Goals and Goal Setting - Day 1 - Week 1

I'm a habitual procrastinator.  Patterns are learned behaviors.  Unfortunately, I got into the pattern of not doing much of anything.  Or at least not doing it until I'm sweating bullets and not able to sleep and my adrenal glands are pumping epinephrine and cortisol on overtime.  I never see that paycheck come to think of it.  Or maybe I'm just getting paid in exhaustion.  

Lately I've been doing a whole lot of nothing.  At first, I "did" this under the guise that I was taking care of myself.  If I was too tired or in a bad mood or just feeling generally down, I would stay home and lay in bed with a book.  I would cook up some healthy or not so healthy meals and exist in a vegetative state all day.  I thought I was taking extremely good care of myself; that I was listening to my body's cues and the cues were - you're tired and moody and don't need to be around people today.

Last night, I decided that's not who I want to be any longer.  Well, I think I actually decided it awhile go now.  But I couldn't quite get my act together.  I would wake up the next day and think today will be different - I will do everything right!  But it turns out that change is hard.  And I think it is even harder when you expect to change your whole life in overnight.  Something finally clicked.  I need to set some goals.

I'm not the most organized person.  I'm not all that put together most days, quite frankly.  So naturally it's hard for me to make a life overhaul.  I'll spend hours making lists and then wake up and barely accomplish one thing on it.  Last week at work they started sign ups for a wellness competition of sorts.  One of the things it asked us to do was to set some achievable goals to try to meet by the end of the competition.  I think it lasts a few months.  I wrote some generic nonsense to just say I did it and wrote it off as some annoyingly tedious part of the process. 

Then I read this article from NerdFitness.com.  Boy did it break down goal setting for me.  It was a Hallelujah! moment for me.  When the angels in heaven finally stopped singing and I could hear my thoughts again, I realized what needed to happen.  I have a high desire for change - but change can't and won't happen overnight.  That kind of change only happens in the movies and when you're drunk and wake up in a strange place next to someone you don't know.  Just kidding.  That has never happened to me.

The point I'm trying to make though - is that goal setting needs to keep realism close at hand.  Sometimes I live in La La Land.  It's a real place.  I have a residence there.  (Hmmmmmm - new goal?  Move out of La La Land?)  Anyway, the thing is - most of us are going to live 70-90 years-ish.  (Knock on wood)  So I have awhile to figure this all out.  Goals should also be achievable.  That's a good goal to have too.  Make some achievable goals.

So I've made a plan.  The plan is this:  I shall make a goal every day for myself - until I get bored or run out of goals.  I shall also make a weekly goal for myself.  The daily goal can and most likely should be something little.  Today my goal was to not spend any money!  The weekly goal should be something that takes a little more time and effort or that I really want to focus more energy on.

I also think that I shall blog about this stuff.  Because writing is awesome.  I like to write.  I should write more.  And well, if I write it all out then it might feel like someone actually cares.  

Do you set goals for yourself?  Anyone out there reading this and care to jump on the goal-setting train?  It will wait for you.  Don't worry.  It's a very patient train.