June Journaling 18-20

I found a list of daily prompts for journaling in June and thought I'd give it a shot. Yes, it's late; life happens.

18. Something to give up:

I'm giving up this failure mindset that I will never ever make it out of debt. I'm not the first in my family to struggle with this, but I can do better. I have a lot of student loans I'm still paying, now 8 years since I graduated. And a big bank gave a 20-year-old kid a credit card with an $11k limit. That one's almost paid off, but I have more. I can definitely pay off my PayPal Credit and medical bills by the end of this year. If I work really hard at it, I could pay off some other stuff by the end of next year, but I don't see that realistically happening, so I'm setting a mid-2018 goal, which will coincide with paying off my car. I'll still have student loans at that point, but maybe there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. 

19. An area to grow in:

Well, I'm always improving my organization skills, even if I have too much stuff, and I'm always getting better at culling and donating. I frequently read books and blogs and take courses to improve my editing and design skills.

This year I have failed to establish a regular meditation practice, so maybe I could work on meditating more often going forward.
20. An exceptional skill you possess: 

I can identify the difference between a capital I and lowercase l in most sans-serif fonts.
I can identify the difference between a hyphen, an en dash, and an em dash and when to use each.
I belly dance.
I spin fire.
I make myself laugh.
I can list all 7 of my siblings' birthdays (but not years) and my parents' and step-parents' too.

• Jan. 9
• April 16
• April 23
• June 30
• July 1
• July 3
• July 8
• July 27
• Aug. 20
• Dec. 18
• Dec. 25

I don't know; that's all I have for now.

 

First Quarter Goal Progress

This year's goals primarily focus on cultivating healthy habits rather than setting outcomes-based resolutions.

The first quarter of the year has been largely successful for creating and maintaining various wellness habits and has also brought to light a few areas where I would like to improve. I set up a spreadsheet to track various activities and divided it by week. January 1 to March 31 makes 13 full weeks.

My first goal was to hit 70,000 steps each week, barring injury or illness, based on the Fitbit 10k/day recommendation. I'd been wearing the Fitbit since July and hitting my goals most days, but I didn't think 10k every day was an achievable goal compared to 70k/week. I didn't hit my 70k goal as often as I wanted to these three months, but I only missed it during bad migraine weeks and a few race taper and recovery weeks when I was deliberately working to keep my mileage low. Overall, my 13-week step totals average to 72,714, so that's fine by me.

I also had a goal of logging 1,000 miles walking and running in 2016. I'm at 405 miles with 9 months to go.

I'll have to reassess and reset some goals for the following months.

I got back into the swing of regular blogging with a goal of 50 posts for the whole year and am already halfway there. I like writing but typically lost steam and stop for weeks (or months) at a time. I posted 46 times in 2015 and 48 in 2014. I usually have a half dozen posts in the works and just need to finish and schedule them for the times when I have nothing new to write about. I got a head start in 2016 with finishing up 3 drafts and scheduling 5 posts in the first week.

My goal for the year was to lift 75 percent of my body weight on the assisted pull-up machine, and I hit that just after two months, so maybe I'll go for a real pull-up this year. I want to see how I progress from here before I make that an official goal.

Daily meditation and biweekly stretching/yoga just aren't happening. The step goals were easy to continue because I'd already begun the habit and was nearly hitting my new goals to begin with. Not the case for meditation and yoga. I've been trying to start a daily practice for at least 6 months and not getting more than about 3 days in a row. I guess I'll keep trying.

On track:
I'm a little over one-quarter of the way to my goal for writing gratitude lists 200 times this year and on-track to finish my feminist and racism reading lists. I've taken 4 new fitness classes already with a goal of 10 new classes for the year. My rec center has LOTS of offerings; I just need to figure out how to get a few into my training schedule.

I'm going to add a new column to specifically track the miles per week that I log running so I can keep an eye on my volume of running, whereas running and walking are combined on my Fitbit and yearly mileage goals.

NSV: Non-Scale Victory

NSV is an acronym popular in fitness circles that stands for “Non-Scale Victory.” It’s used to highlight and share health and fitness achievements independent of one’s body weight, since weight is never entirely within a person’s control, is no measure of health or fitness, and does not accurately reflect fat loss and/or muscle gain.

Mine, for example, has been largely steady this year, but pants that hadn’t fit in 18 months sometimes slide off my hips without a belt now, I have to tear off the sleeves from some of my favorite t-shirts, and I’m busting out of my favorite dresses, resigning myself to donating them elsewhere. My favorite shorty shorts no longer squeeze my belly uncomfortably but my thighs instead.

Though NSV’s can include improved run times and increased weight lifting ability, they typically take the form of seemingly mundane tasks that one could not previously accomplish, as a way of focusing on functional improvement in daily life.
My NSV’s of late focus on functional strength: more easily lifting and moving heavy or awkward boxes and furniture alone and with help in preparation for my upcoming cross-town move.

Sunday saw my most recent and amusing NSV: Though I sat in an aisle seat at the movie theater, I didn't particularly feel like standing and stepping out to let the little kid and dad out to use the restroom and totally miss all of the ‪#‎raptorsquad‬. So I tucked my knees to my chest and with surprising ease lifted my body up and back with my hands on the armrests.

In the past, I and the people around me have marveled at my ability as a casual outdoorswoman to keep up with seasoned hikers on difficult, lengthy, treacherous trails. One afternoon I went for a nature walk and was unexpectedly whisked away by a Korean hiking club for 5 hours. I also signed up for a weekend hiking trip not knowing it was on an expert-level trail; we were told the bus would meet us on the other side, so the only way out was up and over. Sometimes I hurt and I cried, but I kept putting one foot in front of the other, awestruck that my legs didn’t just give out. Years later I joined acquaintances known for their superhero strength and radical outdoorsing on a failed hike to find some caves while my friends took a nap; though it wound up being emotionally taxing, I kept up.

A happier NSV: This year I did my first headstand as an adult, and I didn’t hurt myself.

What are your NSV’s?