As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, I finished college in December and have started a full-time job. I have more free time now than when I was in school, but the routine of going to work, coming home, knitting or doing some other craft in front of the TV, going to bed, and waking up to do it all again has started to get a little samey and depressing. I kept thinking that I needed to do something to mix things up, but I hadn’t done anything. Finally, I decided to set myself goals each week to help me do different things on some days.
This week, I chose goals that focus on self-improvement. I finished physical therapy for my feet last week, but they gave me a program to continue on my own, so my first goal is to go to the gym twice this week to do my PT exercises. It’s easy to replace my twice-a-week 7am PT appointments with twice-a-week 7am gym appointments, but it’s equally easy to be lazy and not go, so that’s why I set that goal. I knocked the first session out this morning before work.
My second goal is to practice JavaScript a total of two hours over the course of the week. Honestly, I hate JavaScript, but it is an important front-end web development technology, so I want to get better at it. Who knows–maybe if I get good at it, I will like it. I haven’t done any JS work yet this week, unless you count opening my book and not reading it. I may wait until the weekend and do an hour each weekend day.
Lastly, I wanted to make plans to hang out with one friend this week. I’m not good at putting effort into a social life, but I do want to cultivate friendships! It’s much easier when I am running, but since I can’t just go to a weekly group run to socialize, I need to be proactive about doing other things. A friend of mine is moving today, so I will be helping her after work. Socialization goal, check!
I’ve already thought of some other things I want to do and have written them down as goals for next week. I am liking this weekly goals idea because not only does it help me break up the monotony of my days, but it also helps me plan out the things I want to get done and helps me feel less overwhelmed by the things I need to do. I have been telling myself forever that I need to plan a budget, but now I have it down as a goal for next week, so it will actually get done AND I will feel super accomplished about it. There’s something fulfilling about checking an item off a list.