycle that I’m usually not able to recover from until around Thursday. By then, I’ve only worked out once or twice, haven’t been able to focus like I should, have been putting off my goals, have been hard on myself and/or feeling guilty for not being more disciplined with my time management, and have started procrastinating and trying to figure out strategies to make up for everything I’ve missed over the upcoming weekend.
This stops now.
This is my catchup week. Not only am I going to accomplish all of my weekly goals this week, I’m going to catchup on the ones I’ve failed to fulfill for the past two weeks. Wish me luck!
With that said, I’m off to the gym…
James
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