Mini Goals

01 May, 2024

First of all, good luck to all who are participating in WeBlogPoMo2024! In theory I would love to do this myself, but I know that I wouldn't be writing anything on the weekends. But I will try my best to write a bunch more blog posts this month than I normally do, and as always I write nearly every day in some form or another.

I'm writing this as I take a break from my job; I haven't actually accomplished anything today, since I started the day late after going for an X-Ray of my foot.¹ I went almost immediately into a software demo, followed by a training session (I was doing the training) - and dealing with a whole bunch of other managerial duties. In short, I may not have done anything from my own to-do list, but I am mentally spent, so I need a break.

Right.

I've talked a lot recently about goals and trying to find time to get things done, and feeling burnt out creatively. One of the problems is that I think I've set some goals that are far too lofty and in some cases not specific enough. For example, for the month of April, I wrote:

Get back to work on epilepsy essays What am I supposed to do with that? What does "get back to work" mean? As you might imagine, I did zero work on said essays; I did, however, decide that I want to cut it down to just one, new essay instead of collecting my stuff into a book.

But another goal I set in April was a simple one: floss every day. I used to be really good about flossing, and then a while back I simply got out of the habit and would only do it occasionally. So I set a simple goal: floss every night. Well, I hit my goal. I flossed 30 times, even when there were nights where I wanted to say "Screw it, I'm not doing it." I told myself there was no reason not to outside of laziness, so I just did it. It doesn't even take 5 minutes to do it, so why not do it?

So this is what I'm going to do moving forward: set small, achievable goals every month to build larger habits. With that in mind, here's what I've got for May.

1. Log at minimum one meal per day in Cronometer - I've been struggling with my calorie counting / weight loss lately, and it's 100% because I haven't been diligent with logging food, so I know that I've been overeating. I want to get back into the habit of logging, so my goal right now is to log at least one meal a day.
2. Write introduction paragraph for epilepsy essay - This is super easy, low hanging fruit. I even have the start of an opening line already, so I just need to expand on that. Plus, as most writers know, when you get started writing something it's often easy to just keep going.

I think "mini" goals is the way to go. Mini goals are specific and makes them easier to attain. There's nothing wrong with "easy" - not everything has to be a challenge!

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