Goals Revisited

Remember that you can still Ask Me Anything!  I’m excited to start answering some questions!!!

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I decided since it’s the beginning on February I might go back and see how I’m doing on my 2010 Goals so far!

1. Give Yourself A Break: I’m always too hard on myself.  And I never give myself enough or any credit at all.  I would like to become more of an optimist than a pessimist that I seem to have been well, all my life.  My eating disorder took the reigns too many times in 2009 and I don’t want that to happen in 2010.  I need to appreciate myself and what I can do instead of focusing on what I can’t.

I think I’ve started on this one just a tad with the 1/2 marathon I ran last weekend.  By being hard on myself I would have told myself you were a failure if you had to stop during the race for your knee pain…but I was able to change my mindset that if I needed to stop, it was ok, I wouldn’t be a failure!  If anything it would help me for later because I wouldn’t be as injured!

2. Be Brave: Seriously, no joke, I’m probably one of the shyest people you’ll meet.  I won’t open up to you in the beginning and if you want to be my friend, you have to come to me; I won’t come to you.  I’m horribly terrified of first impressions and always think mine are horrible, so making friend’s has never been easy for me.

This one is too kinda in the works as I’m meeting up with new people, ie bloggers, and getting to know my roommates/coworkers better!  The more time I spend with them the braver I get…since they’re way fun and outgoing!

3. Open To New Experiences: This one stems off of being brave.  I’m always hesitant to try new things and this year I want to be able to say “I’ve done it!”  I was able to learn so much about opening up and being brave with Brad in Florida, that I would give anything to let myself be that brave, without the help or pushing (and/or forcing) or others.

Still working on this one.  It’s only been a month and I’m still getting used to and finding new places where I’m living at now.  If anything running new races, and new kinds of races can be my new experiences thus far!

4. Be More Mindful of What You Say and Do: I tend to have a big mouth sometimes.  I need to think about what I’m saying before I say it.  Many times I want to say something and it comes out more harsh than it needs to be, so that’s my biggest dilemma.

Yeah…I’m getting there!

5. Strength Training 2x a Week: I really think this is going to help me with my running.  I realized this while training for the San Antonio 1/2 Marathon and want to keep up with it.  This year I want to incorporate more weight into my moves (I got 5 pounders for Christmas, I want to be up to 10 and 15 lbs by the end of the year) and to try new ones.  I tend to stick to the same thing.

I’ve been doing pretty well on this one!  I took some time off of different kinds of ST to make sure I didn’t aggravate current injuries, but it’s definitely occurring 2x a week!

6. More Yoga: I really want to perfect my downward dog.  I’ve been doing yoga off and on for years, and this has always been my problem move.  The best way to describe it right now, is that I look like I’m doing a very whacked out push-up with my butt high in the air.  The problem seems to be my shoulders/back that are too tight and I can’t get my upper body to straighten out.

I’ve done yoga about 4-5 times this month..and that’s way better than most months!  I’m hoping to get more in this month, but at the same time am kind of afraid because it was what caused my knee injury last week…weird.

7. Running Goals:

• Speed work: I have been relaxed about this since I got out of high school where we did speed work every Tuesday and Thursday.  I’m going to try to get something speedy in with short repeats at least once a week, and maybe a tempo run along with the speed work (on a different day) every other week.
• 5k: Under 24 min.
• 10k: Under 52 min.
• 1/2 Marathon: Under 2 hrs.
• Marathon: ??? Let’s just try to get that half marathon done shall we?  But I’m being optimistic…since last time I trained for a marathon I got so hurt I was out of running for almost two months and it was absolutely devastating to me.

So close to the 1/2 Marathon Goal this last weekend…but I’ve got many more planned.  Now I just gotta start training for them, with SPEED!

8. Less Stress/Anxiety: Takes things one day at a time.  I need to seriously, just chill out.  I stress out over the tiniest things and always have to have a schedule.  And having a schedule is nice, but if I learned anything from last year, is that spontaneity can be fun.

Def still working on this one…trying to find things to counteract the stress/anxiety I do get…then I can work on ways of eliminating it!

9. Save Money: I work probably around 9 months out of a year while the rest is spent traveling on my own dime.  I need to start saving what money I can since I don’t get paid much with the jobs that I do and one day I’m going to have to settle down and live a real life.  I also have student loans to finish paying.  Yikes.

Got my first paycheck, paid off the bills (most of them), so I’m almost at a 0 balance and can start saving! Yay!

10. School: Take the GRE’s and start the GIS Certificate program with Penn State.  My goal is to study like a mad woman and take the GRE’s by the end of January, at the latest mid-February.

Still studying for the GRE’s…hopefully that will happen soon!

11. Blogging:

• More Centered Blogging: Although I don’t hate that my blogging tends to be all over the place, I would like to focus on more specific things like recipes, workouts, eating disorder awareness, and environmentalism. 
• Posting: I need to get it in my head that if I don’t post everyday, it’s not going to kill me.  I love blogging, but sometimes I go to write a post and it’s so boring that I feel bad.  I need to move away from feeling so obligated to do it and enjoy more of the content and the ones that I read.

Def still working on this one… :)

How are your goals coming along!?  Which one do you really want to focus on this month?

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You totally know I had the same breakfast from yesterday.  I told you I would.  It was too good not to have again!

Off to GIS it up!!!