Second Quarter Check-In, 2017

We’re halfway through 2017. Do you know where your New Year’s Resolutions are?

I like to go through my yearly goals at least once a quarter, because I am the boss of my life and this is how I make sure to get what I want. Nobody else is going to come along and lob my goals and character improvements at me. If I want positive changes in my life, I’m going to have to make them happen by myself. I do that by deciding what I want and figuring out how it’s done.

So far, my 2017 has shaped up to be radically different in every way from my 2016.

My quest for the year is to BE RIDICULOUS. This started out feeling like a terrible idea, because we had a lot of ridiculous-in-a-bad-way. I continued this thread by cutting my eyeball on a plant. Yes, it’s true, I got a scleral abrasion off a bird-of-paradise. Surely there’s a metaphor there. My eyesight measured at 20/40 in that eye, and I had to get a tetanus shot, and my vision was blurry for over a week, and I had to take these horrid eye drops o’ hellfire four times a day, and I really thought I had permanently damaged my vision. The miracle of healing transpired the way that it does, and my eye is now back to 20/20. Artificially induced gratitude. THE GIFT OF SIGHT!!! I have some positively ridiculous projects simmering right now, and I’m starting to take myself and my goals less seriously and just seeing how much I can accomplish through outright hilarity.
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My major personal goal for the year has been to follow a set schedule. I chose it because I try to seek and destroy things that are difficult for me, things that do not come naturally, things I’m bad at, things that I kinda sorta hate. The reason is that deciding to turn around my attitude toward the most negative has been like rocket fuel in my life. A year ago, I felt nauseated when I thought about public speaking. Now I love it and I’m getting pretty good. What would be different if I actually LOVED what I HATE? Well, I really am learning to love having a schedule. The way it’s working out, I dedicate specific days of the week to different projects. I always know the best day of the week to set appointments. The amount of time each day that I spend on chores has contracted. I just realized that instead of cleaning one room per weekday, I really only have three rooms now… I like waking up early in the morning and seeing how much I can accomplish before lunch.

Career goals are chugging along. Right now we’re slowly but steadily filing papers for our LLC and waiting on the geological time scale of bureaucracy. Moving forward feels like moving backward. I’ve expanded my coaching business in the meantime, and it’s been fun to add some new clients.

My physical goals have been in a holding pattern. I’ve only been out running twice so far this year. I’m walking so much more since we moved that it has displaced my goal of running. I’ll simply have to accept that I have to add my running mileage to my walking mileage (currently 4.6/day) if I want to start running again. Also, I wasn’t doing P90X because our new apartment is so small, but we just rearranged the living room furniture and suddenly it looks like there might be enough room. Now to figure out how to connect the DVD player - the sort of stupid, small obstacle that one might easily use as an excuse to procrastinate on a major goal.

Our home goal of “digitize, downsize, minimize” continues, even after our dramatic “move twice in 12 days” downsizing move back in March. Living in a small space makes it really obvious when unnecessary objects are getting in the way. Also, turning paper into digital information makes life so much easier that it is its own reward.

Our couples goals are coming up in July… World Domination Summit, and hopefully making some pickles! We have two additional trips together scheduled in Third Quarter. When we moved, we decided to Say Yes to Everything, in terms of social invitations and anywhere we could expand our career options. The result of that is that now we’re both holding an office in our respective Toastmasters clubs, and I’ve been mentoring him by adding his club meetings to my schedule. This has given us a lot to gossip about together.

As for lifestyle upgrades, I went out and bought a new $20 work bag when the strap on my old bag started shearing off. This has been transformative. It’s weird how much an organized bag helps one to follow a schedule and be early, rather than late, for everything. Grab bag, go out the door. Now I’m saving money toward my other lifestyle upgrade goal of getting the new iPhone when it comes out at the end of this year.

I have already transformed my appearance, as my Do the Obvious goal, and I made such a big change so early in the year that I’ve had some time to get used to it. Now it just feels like the real me. (What a weird concept. As though a ‘fake me’ would not still be the ‘real me’ in the background). It’s occurred to me that the most obvious physical transformation I could make now would be in the form of bodybuilding. If I do get down with the P90X, I could be looking pretty alarmingly fit by the end of the year… This is the sort of thought that gives one pause. How exactly do I want to look? Do I resist certain physical changes because I’m concerned about how others would react and judge changes in my appearance? In fact, if I change my body composition in the direction of more muscle than I currently have, it would be hard for other people to complain to me with a straight face. Mostly they would only catch sight of my arms, and a little more bicep is not a crime. So I get more muscle in the midriff, and someone sees me in my swimsuit. I’m already at the “you bitch” level of visible abs. I can shrug that stuff off. Will I move forward in this direction? Will I?

I have not yet done my stop goal of being the last person to pack up my tent. My husband and I are going camping this summer, so that will be an opportunity to test myself. This reminds me that I still need to replace the mesh tent window that the raccoon tore up last year!

I have not done my wish of paying off my student loan yet. Now that the balance is below $5000, it’s starting to feel possible. The real problem is figuring out what to wish for after that!

This is the short version of my 2017 goals, resolutions, quests, wishes, etc.:

Personal: Follow a set schedule
Career: LLC
Physical: P90X, run five miles
Home: Digitize, downsize, minimize
Couples: WDS, homemade pickles
Stop goal: Stop being the last person to pack up my tent
Lifestyle upgrades: Phone and work bag, tent
Do the Obvious: Transform my appearance
Quest: BE RIDICULOUS
Wish: Pay off my student loan.

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