I have been diligent with my 30 Day Goal Calendar. I sit down with the calendar at the end of every week and I evaluate that week and then I plan out the next week. Along with the monthly goal, I give myself weekly tasks usually related to the goal set for that month. Last month I set a goal to check on my online photo sales and upload pictures weekly. I hadn’t checked on any of it in a year and was surprised to find that I had actually sold a few stock images. My reward for meeting my October goal was to buy more film for my Polaroid. I met this goal, but have yet to reward myself. I guess just dangling the carrot in front of my nose is enough for my motivation.

The goal I set for November is a personal one that I don’t want to talk about. If I meet that goal, I get to buy myself a fuzzy sweater with llamas on it. My to-do list for this week included getting up at 5:00 AM every morning for yoga/meditation. There were zero mornings where that happened and there was one day where I didn’t meet my personal goal. That one day where I didn’t meet my goal would usually send me into a failure tailspin. That one day plus the zero mornings of yoga/meditation would usually mentally ruin me. The difference this time around comes from that moment at the end of the week when I sit down and evaluate things. Instead of beating myself for not meeting my goal on ONE day, I reflected on what it was about that day that kept me from my goal. What could I have changed in my routine? What can I change in my routine to keep this from happening again? I did the same thing with this week’s to-do list. It is obvious to me that 5:00 AM is not physically possible for me. I need that extra hour of rest, mostly because I’ve lost an hour or two to random wake-ups in the middle of the night. I had my first anxiety dream last night about getting to the airport on time for a work trip I’m taking in three weeks. I expect many more to come. This makes my to-do list unrealistic. Instead of saying do this thing at 5:00 AM, next week I will try just doing the thing. I’ll take the unrealistic part out of the equation.

Habits are hard to both break and start and I’m trying to break some old habits so that I can start some better habits. With out making resolutions. I never took the time to evaluate failures in the past. I failed. Gave up. End of story. I’m grateful to be picking up this new habit of evaluating my week not just because it helps to keep me on task, but because it is helping me to be kinder to myself. Self kindness is so easy preach, yet so hard for me to practice. The habit of self kindness is the most difficult habit for me to get into. All of these little steps and goals lead into that one big habit and that is something I can truly be grateful for this morning.