Well three months have come and gone – and the first quarter is officially over as of Friday.  Phase 1 of the goals project is complete, and while I’m disappointed with my performance in some areas, I’m pretty psyched about how well I did in other areas. Overall, I would say I did “good” – but could have done better.  I also think perhaps 50 goals in 3 months is a bit too aggressive, or at least the goals I chose might have been a tad ambitious.  Not necessarily on their own – but when combined it was quite the task list.

First off, there were several early on I realized I wouldn’t complete.  #6 produce video series reviewing iPad apps seemed like a neat idea, but after producing two of them, I realized the time I had to put into shooting and producing each video completely outweighed my interest in the project, nor did I have anything particularly insightful to say.  #42 acquire a new bike is something I definitely want to do, but to spend that money on a bike in the middle of a rainy Portland winter wasn’t really the greatest use of my budget. Budget was also an issue for #14 produce some large scale photos for home/office.  Large scale photographic prints cost a good deal of money, and although it’s still a goal, I’ll need more time to get this right.

A few projects I started, but didn’t complete.  #34 write an article for publication I thought out a few ideas for, and then decided a great article concept would be to write about P:ear’s barista training program which teaches homeless and at-risk youth a marketable skill.  I contacted Pippa over at P:ear, and she was on board. I had written an article for Barista Magazine a year or so ago, so I brought up the idea with the editor Sarah.  Turns out she had been speaking with another company that was involved with helping P:ear run their school, and the idea was already percolating in her head as well.  I’m hopeful I’ll get to be involved in producing the article, but I don’t expect to see it in the magazine until late summer, early fall.  Did I write an article for publication… technically no.  Will I… probably.  I did begin to start coding in AS3.0 (#20) and did some research into HTML5 and CSS3 (#26) – but as I spend most of my days programming websites, doing that on the weekends or evenings for no pay on made-up projects just never interested me.  I am going to continue studying AS3.0 for Flash, but HTML5 and CSS3 are a bit too cutting edge at the moment to dedicate my time to.

Some areas I did particularly well in.  I love cooking – so #3 cook ten new meals was a real treat.  Over the years I had developed a tasty, but limited variety of dishes I prepared on a regular basis.  With this goal, I really tried to get outside of my childhood dinners, and explore things I enjoyed eating but had no idea how to prepare.  This included lebanese/greek food such as grape leaves and falafel, chinese food like won ton soup and pork fried rice – as well as some delicious classics like irish stew and brown bread.  Learning how to cook some delicious stir-frys as well as Pad Thai has really opened up my options for a quick and healthy dinner.

#19 Volunteer a saturday was intended to make me give back to the community in some way or another.  I decided to take this a bit further, and pushed myself to not only donate my time, but also raise as much money as I could for various causes.  I donated $1000 to help produce a film for the Oregon Mental Health Association.  I also volunteered my time to build out a website for the film, that we’ve begun to produce.  I doubled my current monthly giving to P:ear, donated $100 to help a teacher and friend in NYC fund a science project for her students, and sponsored several friends running in various marathon fundraisers.  All in all, I donated $1900 to various charities, and probably 10-15 hours of my time.

On the health front I had mixed results.  #41 get clean bill of health from dentist pushed me to go see a dentist for the first time in over a decade. I discovered I had a pretty bad cavity in one of my wisdom teeth, that would have eventually caused some major issues. I had all four wisdom teeth removed, and officially got my clean bill of health.  However, I failed on #41 visit doctor and get a physical and #23 get health insurance. Both are too important to simply “fail” – so I will be doing my best to push myself to take care of those this month.

Equally on the health front, I failed to go to the gym 50 times (#2) as well as complete the 100 push-up challenge (#5), nor did I attend a yoga class (#38).  Truth be told, I went to the 24hr Fitness once over the past three months.  My weight is still at 185, so I failed #25 as well. I’m not sure why I’m unable to motivate myself on this front, but this will be a major focus over the next few weeks.  My lack of exercise not only decreases my capacity to accomplish goals in all areas of my life, it’s detrimental to my very existence.  Combined with my failure to greatly reduce my intake of various intoxicants (#35) – a pattern begins to take shape that is both unflattering and disappointing.  That subconscious disappointment colors my perceptions of events and people around me, and creates unnecessary challenges in my reality.  However, the awareness of this disappointment, previously unmeasured and either ignored or skillfully suppressed, is a key step in challenging it and ultimately resolving it. To recognize that an unhealthy lifestyle (which itself can only be discovered once a healthy lifestyle has been defined) has direct connection to the inability to achieve certain goals, is a great insight taken from this project.  To see that my failure to act healthy, and thus feel healthy, makes it challenging to develop the self-confidence to ask a girl on a date (#9) which makes it nearly impossible to get laid (#28) is a tough pill to swallow, but far more practical than my prior perception that “girls just don’t dig me.”  Time to dig myself.

Simply put, when your actions do not match your intentions, you fail to achieve your goals.  This is the grand take-away from this little experiment. When my actions mirrored my intentions, achieving goals was quite simple and enjoyable.  So there is an equation here, with two possible variables – actions and goals.  However, the fact is I don’t want to fail at my goals, nor compromise them to create artificial success – and so I should see my goals as a constant and the alternative as unacceptable. While some goals like buying a bicycle or printing out large photographs certainly need to be refined, and most certainly would never be ranked as major life goals of mine – that doesn’t mean they are any less possible if I simply took the correct actions to make them happen. If the goals become a constant, then all that can and must be modified are my actions.

So what’s next?  There are several goals still on the list I’m close to wrapping up that I plan to tackle over the next few weeks.  I have about an hour of video footage I’ve shot on my walk to work (#21), and I plan to shoot more now that the weather is slowly getting nicer, and by spring should have produced a short film about my walk to work.  I’m going to keep pushing myself to learn new recipes, and do my best to keep writing blog posts as regularly as I can.  I’m going to keep with my goal of complimenting someone daily (#33), but have modified that to attempt to engage in something beyond “hi/hello” with strangers I interact with.  Just attempting to find folks to compliment made me realize how separated I am from most of the people around me.  In the past few weeks I’ve begun trying to look passing strangers in the eye, and have started asking questions like “how’s your day going” or general tasks about folk’s jobs, with the various cab drivers, cashiers and such I interact with, and to listen and care about their response.

April I need to dedicate to health, and confronting my lack of exercise.  Part of it is straight-up laziness, but another part is scheduling, and not carving out the time to make it happen.  Taking the correct actions will solve this – and so starting this week I begin to attempt new actions in an effort to achieve those goals.

On a final note, the first goal I achieved, and one I accomplished several times over was to inspire 3 other individuals to create goal lists (#50).  It was super inspiring to hear other goals from people – and recognize that the desire to push ourselves is a trait we all share.  Inspiration and motivation are key to pushing us.  The simple act of writing down your goals inspires. Reviewing that list and feeling that confirmation within your soul that these are indeed the things you wish to accomplish is a great source of motivation.  And looking around my apartment, after the clutter was removed, and the new photographs of family members on the wall, and improvements to my kitchen made and a delicious new meal ready to be enjoyed, reminded me of the simple truth engraved on that 6th century spoon in the British History Museum – “Know thyself, and urge thyself ceaselessly.”

I’m getting there, and I shall try.

Filed under: Health, Homelife, Personal Life, The Goals Project by gspies
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