February Goals Recap

Overall, it was a fun month (up until the last week), with two birthdays, Valentine's Day (fun to see my son get excited with his "girlfriend") & a family ski trip. The last week has been intense. Here's how I did with m goals for the month.

1) Financial

• Stick to the budget. - we were slightly over on some categories, but overall did well. 
• Pay down our mortgage between the next threshold. - Yes, we beat the target by quite a lot. Woohoo!
• No clothing/shoes/jewelry purchases - still doing well here, with no purchases for me. I had to buy Sam hiking boots, which were required for a school trip. 

2) Family

• Do a minimum of one fun activity/month with the kids - lots of skiing together!
• Off the computer by 7:30 each evening - It was a mixed bag. Generally, I did okay, but had a few crazy nights. 
• Have two date nights with M - We went to dinner for my birthday
• Schedule a call with M's family - We didn't do this, but we were able to see his cousin & wife in Vancouver, & it was great to catch up.
• Buy Farsi flashcards & start practicing - I bought them. I haven't started practicing. 

3) Fitness

• Lose 3 lbs - I stayed the same this month, which isn't terrible. I've had quite a bit of knee pain post skiing, so I'm happy to be even for the month. 
• Run 10 times - I ran 7/10 times. The ski trip & then follow on knee pain slowed me down. 
• Aim for 1400 calories/day & eat 5 servings of produce/day - 1444 calories & 4.67 servings of produce, on average. 
• Complete 1,000 minutes of cardio, 10 strength & 5 stretching workouts - I crushed the cardio due to skiing, but lack of strength & stretching is becoming a problem. I was at 1380 cardio minutes, 1 strength & 1 stretching each. 
• Meditate 10 times - 4/10

4) Personal/creative

• Make time for friends, do something social 2x/month - I had two friend lunches, & two friend workouts.
• Volunteer - we signed up to help a Farsi speaking family navigate the school, but they never reached out. I also volunteered for a work event, but it's in the next month or so.
• Journal 10 times - 11/10
• Adapt a more positive mindset (judge less) - This is a long process. I've made tiny improvements, and when I see myself getting off track, I catch myself & try to improve.
• Listen vs talking, stop interrupting - Ditto above. It's a long process. I think about it often too late, & need to catch myself more in the moment.
• Greatly reduce swearing - I did pretty well early in the month, & then as the stress built, I noticed myself swearing more.
• Read one non-fiction book - I read "Death by Meeting", which wasn't what I was expecting, but was an easy read.
• Try 3 disruptive experiments
• Compliment M every day - yes
• Review my calendar & have 10% of my time focused on developing myself or others - While I haven't actively calendared this, I've been working on increasing my time spent on development activities. I've also volunteered for a few work things that put me out of my comfort zone, and would help me develop.  
• Instead of procrastinating on hard tasks or difficult conversations, take a walk around the building & deep breaths, & dive in. - Oh, I've been having all of the hard conversations. I am not a fan of conflict, and have kicked off a lot of hard & crucial work streams. It's created stress in myself, but I know it helps me practice managing conflict, and is good for my stress level & skill building in the long term. My work mantra right now is "be the change", which I'd roughly describe as not sitting on the sidelines complaining about something that's not working, but actively trying to solve. Some of those problems are quite gnarly!

The sea of yellow well reflects the month I've had. It's not been an amazing month, but instead of month of progress & steady improvements, but no "knock the doors off" successes. 

How about you? How did you do with your monthly goals?