Happy Monday, and happy Veteran’s Day. First, a huge thanks to all of our service people who have served the US and continue to serve, I appreciate you so much!
November. This is the month that usually puts me into the holiday spirit. I don’t see my family often, but the month of November is my momma’s birthday, and I go home for Thanksgiving and see everyone so it’s an exciting time of the year for me. I am so looking forward to seeing my family and friends soon.
When I started to reflect on last month’s goals, I realized that I kind of deviated from my original big goals for 2019, which are:
- Mind: Create more self-confidence in myself
- Body: Increase quality time with my boyfriend
- Soul: Sell my own products
October Goals in Review
Even though I wasn’t intentional about aligning my October goals to my overarching ones, my Mind and Body goals did align with those bigger, overarching goals:
- Mind: Pay more attention to my body’s cues that it gives me
- Body: Start lifting weights again
- Soul: Enjoy Fall while it lasts
Yes, I was more intentional about winding down earlier at night and getting into bed sooner rather than later. No, I didn’t do a consistently good job of moving around more at work (it’s physically killing me to sit for such long stretches of time). I have to be better at taking breaks, walking around, and stretching more often at work and at home. The week of Halloween, I was in NYC for a work trip and extended it to hang out with my friends. I planned as many meetups with friends as I could fit in – and it was a lot! By Saturday night, I was pretty depleted so I chose to stay in while my friends went out (I had a 12pm flight the next day, as well).
In terms of lifting weights, I did lift weights one day a week besides one week when I was traveling; it was a good modest start. I plan on continuing to dedicate one gym day a week to lifting.
For enjoying fall, y’all! I love it so much. It’s truly a pleasure for me to walk Bella around the neighborhood and to see her getting in all the sniffs from the fallen leaves, her hunting instincts kicking in when she sees a squirrel….it’s so damn cute, it makes my heart feel like it’s going to explode. The weather here in Denver has been a bit sporadic – the week I was in NYC is snowed over a FOOT in Denver, and it was 70+ degrees in NYC so I left at the perfect time, ha! NYC in the fall is also gorgeous. I walked miles and miles every day, enjoying the parks and sites to see with a fall glaze.
November Goals
Knowing that my overarching goals are the following:
- Mind: Create more self-confidence in myself
- Body: Increase quality time with my boyfriend
- Soul: Sell my own products
Here are this month’s mind-body-soul goals.
Mind Goal
A few times now I’ve mentioned how I’ve gained weight since moving to Colorado from NYC. Now, I’m trying a few things to help hold myself more accountable and hopefully make me feel more confident in myself. First, I’m still going to lift weights once a week with a nice stretch session beforehand. Secondly, I’m tracking my food intake with MyFitnessPal because I realized that I mindlessly eat snacks at work and want to curb those actions. I’m not saying that I won’t snack at all – I think snacking is important! I’m specifically looking to move away from mindless snacking to drinking more water instead. My skin has also been looking like a 13-year-old going through puberty sooo that hasn’t been fun. I swear, I turned 30 and my body was like, “Okay, cool, time to wreak havoc!” I bought Murad’s clarifying cleanser and the blemish and wrinkle reducer, which I have used before and had promising results.
Body Goal
Cesar and I have both been traveling a lot lately. He left 2 days after I got home from NYC to go to his last paintball event of the year in Orlando (he got back late last night). He’s also traveling to Arizona for work the week before Thanksgiving. Between then, I’m planning a date day for us this coming Saturday and am so looking forward to it. We’re also getting some photos taken with Bella over Thanksgiving, which I’m sure Cesar is going to just loveee (not), but it’s what my family wants to do so we are doing it!
Soul Goal
When I was in NYC, I met with the gal I’ve been collaborating with for my current freelance project, and she wants to give me a lot more one-off projects to do. I was upfront and let her know that weekly deliverables are out of the question for me right now – I don’t have the capacity to do my full-time job and another part-time one every week. But, I can find time to create one-off newsletters, craft program descriptions, emails, etc. In total, I’ve made about $4K in revenue doing freelance work between March until now. While I am producing content through my freelance work, I still haven’t created products that I can sell in an evergreen fashion, which is my ultimate goal. I’m hopeful that now that I have a lot more experience with Adobe that I’ll be able to build some valuable products that people will want to buy.
What goals are you currently working on? Would love to hear about them.
xx Marah Elizabeth
