January 2016 Goals in Review

Wow…have we really gone through an entire month already? This is…this is craziness. I can’t handle this. There’s some kind of crazy witchcraft going on right now because I can not accept that four weeks of 2016 have already passed me by. I need a moment to regain myself.

…

Okay, I’m good.

So we’re into February already, which means that I have to look back at January and determine whether I succeeded or failed at adhering to my goals. I’ve got a rum and coke sitting next to me as I’m typing this, so I think I can handle the results, so we may as well get right into it.

Goal #1. Take good care of myself, specifically by walking 10,000 steps a day and taking at least 15 minutes per day to do something fun/relaxing.

When the month of January first began I was very determined with this goal. Then, around the third or so day of the month reality hit me like a 50 lb sack of potatoes. In case you weren’t around for the woe-begotten post that I wrote a few weeks ago, I got sick. Very, very sick. I wound up with numerous infections, two of which made my head feel like someone was driving a railroad spike through one of my ears and into my brain. Needless to say, the result of this was that I didn’t move a whole hell of a lot for several days. I was so frustrated at the time, because for the first couple of days I was dedicated to running in place or walking in circles around my kitchen just to make sure that I got my 10,000 steps per day, but then I hit the wall of infection and could hardly even move. As a result of this sickness – which clung to me for almost two full weeks – I only hit my 10,000 step-per-day goal on 17 of the 31 days of January.

But there’s good news! See, my job occasionally changes up a bit, and during this particular shift that just ended I was doing a hell of a lot of walking. During those 14 days at work I walked well over 10,000 steps per day. One day I even demolished my personal record; a coworker and I were competing to see who could get the most steps and we were both so determined to destroy each other that we both closed out the day with something like 23,000 steps. As a result of all those awesome days, my average steps per day for the month of January works out to 10,486, which is amazing considering that several of my sick days clocked in at less than 3000! So yeah, I’m calling that one a win.

As for taking my 15-minutes per day of fun/relaxation time, I didn’t have a perfect month but I had a pretty damn good one. I made a point of writing down what I’d relaxed with every day, so I can tell you that I had my 15 minutes (or more) for 29 of the 31 days of January. My most common relaxation technique was curling up in bed and watching Doctor Who, but I also had a few gaming nights, a few lounge-around-on-YouTube nights, and a few pampering nights with face masks and soft music. All around, it was an excellent month for taking a few moments out for myself. 🙂

So yeah, as far as taking care of myself goes – aside from the illness that just kinda tackled me in the beginning of the month – I think I did pretty well for the first four weeks of the year!

Goal #2. Build readership/viewership by putting more focus and energy into my blog posts, shooting fun and different YouTube videos, and putting more effort into self-promotion.

Ha ha ha ha…oh dear… Okay, so this is where I become a bit of a downer because I totally flopped on this goal for the first month.

Okay, I might be being a bit harsh on myself, so let’s look at this a bit at a time:

I will admit that I think I did pretty okay with the blog posts this month. I posted a few things that people seemed to enjoy, picked up a few new followers, got a few nice comments, and even got nominated for a “Versatile Blogger Award”, which I will address later on in the week. Not too shabby there.

Shooting fun and different YouTube videos definitely did not happen, although I can’t really get too down on myself on that front. Two of the weeks of the month were spent at work in the oil patch, where I can’t very well be shooting videos, and almost the entire other two weeks were spent feeling like my skull was being split open. I did put some effort into planning out the answers for the Q&A Answer video that I’ll be shooting very soon, and my husband came up with some cute new ideas for the channel (shut up, I’m counting his effort as my effort), so that’s not too bad. In the end, not much happened in January, but I feel fairly prepared for February.

Self-promotion was definitely the big flop concerning this goal. I really didn’t do a damn thing, other than mentioning “Nowhere to Hide” in a blog post. I feel completely ashamed of my total lack of effort in this area.

So yeah, maybe this goal wasn’t as pathetic as I originally thought, but there’s definitely a ton of room for improvement.

Goal #3. Write as much as I can, including writing an entire novel from start to finish.

I have major mixed feelings about this goal, which is really nothing new as I always intend to write a lot more than I end up doing, but it’s not all bad. First let’s look at the hard numbers. I wrote 13,710 words toward blog posts, and 1657 fiction words that were also posted on the blog under Flash Fiction Fridays. I also write 3143 non-fiction words via my personal journal, plus 1203 non-fiction words toward other sources. That’s a grand total of 19,713 words for the month, which works out to an average of approximately 636 words per day. Definitely nothing to scoff at.

What annoys me about this goal is that, if you’ll notice in the numbers above, none of those words were toward that novel that I’m supposed to be writing within the year. I tried to convince myself to sit down and write a dozen or more times, but between being sick and being at work (12-hour days plus an hour’s worth of travel per day don’t really put you in the mood for further work of any kind) it just never happened. And though I justified every night of procrastination with the fact that I deserved to lay down and relax, I’m still extremely disappointed in myself for never once even opening the Scrivener file that holds my incomplete manuscript. For shame, for shame.

 

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So, basically, we’ve got some major ups and downs for January. It’s not all good, and it’s not all bad. On average I’d say it’s more good than bad though, so that’s definitely something to lean on!

My hopes for February? Well I’d definitely like to spread the step count out a bit better (hopefully I won’t get sick again!), and I’m planning on recording a number of videos. There are plans in the works for a YouTube channel reboot, and I’ve got a bunch of blog posts already planned out, so hopefully that will help in leaving some extra time for self-promotion. Ooh, and I’m definitely going to have some nice, hot baths as part of my “me-time” goal.

In general, I just hope to do better, always better. ^_^

How was your January? Did you get anything accomplished? Do anything fun? Please share!