Tag Archives: goals

Day 2760 – The Tale Of Chasing Dreams – or – Tools Of The Titans Is Going To Change My Life

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I’ve blogged recently, non-recently, and way oldly about the The 4-Hour Workweek
(* Affliate link) by Timothy Ferriss and how it changed my life. When I heard of his new book, Tools Of The Titans, I was beyond excited. It was in my hold requests at the library for weeks. I finally got a copy last week and even just a few pages in and I knew it would be another life changing book. Last night, I was skipping around and reading different sections to Bret. I ended up looking at the recommended books in the back (p.s. be still my reader’s heart at this list!) and thought, huh, it would be cool if I could highlight all of the books I’ve read. I thought of how I would take notes and mark it the heck up. At about 8:40 p.m., I thought, I have to buy this book now. I know I’m going to, why wait? I looked up stores that had it and found a local Barnes & Nobles. I knew I had a giftcard, so chaos ensued. I tore open my purse to find said gift card.

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Then began a discussion with Bret, “is this a purchase that I should make right now?” We are trying to be very purposeful in where we invest our money. We have some pretty big dreams right now, and those dreams will take money. We’re trying to take every purchase captive and spend wisely. After checking the prices online and realizing, yes, we will both be gaining much from this book, it’s a good purchase now. I ran out of the house, leap in the car, and headed to the bookstore. I was met with many green lights, easy left hand turns, and little delay.

I arrived at the book store with joy in my heart, I had arrived with a few minutes to spare. I nearly floated to the door, only to be met with an employee shaking his head at me. My face took on that of utter disappointment, and I honestly almost cried. I pulled out my phone and saw I still had three minutes. I looked back up and the employee opened the door and said I had three minutes. I nodded and began my fast walk through the store. At last, I found my book. I tore it from the shelves, and rushed to the check out. I was paying when the announcement that the store was closed came over the speakers. I voiced my deep thanks to the employee still at the door and my heart rejoiced within me. I had my book. I could barely wait to get home.

Once I got home, I immediately started highlighting the books I’d read. After that, I knew it was time to start reading, finally. I started highlighting and realized, crap, I need to figure out a system for how I read this book. I came up with a highlighting system! Different colors mean different things so then I can quickly skim through and find what I need.

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As you can see, I have already utilized my system! I am so excited to start the journey through this awesome resource. It was also a really neat experience to leap for joy to buy a book. I buy so few books, that this was a big deal!

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Have you ever had a similar experience buying a book?

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Day 2738 – How To Have Mental Clarity And Achieve Your Goals

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Oh friends, it has been quite a week. We traveled thousands of miles by plane. I worked almost double what I normally work (in four days). I ran countless errands and generally just ran around. Thankfully, this is not my normal life. All of these things are very rare and most of the time, my life is pretty chill.

Yesterday, I finally got to catch up on things and it got me thinking about mental clarity. I realized while talking to Bret why I have somewhat decent mental clarity – I write things down and then they’re out of my head. The way I write them down varies depending on the task or thought, but I have a plan for pretty much everything I think about.

My #1 reason for having mental clarity is Asana. The ability to make lists, add due dates, add images, spreadsheets, etc AND that it’s free with no size limit, makes my little organized brain SO excited. I have three Asana accounts, one for each of my clients and one for myself. In my personal Asana, I have hundreds of reminders and tasks saved. I have a project for writing where I can put down random ideas for future books. I have a project for our finances that reminds me to pay bills and check different things. I have reminders to renew library books. I typically have 30-50 books out at a time, so it helps to have a system to make sure I don’t get late fees! I have business ideas. I have freelancing job sources. I have a travel bucket list of places we want to see. Have I told you how much I love Asana?

Another thing I do is have a printed, weekly to-do list. I tried to step away from physical print out a time or two, but it just works for me, so I’m keeping it. I did rejigger it to make more sense to my brain. Instead of just random tasks at the bottom and room to add more, I’ve broken it down to have the top projects I’m working on – my devotional including a few marketing tasks I want to do, my road trip book, our Journey With The G’s project, a list of “heads up things” and a spot to add tasks to Asana.

What about you? What ways do you achieve mental clarity?

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Day 2734 – January Goals – or – My Thoughts On New Year’s Resolutions

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I talk about goals and lists and planning a lot. I’m always thinking of ways to meet my goals and ways to create good habits or break bad ones. I love lists and spreadsheets and just getting better in general. Personally, I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. I think you can start fresh any day of the year. You can set yourself up for a major life change just by making small adjustments to your life.

I’ve realized that making monthly goals, or periodically updating your goals is a great way to get them accomplished. In November, my dentist very forcefully said, you gotta floss every day. I printed out check boxes for myself and for Bret on every single day until about June. I have flossed every single day since then. After such a successful change in my habits, I thought, oooo, I’ll make a big list of check boxes and get a lot of new habits implemented! Yea, that did NOT work. I still wanted to try this check box method, so I’m trying something for January – goals and would be nice goals. Only five of my goals are on the check box list and only 2 of them are definite goals.

So what are my goals for this month?
– Some kind of workout/activity every day
– Read 9 books
– Write every day

Would be nice goals
– 10,000 steps
– Consistent Journey With The G’s media schedule
– 100 YouTube subscribers
– 50 Facebook likes
– 50 Instagram followers
– Bring in some additional income
– Get 3 book reviews*
– Finish first draft of road trip book
– No soda/energy drinks
– Eat breakfast
– More networking

I’m only using check boxes for:
– Workouts
– Writing
– Breakfast
– No soda/energy drinks
– 10,000 steps

Another thing I’ve realized about meeting your goals is setting yourself up for success. So I’m writing first thing in the morning after my devotions. It is one of the important things in my day and I want to get it done before I get into other things. I’m sure I’ll write at other points in the day, but I want to ensure I get a devoted chunk of time before my brain is fried. The fitbit has worked for me in the past, but when the band gets worn down, I stop wearing it (after taping it of course). I’m not sure why I didn’t realize this before, but I can order replacements from Amazon*. I now have a drawer of 12 colorful bands ready for changing out. I’ve already had a night of walking around the apartment just to get my steps. I made sure to stock up on books for my reading goals. I have a personal goal of reading 100 books this year. Since I’ve got a children’s book brewing in my mind, I plan on reading a number of kid’s books….this will help me definitely hit my reading goals. I’m already at 5 books out of 100, though, two of those shouldn’t count – Moosey Moose and Crabby Crab, I’m looking at you! One of the ways I read a non-fiction book is with a piece of notebook paper to write down things that stick out to me. Writing them down with pen and paper really help to solidify what I read. I have stacks and stacks of papers from read books and partially read books laying around. Last night, I found all of them, sorted them and filed them in an expandable folder – to be typed, partially read, and get again from the library. I can’t tell you how much mental space it gave me. Mmmmm, love me some organization.

What are some of your goals for this month or the year? What are you doing to make sure you reach them?

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* Amazon Affiliate links

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Did you like what you read? Here’s some ways you can support us and this blog!
Buy my book, Trusting God With 2 Cents: 22 Days To Becoming A Successful Christian Business Owner.
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Day 2581 – When To Quit Or Pause Your Goals

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When I got home from our road trip, I was fed up with my health. I was eating like crap and not working out. So I decided to do a 5K training program through Runkeeper. It has been a fantastic plan so far! I love that I don’t have to keep track, the app does it for me AND gives me indicators while I run. Two days ago, I was on a run and thought I felt shin splints. I almost immediately stopped running. I walked most of the rest of the workout. I went again today, thinking maybe the other day was a fluke. I had been doing a lot of squatting and moving around the day before the last run, so I thought maybe that was part of it. Sadly, it wasn’t. I felt a little bit of pain today and had to make a decision. Stop the plan. I’m really bummed out by this because I was about a third of the way through. I had a 5K all picked out too. But, I’m a big believer in listening to your body and slowing down if you need to. So, I’ll take a week or two off and try again. Hopefully it was more about me working out that much after not working out for about a month.

Have you had to let a big goal go recently? How did you deal with it? lol, because I just want to curl up in a ball and go to sleep. 🙂

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Day 2344 – What To Do About Something You Hate – or – Jennilyn On A Soapbox

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Today, I stumbled across something on Facebook.

“Don’t work 8 hours for a company then go home and not work on your own goals. You’re not tired, you’re uninspired.”

This quote speaks my language. And a language I’m very passionate about.

See, I hate complainers…myself being one of them. I really do try to not complain. If I do complain, I try to at least play the “well if nothing else” game.

Sidenote: This game is essentially about finding the good in whatever situation you find yourself in. Late for work? It would go something like this…well, if nothing else, I have a job to go to. Well, if nothing else, I have a mode of transportation to get to my job. Well, if nothing else, it gives me a chance to change. Try this game, it really does help.

Anyways. If you tell me – “I hate my job” I’m going to tell you to either quit and do something else or stop complaining and see the good in it.

Living the life you want is all about choices.

We wanted to be debt free. I entered our marriage with $30,000 worth of debt. For so many reasons that are SO stupid. Oy. We worked our butts off to pay it off. We didn’t go out to eat. We didn’t travel. And guess what, we’re out of debt now. We sacrificed a LOT in the first 3 and a half years of our marriage. But guess what – now we continue to stay out of debt. We travel. We skydive. We splurge on our friends. We splurge on stupid stuff. That was all a choice.

I wanted to be my own boss. I quit my job. I worked my butt off for years. My photography business wasn’t working like it needed to, our lifestyle was changing and Bret’s work situation changed. Oh, and God said it was time to move on. So even though I invested 10+ years of my life in my photography business, I chose to stop. I made a choice to create a new job for myself and I am over the moon happy.

You might come back and say, well, it’s going to mean I have to….move back in with my parents….get an apartment and sell my house….move to be closer to a lower paying job….

Well, you tell me, are those sacrifices worth doing something you love? Or at least something that isn’t as bad as the thing you hate now?

If you’re not willing to make the sacrifices to fix the thing you hate, then don’t complain about them.

::steps off soapbox::

DCIM100GOPRO

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Did you like what you read? Here’s some ways you can support us and this blog!
Join our Facebook group, Planning an Epic Road Trip on Any Budget
Join the Journey With The G’s email list (bonus – you get my Epic Road Trip Budget spreadsheet)
Buy my book, Planning an Epic Road Trip on any Budget.
Buy my book, Trusting God With 2 Cents: 22 Days To Becoming A Successful Christian Business Owner.
Shop on Amazon (no additional cost to you, this gives us a percentage of what you order).
Check out our resources page.
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel