New Month, New Goals

I love new months. I love the opportunity they bring for implementing new ideas and setting new goals. Maybe it’s a mental thing, but I have a hard time starting something new in the middle of a month.

One of my gurus, Leo Babauta, recently wrote a blog post called “the best goal is no goal.” Whoa! This is a pretty big departure from his previous advice of setting one goal per month and working every day toward that goal. His main reasoning is that “Goals as a system are set up for failure.” When you fail, you blame yourself. Rather, he proposes that you “simply do.” Do something you’re passionate about and see what happens.

I get what he’s saying, but I’m not quite ready to give up my goals. Perhaps I feel that partially achieving the goal is better than not trying at all. Or maybe I am passionate about the goals I set, so I’m more likely to achieve them.

And I like having many goals going on at once! Some related to health, some related to work, and some related to family.

I have a few goals I want to achieve in the next couple of months. Some are specifically related to projects at work and needing to free up time. Others are related to health and well-being.

Social Media Fast

In order to eliminate distractions and allow myself to focus on the massive amount of work I have coming up in the next couple of months, I’m taking a social media fast. This means no Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. It’s liberating.

Focusing on the Essential

With the increased workload in my professional life, I need to focus on the essential. Nothing more, nothing less. This means scrutinizing meeting requests, correspondence, and other potential distraction and deciding on the spot if they are essential or not. A lot of times I find that they are not. This approach frees up an enormous amount of time.

Sugar Detox

This is absolutely required due to the bad habits I fell into during our trip to Sweden (think dessert every day and lots of ice cream and candy on the side). Since I am very passionate about healthy eating and feeling fabulous, I’m hoping I’ll be motivated enough to pull this one off. It’s all about cutting out obvious sweets and watching out for hidden sugar (like in ketchup, dressings, and bread). But what I really like about this is that it brings me closer to living simply enough. Why should I spend money on ice cream when so many people don’t even have basic food to eat?

Lose Five Pounds

This may seem vain and unnecessary. Well, not quite. Losing those last five pounds will allow me to fit comfortably into more of my clothes. I don’t like to buy anything that I don’t need and it seems silly to go shopping just because I can’t find the willpower to lose five pounds. The sugar detox should help with this cause.

Some other “goals” I have going on already are as follows:

• Eat more meals together as a family
• Cook more food from scratch and use local ingredients as much as possible
• Eliminate processed foods from diet (especially conventional food with mystery ingredients)
• Don’t buy stuff I don’t need
• Reinvent the definition of “enough” in our consumer society

I guess I wouldn’t really call the items in this last list “goals” but rather lifestyle choices that one attempts to adhere to as much as possible. Regardless, they all go on the same list in my world. And it’s OK, as long as one understands that all “goals” are not fully attainable, but rather guidelines for a better life and a better world.

Related posts:

• 2010 Sustainabilitiy Goals

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