5SG: Sliding Downhill Fast, Climbing Uphill Slow...

This past week was a rough week. ROUGH. Like, questioning-my-self-worth, dreading-getting-up rough.

As such, fighting to be functional meant my goals did not go so hot. Yes, for the second week in a row.

I want to beat myself up about it; I'm excellent at self-flagellation. BUT I'm willing to forgive myself a little this time - usually I'm TOO forgiving of myself when things get rough, but I'm trying to find the happy medium here and preserve some emotional health where I can.

So rather than pinpoint all the things I did WRONG this week, I'm going to point out what I did right:

Daisy is completely unrelated to this post, but she's so cute and there's not enough pictures of her on this blog.

• Workouts: 2/3. Still need to work on getting that 3rd one in. AND I need to increase the level of activity, I think. Also not doing the back exercises, so need to start that. I'm also going to attempt to work out in the mornings by sleeping in my workout clothes or putting them right under my phone on my nightstand - so they're right there, and I have no excuse to not throw them on and get a quick workout in!
• Diet soda out, water in (replacing "no night carbs"): Still doing well! I only drink soda with my lunch at work or if I'm out for food, and I have a big pack of bottled water in my car trunk that I grab at least one per day, and drink that while at work. At home, I drink water from my Britta pitcher with a splash of lime juice - it helps trick me into drinking water with "flavor".
• Big chore: Never did put the Xmas stuff away like I planned. THIS TIME, THOUGH, I SWEAR - IT'S GETTING DONE VERY SOON AFTER THIS ENTRY IS POSTED. Also bought more canvas bins to hold my stuff to help organize my clothes closet - what little organizing I've done so far is actually helping a lot!
• Night off from electronics: this is the hardest one to do. I didn't realize how addicted I am! ARGH. It is SUCH a part of my life at this point, it's insane. Haven't achieved it yet!
• Nighttime routine: I was feeling like I failed this one, too, but I realized that I am slowly establishing one without even meaning to. I want to get to the point where I'm doing what I outlined in my original post, but I have noticed that I regularly come home from work, throw on my jammies and remove all of my "armor". Then, after cooking dinner as a way to relax, I make myself a cup of tea (which is also helping me stave off needing dessert). So now I just need to add in the face-washing, teeth-brushing, and lunch-packing and I'm on it like comet!

So I could be worse off, but when I look at what behaviors I'm actually doing, I'm not really as far behind as I thought. My progress is just a little slower than I would like. BUT at least there's progress, and at least I can recognize that there is some progress. It's hard to be nice to yourself when you're so used to hating yourself. 

5SG: A Rough Start

Trying to be better this time around about a weekly check-in on my 5 Simple Goals for this spring.

To be brief, I did not do well. Probably because I decided to start these goals the same week I went back to work after almost two weeks off and grades were due that same week - there's always an adjustment period when school starts up again, but I always seem to think I'll be back on track like I never left.

LOL NO.

Here's the accomplishment tally:

• Workouts: 2/3 (walking workout, volleyball), but only 1 back exercises done. 
• No Night Carbs: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
• Big Chore: I did buy an organizer to help tidy up my bedroom, and Sunday I finally took care of the Xmas stuff, so I'll count this one as a win.
• Night off from electronics: Didn't happen. :(
• Nighttime routine: 2/7 nights - I was so tired when I came home, I usually crashed within a few hours, and since I didn't even make my own dinner, there wasn't lunch being made either. 

So yeah, not a great week for me. BUT that doesn't mean I can't do well this week - and to be honest, I'm quite proud of myself for getting the workouts in. I worked out Sunday morning, and I plan to do my back exercises on alternating, non-workout days. I'll try again to make the volleyball night the no-electronics night; last volleyball night was unexpectedly thrown asunder due to a scheduling snafu (that the company quickly made amends for), so in the shuffle I forgot to ignore the electronics. NEVER AGAIN (for this week).

I worry that I might have bitten off a leetle more than I can chew, so I'll be honest with myself that I feel overwhelmed. To be honest, the "no night carbs" goal because it's just HARD when I already have food issues. So I'm going to switch it for cutting back on diet soda and drink more water (which isn't as burdensome, for some reason). I'd like to try minimizing the carbs at night, though, so I WILL be mindful, but I'm just backing off it as a goal... for THIS period. I'd like to try again on the next round. I'm doing this for health - I want my body to stop being a jerk, so apparently I have to feed it good food and make it move around. JERK. I'm still working on the good food part (and to be fair, I eat healthier during the day than I do at night, so I'm not great but I'm not horrid, either), and I have to ease myself into these changes. Small changes have big results, right?

5 Simple Goals 2: Wanting to Be Better

So since my focus has shifted from being the Best Teacher Ever to being the Best Self Ever, all I can do is focus on what needs fixing. Not in a self-debilitating way (or so I hope), but my list is growing and I'm worried about getting overwhelmed. There just seems like there is so much about myself that I want to fix!

This isn't to say that I feel I'm a bad person, just... there's a lot of little things I'd like to resolved. However, I (like most human beings) struggle with a lot of change all at once. But when it feels like there's so much that needs fixing, I wonder what takes priority.

What I'd like to change:

• My level of activity (i.e., exercise)
• healthier eating
• my lack of housework
• my time spent on electronics (she wrote on her BLOG) 
• better routines, esp. a better nighttime routine

So I'm going to try another round of 4 Simple Goals again. I never really updated how the last one went (got busy), but it actually worked pretty well. I stuck with the volleyball, my crafting time increased (but wasn't once a week like I'd hoped), and I got my medicines under control. My eating fell off the wagon, and I never held the party I wanted to host (but I will next year!).

... yeah, I made this before I decided on 5 goals. Whatever, it still works.

Since there's five areas I'd like to improve, I'd like to come up with a goal for each area of change; I know it's 4, but one more isn't going to kill me, and the changes aren't that unmanageable. The "end-date" (although I aim for these to be permanent changes), or date to reassess and change/move on, will be the end of May, just over 3 months. Here are my goals!