January 2018 Action Items

As a goal driven person, lists are my safe space. I have special notebooks just for lists. They are organized by year, and looking back through them you can get an idea of how Lichen from the past evolved into the Lichen of today.

This is not a list. This is a Smoky.

Several years ago I figured out that my success rate on my goals went up 90% if my lists had lists*. So now, for major undertakings, I have smaller notebooks that break down the major into bite size steps. I think this works for me because my brain is already attuned to completing anything on my list, so smaller pieces give me that reward of an endorphin rush more often. This, in turn, makes me addicted to winning at life achieving the goal.

Operation: Live my best life (Yes, the name is a nod to another fave blogger, ThriftyGal!) is the hugest undertaking of all. Thus, my method for this is to break the big goals into monthly goals, which I can then gleefully achieve. So, without further adieu, here are the action items for January!

January Goals

•  Implement a 3x week daily yoga practice.
• Walk 3+ miles per day.
• Implement 2x week strength training.
• Track food and maintain calorie deficit
• Save $830 or 20% of income (whichever is greater)
• Hike once per week.
• Take the bus to school.
• Apply to 3 scholarships/grants.
• Complete the FW uber frugal month challenge
• Research Bellingham for eventual move.
• Create optimum study schedule for winter quarter.

Notes: 
The fitness goals are relatively easy, as I already do yoga/strength at this level 95% of the time. I tend to miss one to two days a month. I plan to ramp up next month, so I'm focusing on a 100% success rate in preparation. It's winter and cold, which I hate, though. So walking and hiking enough will be a bit more of a challenge. Taking the bus to school will help with that challenge. Plus, it saves the cash spend on a parking pass, gas, and wear and tear on car.

The savings goal was hard. We have a variable income and we can't predict it. So what I did was take out lowest earning month from the last two years. Making at least that much and not cutting back in budgeted categories we can save $830 without breaking a sweat. So that's the minimum but it falls below 20%. We make more, then we start working towards that 20% (or greater) number. The FW challenge should also help here.

I have a list of scholarships my honor society sent to me, so I'll begin with those. As for study schedule, I would do this anyway but not until a week or two into the quarter. This time, I'm doing it as soon as I get my class syllabuses (syllabi? syllapods?)

Research Bellingham is my easy task ;) we'll be there mid-month, so I'm making a list of things to check out now that will make an eventual move easier to plan.

So that's it, January's action items! I'll check in at the end of the month to show how I have done.

* There's more to it than this, though. Sometimes I have to be able to walk away from a list item. It took a long time to not view that as failure. Things change and sometimes an item is no longer required. Or, the time isn't right so the item can't or shouldn't be done in the window I allotted for it. Discovering that I could move an item or remove it entirely was likely the single most important thing I did that increased my goal success rate. It also worked wonders on my anxiety and cut down (but didn't eliminate) my reliance on my meds.