New Year’s Goal Progress Check

My personal Goal Progress Report and a New Goal Tracker I made to share with you all

Did you have any goals back on New Year’s day? How are you coming on those?

I have worked hard on mine, fell off the horse a couple of times, got back on and worked hard again. And yet. Progress towards my goals never seems to come as quickly as I want it to.

In fact, by mid-February I was online google searching things like, “How do you stick to your goals?” and “Why can’t I stick to my goals?”

Anyone else like that?

Ah well. If January is all about dreams and optimism, the end of February definitely can feel like discouragement.

On my travels through Google in search of inspiration to persevere towards my goals or learn why I am such a quitter, I did not find anything too earth breaking, advice-wise.

I found one article that said not sticking to a goal is a sign of not believing in yourself. True, sure, but gee, thanks.

You know what helped me the most? Just talking about it with Alan (my husband). I am not even sure exactly what he said that I found helpful. But you know we women always feel a little better after vocalizing our problems.

We talked about how hard it can be to stick through all the problems to get to the real results part.

I have always been like that. Back when I was in college, Jennings and I would go work out together at the gym. We would put in our thirty minutes, and then we would run go jump on the scale. And every single time we would weight the same amount, going and coming. Ha! We were so funny, always looking for those fast results.

Alan and I agreed that what we all need is consistency and perseverance.

You cannot quit when you do not shrink a size right away. And if I want to grow my blog into a profitable platform so I do not have to go out and get a real job, I must stick with it.

Last week I am not sure what all was wrong with me. It was one of those weeks where I had zero motivation, energy, ideas, or anything.

This week I am back to myself, and I am so thankful!!

So today I designed this goal tracker to help me track my goal progress.

My hope is that this will help me with my motivation and feelings of accomplishment. Just building the goal tracker itself helped me to re-look at what steps need to be taken to achieve my work goals. My end goal is to turn this blog into my job so I do not have to go back to work.

I actually am using three or four pages of this free printable goal tracker.

If you have a big goal you are working on, you may also want to print out several copies so you can have the space to properly break your goal down into trackable steps.

You can click below or click here to download the printable goal tracker. It is a printable pdf file.

For an example of how I filled mine out, here is my first page:

So you can see I am actually still chipping away at my blogging goals.

And I am admittedly behind on writing seven posts in February. This is only number three, and here it is February fourteenth. There is still hope!

I have been such a s-l-o-w learner of the blogging business. Who knew I would be doing this? Blogging was not even invented yet when I entered college. No wonder I had such a hard time choosing a major. There was no stay at home mom and then blog major. Haaa!!

I am so glad I got my degree though. It made me a much better writer and thinker, so no amount of learning is wasted.

I also wanted to update y’all on the progress I have made with the other changes and goals I have written about this year.

The schedule experiment I mentioned in my post about making your own work at home mom schedule:

This one is going fairly well. The schedule has helped me a lot with my focus.

Can I stick to it completely? No. I cannot stick to anything at all.

Maybe you have to be a scatter-brained person to fully relate to my problems with sticking to habits and schedules. But then from what I read about habits and brains, it seems like it is extremely normal to have trouble making yourself change ANYTHING.

But I do like the schedule. I think it is pointing me in the right direction.

Speaking of the right direction, my scale is headed the right way too. VERY slowly!

A month ago I wrote about my weight loss goals and the baby steps I am trying to take to lose a few pounds.

That is always the hardest for me. Now my life has slowed down from carrying around babies and toddlers all day. It is so much harder.

I have lost……..two pounds. Yep. You can laugh. It is fine. I have lost two pounds, and I am still heavier than I was before THE MOVE.

From the moving weight gain, I learned that when you lose your scale in a move, and your scale is your only accountability partner, you actually MUST go out and buy a new scale. By the time we found our scale five months after moving, it was too late. The damage was done.

Losing weight is so much harder and less fun than gaining it. Ugh.

My weight loss goal progress challenges:

My mouth is definitely my biggest challenge. If I would eat less, I would be smaller. That is my problem. That whole “3 hour diet” thing I mentioned, just forget that. It worked when I was younger and cared more about my appearance I guess. I do not have the discipline now to stick to an eating schedule or diet of any kind at all.

Don’t worry. There is hope.

My husband (as men are apt to do) dropped fifteen pounds in like a week like it was nothing, all while I was over here trying and achieving little.

Yeah.

Now what you need to know is his strategy. Well, I will tell you, but I cannot replicate it. Alan does not work at home.

Alan makes these finely chopped salads when he is home on the weekends. They are extra good to me because of the grapes and chopped avocado. Alan loves his spinach leaves chopped up small. My favorite part is that I do not have to make it myself.

Here’s what he did to lose weight so quickly.

He eats a banana or two for breakfast, eats sushi or something for lunch, if he can find time at his crazy office. So basically he starves for like seven hours, but he says he doesn’t even think about it.

Then he comes home and eats a regular dinner (as in whatever I make) around seven o’clock. Then he eats like twelve mini oranges.

Y’all, I am not even sure if I am exaggerating.

I will have to have Alan on here soon to share his weight loss and maintenance secrets. He can still wear the same clothes we got married in.

He is obviously better at weight management than me.

I reminded him the other day we were supposed to get old and fat together. You see, I do not want to live on bananas, oranges, and being hungry. I do not wish to be skinny that bad.

But his weight loss success has helped me too.

Well, aside from feeling inferior, there has been way more fruit and salad around. Therefore, I have been eating more fruits and vegetables than I normally do. That is better for not getting sick, not developing cancer, and for losing weight.

So like I said, there is hope.

That sums up all the updates I have for this year’s goal progress.

I would love it if you shared in the comments how you are coming along on your goals.

For more articles like this one, check out my other articles on goals and planning:

Goal Planning Broken Down into the Easiest Steps Ever

How to Have a Successful Monthly Planning Session

What to Do When a Simple Goal Derails