Time for My Monthly Overview...

It is the end of my goal period for myself, and I am ready to review what I have done over the past month. To recap, (if you are a regular reader, first of all THANK YOU, and second of all, you can skip the rest of this paragraph...) I decided several months back that making monthly goals around the first of the month was not really working out for me. My patterns and cycles usually mean that I feel pretty positive and happy towards the beginning of the month (that's when most of the full moons are happening this year) and less inclined to complete goals in the middle of the month when my negative cycles and patterns arrive. Goals that I made when feeling positive were impossible to accomplish in my negativity. So, I switched my goal periods around a bit and have found that this schedule is better for actually accomplishing my goals. So, I tend to do my monthly reviews around the 14th and then I establish the goals that I want to accomplish and start them all up on the 15th.

Today is goal review day!

Last month's goals were to:

• cook something every week (I tend to like to order food based on whim rather than necessity, so I had been avoiding cooking in favor of using food delivery systems) - I cooked chicken Parmesan casserole (that one entree also completed the second goal that I had - see the next bullet point), sloppy joes, and two other things earlier this month - I really need to write these down!
• cook a new recipe that I have never made before once per month - like I mentioned above, I made up a recipe for chicken Parmesan casserole. I enjoy trying new combinations of food stuffs to see if things work. This one did. I seem to be using chicken in my new recipes pretty exclusively this year. 
• Declutter - well, this one is difficult for me. I did not do as much as I wanted to do. This will continue because I absolutely HAVE to clean out my home! I accomplished 2/8 tasks here - I need to change how I do this goal...
  
• Redesign Website - I was able to complete 2/4 tasks on this project this month. I am still not completely ready to finish up this task, so it will continue for next month as well.
• House hunt with my realtor - I saw four houses this time around, so this is progress. I still haven't found what I'm looking for (yep, a music lyric reference here!)

So, now it is time to figure out my goals for next month. I know that I will continue the declutter goal (has to be done), the redesign website goal (again, has to be done), and the house hunting goal (I really want to move!). There is room for one more goal for my focus this month.

Cooking is something that I do not think I need to focus on as a goal anymore. I have remembered that I enjoy making my food, so I will keep that up (I think). If I revert back into the "it's just easier to pay someone else to make my food" trap, then I will make a more formal goal, but I think I can take that one off and mark it as finished.

So, what do I do now? Well, just having a goal of declutter two bags per week is not working for me, so I need to refine that goal to something else. Perhaps making a definite chore list would help. The two things that I did declutter were specific places in my house - the front entry shelving and the laminating/book binding zone in the living room. I may do better if my goal is more direct. I might be able to do a bookshelf or two a week. Hmm.

Take the data, evaluate it, and make informed decisions about next steps, right?

The data indicate that I do not like to declutter. So, I need to figure out how to incentivize myself to get this necessary task finished up. There are secondary reinforcers present - a less cluttered living space, more room for activities, less to have to move (if I can find someplace to live - tight house market here). I, though, am not responding well to these secondary reinforcements. I may need something a bit more primary in nature. Maybe I can link my performance on the goal to purchasing something, but that really negates the purpose of decluttering in the first place. Food is always an option, but that's not the best way of doing anything, especially for me.

This will take some more time to consider, so I will be thinking it through this morning as I am waiting for the doctor to evaluate my fingers. What do I want to change? What do I want to take on? What do I need to be doing? There are so many questions to consider when you are making your own goals.

It's a bit easier when you are making client goals, isn't it? Maybe I need someone else to make goals for me...[sarcasm].

Anyway, I will sit down with my quarterly goals and see what speaks to me. At the end of the day, I will have my goals written down on some pretty post-its or on a fancy tip-in card for my journal. I will spend some time creating something fun to inspire me to look at it every week. That's the process that I am doing right now, and it is working. I am making progress - not as much as I want, but progress all the same - and that is what matters the most.