This weekend I went to the gym to meet with a personal trainer for a fitness assessment. I just joined a new gym a few weeks ago and you know how they give you that free 1 hour training session or some fitness assessment? That was what this was. So I sat down and he asked me how long I have been regularly working out, my eating habits and what I do when I got to a gym, etc. Then he started talking about goals. How some people don’t have goals and that is the category I fit in as well. I am not training for anything and I also feel like training for something right now would be a little too much pressure for me at the moment. However I love to see progress with increasing my weights or reps or lately just seeing progress in how long I can continue at a certain pace on the treadmill, so I do know that I am improving. I move at my own pace and more or less workout because 1) I enjoy it and 2) it makes me feel good and 3) I like building muscle and strength.
With a new month I often see bloggers post their monthly goals. I have been thinking a lot about what I want in life. My number 1 thing is I want to be happy and love my life each and every day. The question that has been running through my head though lately is how do I achieve that? Maybe I need to step back and appreciate all that I do have a little bit more like when I did the 100 days of happiness challenge last year during a turning point in my life?
I have never been one to write down my goals. The only time I did anything similar was New Years resolutions when we had to make them in school and we all know how that goes, you forget about them by February.
Since there are things I want to see more progress with in my life I thought that I would try to write down a few goals for this month. Hopefully by writing them down and posting them I will be able to work towards them more.
Fitness
1) Do a single pull up without assistance
I think it was about two years ago now that I was working out enough and strong enough that I was able to achieve 2 pull ups in a row without assistance. Well I have lost that especially with no weight training during my yoga training. I have been following a few weight workouts for a few months and I definitely can tell the muscles are building. I can do 10 pull ups with 55lbs assistance versus when I started I needed more like 90 lbs assistance. If I can just do one pull up without assistance I will be so overjoyed!!
2) Do more yoga and stretching
Without living by a yoga studio I don’t get out to yoga classes often so I am trying to do more at home. You would think that being a certified teacher now that wouldn’t be too hard, but I lack patience when doing yoga outside a studio and then rush through a sequence. I think I can work on this by writing out some classes and trying to think of it as if I am teaching it and what words I would say. I definitely want to practice that more for teaching in the future.
3) Run a half mile without stopping
Baby steps! When I tell people I go to the gym 5-6 times a week, the first question they ask me is do you run? Ummm no I don’t. I can walk for miles but I am not a runner by any means. I have slowly been working on it though and can now run for about 2.5 minutes before stopping to catch my breath. I really just struggle with breathing and running. I could swim a mile before I could run one because in the pool there is a rhythm for breathing but outside I need to learn to set my pace.
Personal
1) Read two books
Basically when I have a full time job I find it is hard for me to come home after work and sit and read. I mean I already sat for 8 hours, the last thing I want to do when I get home is sit. I actually find I have more energy when I get home from work than I do at work, probably because I am moving around more. This makes reading time hard. My goal for 2015 was to read 15 books. I think I just finished my 5th so I am way behind. Hopefully I can make an effort to read more this month and the rest of the year.
2) Listen to more online videos and podcasts
This is more for learning, improving my current skills and developing new skills that can better myself for a future job. I have heard a lot of great things about podcasts lately and I think I can find some educational ones out there, whether it’s related to life skills or job skills like running a business or blogging.
Well this is probably a lot for one month but hopefully I can at least make progress towards each of these goals. I already started a new book and have a second one lined up. I am halfway to the running goal and I have been adding more stretching to my routine already so a lot of these goals are in the works. Something to motivate me for sure.
Happy August!!
Are you a goal person?
Do you have any goals for August?
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