In which I forgot my goals and good habits. Oops.

I’m a huge fan of habits. I wrote a book on the topic. But lately I’ve totally fallen off my good habits bandwagon and feeling the ill effects.

Part of the reason is because it’s summer. As people who study productivity have noticed, the busier you are, the more you accomplish. I tend to do much better with my habits during the school year when I have less time, because my day is more structured. I also stay off my phone during the school day, so in summer I’ve been using my phone too much. Blech. 

This summer I’ve been focused on growing traffic and income to my blogs and writing a new book, lowering expenses and saving money for our big goal. Everything else has fallen by the wayside.

That’s not a bad thing. It’s okay to be hyper-focused on something for a season. However, my good habits help me stay balanced and healthy – both physically and emotionally, so it’s time to get back to those.

Specifically, I’ve been slacking in the exercise department, in practicing French daily, and in personal Bible reading. I have handy excuses, but I won’t bore you or kid myself by listing them here.

I’ve noticed that without my daily walk, I’m more fatigued. I’ve been consuming too much news instead of reading my Bible (not good for the mental health department) and terrorist attacks every 84 hours in France demotivates me. (But that’s dumb, because being able to parle francais in France is only part of my reason for learning a second language.)

To get my habits game back on, I created a simple Habits Tracker on a page of my Bullet Journal. (Side note: I still use my BuJo daily and this will be a lifelong practice for me. I lurve it.) I love tracking. Putting a simple check mark on a page as motivator? wEiRd, but it works.

I haven’t done a goals update since the beginning of the year. Yikes! Let’s see how I’m doing with those.

Some of the goals I posted in January are no longer relevant.

But that’s ok. You’re not a loser if you decide that something you were initially aiming for is no longer valuable to you. Quitting, sometimes, is the winning strategy.

I have been hugging my kids more. I have been spending some time one-on-one with the older ones. The house has been cleaner this season (mostly because the baby is older). I’ve been sending out my newsletters regularly and blogging more, doing my budget monthly and clearing out digital clutter on my laptop.

Some of the other goals I left by the wayside, however.

How often do you assess your goals? My aim was to do this quarterly, and I’ll get back to that.