life goals

Birthday goals

| cheriarmour

It’s been almost a week since my 28th birthday, and per usual, it’s been one of the craziest weeks ever.  We went to a Friendsgiving, wrapped up the Annual Campaign after raising $1.4 million dollars ($1.4 million?!), and generally, didn’t get a minute to ourselves.  I mean seriously, I fell asleep on the couch twice this week and my hubby had to come get me and tell me to come to bed.

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So in this week, and in thinking about what 28 means, and what I want to accomplish in this year.  And after having sushi with a friend who told me he likes to set 4 goals each birthday, I decided to do the same, and hold myself accountable for each of those goals.

So here goes, 4 goals for my 28th year of living. 

  1. Get my personal trainer certification.  It’s something I feel will make me a better teacher.  I don’t necessarily want clients, lord knows that there may not be enough hours in the day for that, but anything to make me a better and stronger, I think is worth going for.
  2. Begin some real work on a book.  It is my dream to be the black Bethanny Frankel – to write a book on black women, and their health and fitness.  Maybe my first book won’t be that, maybe it will be a guide to dating, or something fun and syrupy, but I know I’m destined for it.  I don’t know why, but I just know.  Plus I need that advance so I can pay down my student loans.  (Just kidding! Kinda…)
  3. Utilize my time more efficiently.  This is something I’ve really been striving for, but I’m not great at.  That’s sort of an abstract concept, but that means squeezing the most out of every moment I can and limiting distractions.  I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a lazy Sunday, but I don’t want every night when I come home from work to be a flop down on the couch kind of night.  I don’t have time.
  4. Do something creative every day.  I do my best when I’m given the chance to do something creative every day. Whether that means going to Home Depot and picking out colors, picking out linens, painting, writing (even if it’s just 100 words), or READING, I will be doing this each day.
  5. Okay, and I had to sneak a 5th one in here.  I would like to start saving more.  I’m starting with an EXTREMELY modest goal of $500, which means I only have to put $41.67 in a separate account each month.  But on top of this, I’d like to put all my checks from Aradia into this account.  The amount varies depending on how much I work, but the reason why this is hard/important is that I usually like to take that Aradia check and do fun things with it.  But it’s time to let that go.  I’m really competitive, even if it’s just with myself, so I’d really like to push.  Additionally, I’m toying with the idea of “tipping” myself for every workout I do.  I’m not sure how much, but I’m playing with  the idea of tipping myself 10% in dollar amount for the minutes I’ve worked out.  So $3.00 for a 30 minute work out, $6.00 for an hour workout and so on.

What’s ONE of your goals for the next year?  

Lifelong Resolutions

| cheriarmour

I kinda never make resolutions.  I’ve always thought that resolutions are a way to set oneself up for failure, but there are some changes I really want and need to make now, not just the moment the clock strokes midnight on January 1st.  These thoughts are thoughts that sort of started out foggy in my mind over the past few months, and have become clearer and clearer as I’ve run trails and started to outline my training plans for the past few months.  To be clear, I wholeheartedly wish there was a word I could use, other than resolution to describe what it is I would like to do more of, but that’s all this is – a list of things that I’d love to do more for the rest of my life, not just for 2015.

  • Spend more time with my husband.  Me and my husband are both super active, and on a normal day, we wake up, go to work (very very hard), work out at some point during the day, sometimes more than once, and by the time we get home, it is sometimes past 8pm.  We cook dinner, and by the time all is said and done, we’ve barely spent 30 minutes together.  We went on a trail run together on Sunday, and while running, we decided that if it means that we need to get up early to work out together at least one day a week, we will do that to make sure we get to spend sometimes together.  I love spending time with him.
  • Continue being more responsible with my money.  My husband is awesome with money, and helped me start doing everything Ramsey-style.  I now operate nearly 100% in cash, and am limited in what I spend each week.  In addition to utilizing my cash envelope system, I would like to continue either working at Fleet Feet one weekend for a month, or start earning some sort of supplemental income in order to help me pay down my student loans faster, and to completely pay off my car – especially in the event that my dear 2008 starts to go and I need to consider buying a new car.
  • Grow my business casual wardrobe.  I can get away with some of my more fitnessy pieces at work, especially given that I teach a ton of classes, but I need to grow my business casual wardrobe.  I’m 27, and wearing Nike and New Balance head to toe doesn’t fly at Director’s Meetings.  IN ADDITION to this goal, I MUST get better with packing my gym bag.  So when I wear my fancier pieces to work, packing a bag with some makeup and workout clothes is a must.  Which ties into my next life goal….
  • Getting up early enough/going to bed early enough so that if I want to work out in the morning I can, and so I won’t be rushing around like an animal in the mornings like I always am.  I know I’m going to have to start with baby steps – you can’t just lay down at 9 and expect to be dead asleep, but I figure if I try going to sleep at least 30 minutes earlier than usual, even that will help me.
  • Be and stay more organized.  This means making full use of my Sugar Paper planner (which I’m not a million percent sure I’m in love with yet), and full use of my Google Calendar, which I’ve been using a ton since starting the new job.   Additionally, this means pre-scheduling a lot more of posts here.  I have made some use of that feature, and it saves so much time and allows me to focus on reading other blogs when I actually do it!  I have made baby steps toward becoming more organized, but would like to continue to grow in this area.

So that’s my list of changes I’d like to make.  These are so important to me, not fulfilling these goals is not optional at all.

What are some of your goals for the next year, or maybe, the rest of your life?