Last month I set a few small goals and was pretty pleased with myself as I crushed them. I finally organised my wardrobe (two days), cleaned the house and went through papers and documents and I started writing on my blog again. I decided to reward myself but couldn’t think of anything so I purchased the domain for this blog. http://www.c7azybeautiful.wordpress.com is now officially http://www.c7azybeautiful.com. I started setting goals for this month but found myself flittering from task to task and unable to focus. This pushed me to get back into the habit of my mindfulness meditation which was broken when I started a 9to5. I’ve remembered how important a routine and workflow are to being productive which is also beneficial for my mental health. I got out my annual goal planner and set some overall goals for the year. I tried not to think too hard about it just some quick things I would like to achieve before the years out.
2020 Goals
The last time I set yearly goals was in 2018, mid-June of that year my mental health started to deteriorate and 2018 – 2019 was all about overcoming and recovery. I thought about goal setting at the beginning of the year but never got around to making it concrete. Spending some time looking over previous goals helped me quickly add goals for 2020, which will help me be more focused and I can add monthly goals according to my overall goals for the year.
I found 5 good reasons for goal setting on the Forbes site
1. Goals trigger behaviour.
2. Goals guide your focus.
3. Goals sustain momentum.
4. Goals align your focus.
5. Goal setting promotes self-mastery.
You can check out the full article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffboss/2017/01/19/5-reasons-why-goal-setting-will-improve-your-focus/
You can dig a bit deeper and think about S.M.A.R.T goals. I remember this from a business workshop I did.
To make sure your goals are clear and reachable, each one should be:
- Specific (simple, sensible, significant).
- Measurable (meaningful, motivating).
- Achievable (agreed, attainable).
- Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).
- Time-bound (time-based, time-limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).
When setting my goals it helped give me perspective and forced me out of overthinking and being stuck.
And Jehovah answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tablets, that he may run that readeth it. Habakkuk 2:2 ASV https://my.bible.com/bible/12/HAB.2.2.ASV
June Goals
This month I’ll try working on:
- Mindfulness meditation.
- Photography Portfolio – Printing 6×4’s to progress the overall selection.
- Workout routine Committing one day a week for a full workout & 30-day plank challenge.
- Personal statement.
- Decluttering & Organising – Garage.
- Research for one of my ventures.
- Blog Posts
I suddenly feel a bit overwhelmed. Since my last relapse and a long period of feeling and being unproductive during my recovery process, I’ve gotten used to keeping most things to myself, especially plans. It created a sense of protection against failure and disappointment while also taking the pressure off. After my second section, I’ve noticed my family were different. When I would share what I was doing or had planned it would be met with a quizzical look or tone or outright negativity implying or saying I can’t. Their response affected my confidence and probably had a part to do with my overall hesitation to get back into things. I’ve shaken them off in that respect and now live my life privately. I was confronted by a family member last week who wanted to know why I’m not sharing my plans. I found myself having word vomit and divulging which led to regret days later as they maliciously dropped hints about my plans to another family member after we disagreed. Word vomit has been a lifetime problem of mine and this was a quick reminder of the benefits of keeping things to myself.
Lived Experience
I’m on the hunt for a support group for after the lockdown. I think it will be helpful for my journey of understanding Bipolar better from a perspective outside of my own. I think having mental health challenges makes me quite selfish and my recent experience caring for someone else during their time of need was a definite eye-opener but I also started finding myself almost crossing over into hypomania stage after rewarding myself with the domain name and continued pursuit of goal setting etc. I started making several more purchases without even looking at my finances. After making significant strides when it comes to fixing the mess from last time, I’ve today told myself STOP!! As I wait for the things I’ve ordered to arrive I’ll go through emails tomorrow to check out the damage. While still having a smile on my face because some of the purchases are “for the art” as I told my Doctor when he told me to stop spending last year. He met my smile with a smile.
c7azybeautiful 