January Goals
Wait- are we already a third of the way through January? The beginning of this month has been a whirlwind, and with my son still here and my daughter still off of school (she started back yesterday) it feels like the holidays aren’t quite over. We have one more fun event, which is a short trip to Tampa, and then my son leaves and we settle into the normal January routine (sigh.) I just can’t wrap my head around yearly goals, so I’m setting monthly goals instead. I’m a little late sharing my January goals, but here they are! Sleep HOW many times have you heard me say I need to get more sleep??? Well, I just heard something very alarming on a running podcast. A study shows if you get seven hours of sleep a night as opposed to eight, your risk of injury increases by thirty percent. ACK!!! I almost NEVER get eight hours of sleep. And, if you sleep six hours instead of seven, your injury risk increases another eighteen percent (interesting that the difference between six-seven is less than the difference between seven-eight.) Well. This was FINALLY enough to scare me. I actually struggle to get even seven hours of sleep a night, never mind eight. So my goal for January is to get seven hours of sleep on a consistent basis, and eight hours one or two nights a week. Sometimes if I have a weekend day where I’m able to sleep until 7:00, I’ll think “Oh good, I can stay up till midnight!” WRONG! If I have a day to sleep in, I’ll aim to get eight hours of sleep that night. I can report that I’ve been doing this for the past week, and while I haven’t been completely successful, I’ve been getting more sleep than I normally would. Baby steps! Exercise I’m adding Ben Patrick’s (“Knees Over Toes” guy) exercises to my routine. The level I’m at right now isn’t very hard, but it’s just a matter of making some extra time for it. For the month of January I’m aiming to do the exercises three times a week. So far, so good. Reading Every year I set a goal to read 50 books, and I consistently come up short. Everything goes along great until November, when NaBloPoMo really eats into my reading time, and then December is so busy, I can’t seem to get back on track. SO, this year I’m front-loading my reading a bit in the early months of the year. My plan is also (this isn’t a January goal- I’m looking ahead) to have a book of essays or short stories, or SOMETHING I can read in November that won’t feel too overwhelming. And some sort of seasonal book to read in December- something fun that takes place during the holidays. But for now- the goal for January is to read six books. So far so good- I’ve read two and have another one started. And that’s it! You can see my goals aren’t too grandiose- just three reasonable and manageable things. Next month I’ll reassess the situation and build on from here. Do you have any specific goals or plans for January? Header photo by Maddi Bazzocco on Unsplash