February went by so quickly even with an extra day, that I missed the fact that yesterday was the first of March until later in the afternoon. March is here, and with it has been nice weather! I'm not getting too excited though-- rain and possible snow showers may be here on Friday. BUT warmer weather and the outdoors will soon be a constant, and that lifts my spirits.
With a new month here, I thought I'd check in once more on my goals for this year. Some have been going much better than I could have anticipated, and others are not coming along at all. Here's a quick look.
1 // Continue learning new things. While I didn't take a class this past month like I did in January, I'm still learning. We've decided to dub Saturday nights "New Recipe Saturday," so I'm learning a new recipe each week. I'm also getting back into some old habits like playing the guitar more regularly again, so I've learned a few new songs. I've also learned some new business related things that pushed me out of my comfort zone a bit.
2 // Become stronger and healthier. I'm still feeling like I haven't gotten back on track with this. We're going to the gym Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday of each week, but I haven't been back into my yoga routine. I majorly fell off that horse during Valentine season. There was simply no time during the day to take an hour from my daily schedule to do yoga. I needed to be working on orders instead. I'm hoping to get back into that routine this week.
3 // Streamline my wholesale program. This is still a constant work in progress. I'm currently working on my spring line, which is taking much longer than I had anticipated. I need to get a bunch of designs to the printer, and then reshoot a lot of photos this month for my catalog. The biggest endeavor will be making the leap to creating a wholesale website.
4 // Identify when I'm sabotaging myself and take active steps to change that. There were a lot of frustrating things that happened in this past month, which I don't exactly feel like mentioning. However, they left me annoyed and sometime unmotivated due to complete and utter frustration. Definitely wasted a lot of time doing other things when I could have been more productive during the second half of February. On the flip side, sometimes I need that mental break after going non-stop since November. March is my slowest month, so it's time for me to continue to push myself to be productive when I try to sabotage myself instead. Lots can get done when I'm not filling orders 24/7, so it's time to take advantage of that.
5 // Start blogging regularly again. I've stuck with it! I've blogged every single weekday so far this year with the exception of two days that I took off for vacation. Some days I feel as though I don't have anything to write. Other days, I have an entire list of posts I could rattle off. Blogging for two months straight has definitely pushed me in many ways, and I think for the better.
6 // Take more photos. Still a total fail. What is wrong with me?! I seriously need to strap my camera to my body. We went on an awesome hike on Sunday. You would have thought I would take my camera. Nope! Ooops. I completely forgot about it. Still trying to get back into that habit.
7 // Make time for myself and the people in my life. Yes. This has been working! I've spent a lot more time with others in the past month. I've also felt like I'm taking more time to do the things that I enjoy-- going to the coffee shop during the day, spending time reading or playing guitar in the evenings, etc.
8 // Spend more time traveling. My passport application is still sitting on the kitchen counter. Oy. I need to have Andrew take my photo so that I can get that squared away. We're also falling behind in planning anything for this spring, so I'm not sure what will happen now. In other news, I just ordered a Fodor's book for California. We have airline miles that are going to expire, so we're planning a trip to California for September. We'll be road tripping and AirBnbing it throughout the state.
9 // Continue to minimize and organize our house. I'm still working on this. After getting rid of a bunch of stuff in my studio, I still need to get rid of more. We dropped off two bags of clothes at Goodwill recently, and I need to dive back into the closet to do a little more minimizing. The final plan is to completely reorganize my studio and change the work flow set up so that it's more efficient. I've got my work cut out for me.
And that's it, folks! So far, 2016 is going fairly well. How are your goals coming along?