As I sit down to write this, or should I say, each time I sit down to write this, I’m discovering how hard it is to review the past, at least for me. This should be a very easy process because I know what I’ve done and what has happened in the past month because it is my life. For some reason, I’ve found it difficult to do. I know it’s not exctly a fun post, and unfortunately, I don’t have any major successes to report, but it’s not entirely negative either. It’s funny that I can’t easily write this down, but I know I have to get it done. It’s important to review, so I can learn from mistakes and celebrate successes.

Money
Financially, I’m not in a better place, but I think I’m in a better mindset. I’ve started to recognize mistakes, and even learning from them and changing my behavior (a little). I also have a little more of a plan to get where I want to be, and I’ve written down my goals and where exactly I want to be. The steps that I started taking this past month was to stop keeping my debit card in my wallet, start writing down exactly what I spend (still trying on this one, though), created an Excel sheet for tracking money, and created my financial goals for the year. I still have a long way to go, but for the first month starting on this journey, I’m feeling pretty good about the progress I’ve made. I think the most important problem with me is my mindset, and I think that is where I’ve made some pretty big strides.
Going Forward…
February is going to be a very important month for me. Honestly, I need a new car at some point this year, and I think the way Febraury goes will tell if I will be able to afford a car later in the year. I get paid Bi-Weekly, and Febraury is one of the two months where I will get three paychecks instead of two. I also will be getting my bonus from work this month, so I should have some money to go out and get all of my bills caught up and ready to get everything in a better place. If I can successfully do that, then I can start thinking about saving up for a car in March, if not, then I will still be catching up in March and delaying the car buying process.
Also, I want to track my money better this month, so my secondary goal in February is to track my money as best I can this month. Hopefully, I will be able to post a weekly summary of how I’m doing with my spending because I’ll have all the information I need to create one. The third goal this month is to print off all of my credit reports and get ready to start making those look a little better. I’m going to print them off from annual credit report website, where it is free and you can get all three. I did think about going to Equifax and buying it so I can get my credit score as well, but I’ve decided to wait a few months before I do that.

Fitness/Health
On the Fitness front, I have not done so well this past month. I haven’t lost any weight the last few weeks, and I haven’t been eating that well. The worse part is that I haven’t been doing the exercise I want to get done. I really want to do a triathlon later this year, and I will need to really pick up the intensity of my training to be even close to ready to finish the triathlon. Health wise, I’ve been okay, except for my eating habits. I need to concentrate a little better on not eating when I’m upset or depressed, because that seems like my problem times the last couple of weeks. All I’m doing is making it harder on myself, which will just make things worse. Unfortunately, this becomes a habit, and now, I need to break the habit of not being healthy.
This month, my goal is to get back to exercising regularly. I want to workout at least 6 days a week, counting even something light, like walking, as a day, with a couple intensive workouts thrown in each week. I’m going to start today by going to the Y and swimming a few laps. Also this week, I need to get some running in, so I can get back in running shape as I get ready for some 5K’s in the spring. On the Health watch, my goal this month is to eat a little bit better during lunch and dinner. I’ll eat a pretty good sized breakfast, but I want to watch what I eat the rest of the day. This will be a little bit of a baby-step, as I want to eventually eat well all the time.

New Year’s Resolutions for 2008
I’ve followed my new year’s resolutions pretty good, and have already crossed a few things off the list. I’ve kept my document that I created with all of my resolutions folded nicely in my wallet, and I keep it up to date. So far, I’m proud with how well I’ve done with my resolutions this year. I’m happy that I am keeping up with what I’m doing, and tracing it back to my resolutions. I’m definitely happy that I actually printed off and keep a copy in my wallet. My goals for the next month will be to actually keep on doing what I’m doing, and hopefully have some more items crossed off by the end of February.

Filed under: blogging, goals, resolutions