Hello February! It always feels good to me to have January under my belt. So how did I do with the goals I set myself last month?
JANUARY GOALS Round up
- Meal plan and food diary more consistently – check! I meal planned pretty well and consistently kept my food diary
- Drink at least 8 glasses of water a day – check! I didn’t keep a strict record but between glasses of water, green tea and rooibos I know I was well hydrated
- Make sure all my main meals contain a good source of protein – kind of check – I think I did fairly well with this, but the aim of it was to keep my energy levels more stable which they have been
- Exercise 3 times a week and complete the Plank a day challenge – check! Achieved this :-)
- Get a hair cut – Fail – but I do have my appointment booked for February
- Listen to my Lucky Bitch audios – Fail – I managed to listen to about 10 minutes of one of them! Bad weather and lack of walking, which is when I’d intended to listen to them, are to blame here.
- Put our flat on the market again – check!
- Begin a gentle sleep plan with Finley – kind of check – we have made some changes to his sleeping routines which have given us some results, but it wasn’t the sleep plan I’d envisaged.
- Start a milk expressing schedule to get a freezer stash before Finley starts nursery – check, although I don’t get a lot of milk off while I’m nursing him full time so it’s a slow process. It was also set back when the freezer broke and my some of my stash had to be binned!
- Develop a routine, use my zen habits, and stick to my ritual days – kind of check – I definitely have a better routine but I haven’t really adhered as much to my ritual days, I think this will happen more once Finley is in nursery.
Overall I’m really happy with how I got on this month. I have noticed a few things I can improve on, for example when I am tired I eat way more and don’t care as much about what I eat, so I’m going to give myself some goals to help those things this month. My month map tool (free when you sign up to my email updates!) has really helped me approach the month in a more organised way so I wasn’t panicking about missing birthdays etc. I also enjoyed a lovely date night with James.
As I mentioned at the start of the year, this approach of goal setting is different to the monthly pledge or word of the month style I was doing last year (and which now seems to be more popular on blogs) but I don’t regret coming back to focused goals, although I do have a word for the year. I love ticking completed goals off my list!
On the blog, I shared recipes for:
- Egg and veggie muffins – these have become a regular grab and go breakfast for me
- Goldenberry smoothie and Goldenberry and Fig Snack balls
- Thai Green Chickpea, Sweet Potato and Spinach Curry
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Protein Fudge and Nutty Chocolate Protein Balls
My fave posts included:
- Finley at 5 months
- 5 Daily Self Care Rituals
- The Ultimate Healthy Kitchen Cupboard List
- The January Edit
February Goals
- Review family finances and see a financial advisor
- Continue to work out 3 times a week and complete Yoga a day challenge (see below!)
- Be more mindful of portion sizes and try calorie counting for a week or two to get a better sense of how much I should be eating
- Take a day time nap 3 times a week
- Improve Finley’s sleep
- Moisturise 3 times a week
- De clutter the flat
- Start Finley with some first foods
- See my friends!
*Deep breath in* quite a lot to work on again but I’m confident I’ll be able to achieve these things. I’m still using my awesome Shining Year Workbook to keep me focused and motivated. I’m interested to try calorie counting to make sure I’m getting the right amount of food while I’m breastfeeding, but it will definitely be a temporary thing! While Finley’s sleep has improved a lot, we are still having issues with naps and hourly wake ups so we will be trying yet again to see if we can improve things. Not on the goals list but as mentioned above, I can not wait to get my hair done! I’m also very much looking forward to this…
As I mentioned yesterday, this month’s challenge is to do at least 5 minutes of yoga a day. Personally I’m going to aim for 10 minutes at bedtime when Finley is asleep. I heard Tony Robbins say if you don’t have 10 minutes you don’t have a life, which I think is pretty spot on so I need to suck it up! I’m going to do a mix of you tube videos and my own practice. If you’d like to join in, which you should, check out my Yoga Challenge Pinterest Board for some ideas. I expect us all to feel blissed out and stretched by the end of the month!
How did January go for you? What goals do you have for February?
Good job on those goals especially with the freezer meltdown! I’m such a food hoarder I think having to bin stuff would have made me go into meltdown ;) Love the daily yoga challenge! I Literally just made a little playlist on youtube with son of my favourites so I’ll get pinning too!
Oh I was so pissed off! Great that you are up for the challenge too :-)
Sounds like you’ve done pretty well to me! Goals for Feb looking good too, I’m with you on the moisturising front, my skin is not enjoying this cold weather at all. Sometimes I think I need to sit in a tub of coconut oil!!
Looking forward to seeing your hair too :) I often want to change mine but am not brave enough!
My skin is the same with the weather, you’ve reminded me I should use more coconut oil on it!
Sounds like you did really well on your Jan goals. I am looking forward to the yoga challenge, 2 days in and already feeling the benefits!
Glad you are feeling it already!
Well done on your January goals Laura! I’m looking forward to Yoga-a-day although I am taking a slightly different tack and making it specifically Savasana-a-day! Lying on the floor for 5 minutes a day will be very different to planking every day! Good luck with your February goals :) x
Haha its like the opposite of planking isn’t it! Enjoy!
That is so frustrating about your freezer breaking down.
January was OK for me, although very long! I managed to keep up with the Jantastic targets that I set, so I was pretty pleased with that.
Well done on that, I’m waiting for some better weather to get started on my running again!
You did such a good job with your goals for January! I love the goals for February too. I find when I am tired I eat a lot more and way more carboy/sugary things to just keep me going. And like you said because you are tired you care less. Love the yoga a day challenge. Definitely up for that!
Thanks Lauren! Glad I’m not the only one like that when I’m tired. Glad to have you joining in the challenge!
Great goals! Sorting out my finance is one of my goals for this year too. I just like spending my money on travelling too much haha.
Haha I just like spending in general, time to reign it in!
That’s a lot of goals for one month – good on you!
I started keeping a food diary 18 months ago when I wanted to loose weight before my daughter’s wedding – it is a fantastic tool for keeping on track providing you are totally honest with it. I find I think ‘I can’t eat that, I don’t want it in my diary’. I’m helped by a friend who reviews it with me every week – I don’t want to be embarrassed. I also find that if I make a promise to her about not eating chocolate, or bread or whatever the particular problem is I’m much more likely to stick to it – I am always happy to myself off promises to myself but not to others!
My goal for February is to persevere with the good habits I started to introduce in January.
Having a friend look at it is such a good idea! Hope you have a great February and keep those good habits going!
Great goals I love the look of the planners x