July 2019 : Goal Check-In

Howdy y’all!

It’s Monday and I’m here to check in on my monthly goals, if you want to read that original post I suggest clicking wherever the hyperlink shows up in this sentence.

I think part of the reason June didn’t go so well was because of my lack of accountability. Because I see that as one of my own personal shortcomings I decided to set a mid-month goal for July so I would have to do a check-in (I didn’t explicitly say it would have to be a blog post but I wanted to do this here so there’s consistency and also so more people can see that not all goals pan out all the time but it’s good to keep checking in with yourself so you can evaluate where you’re falling short).

I was originally only going to go through one of my six July goals (the one that explicitly required a check-in) but I decided to check in on all my goals and see if I’m on track for completion.

Without any further ado, here is it, my July goals check-in.

Oh, one more thing, I’m writing this on July 15th, it won’t publish to my blog until July 17th, which isn’t too far off but I’ll do a better job at planning my posts going forward.

1. The big one. An entire “no spend” month.
   • The point of this goal was not to spend money outside of our regular budget with no budget for anything we don’t need to live and get to and from work regularly.
   • Unfortunately, we failed at this goal in the first couple days of the month. I needed some templates for my sticker kit (see goal 6 down below), and the ones I had were for Adobe Illustrator… I tried to make them work but I just couldn’t (I’m a Photoshop user all the way). I purchased a set of templates on Etsy for $20 after Eduardo and I discussed the benefits of making the purchase. I would use the templates, number one. And number two, it’s extremely cost effective. On average, a sticker kit costs me about $15. If I only make two kits, the templates pay for themselves.
   • Eduardo also bought a video game for $20.
   • And I went to Walmart and they have their back to school displays out and I have zero will power and I purchased a notebook (I use notebooks constantly).
   • I’m not counting this goal out yet, we’ve made huge strides with our regular spending habits and our spending decisions were made intentionally to help us live our best lives.
   • Oh! We also bought plane tickets. This was a somewhat unexpected purchase. We knew that we’re planning a big trip in August but it was originally going to be a relaxing road trip, chilling on a farm in northern Georgia, enjoying nature, but that completely flipped into a whole other type of trip. We were already budgeting a large chunk of money to go towards our trip, it just went towards plane tickets instead of an AirBnb.
2. Five blog posts in July.
   • With the Hello Fresh post I have scheduled to go up on Friday, and this post scheduled for Wednesday, I’ve completely knocked this goal out. I’m feeling really good about writing for the blog and I’m truly enjoying it once again.
   • Since I’ve already met this goal, you might be thinking, cool so now you don’t have to write any more posts for July…
   • Wrong! I’m expanding this goal, reevaluating my resources, and shooting for eight posts in the month of July. I have a Candy Club review I’m going to write, a post about my sticker kit, a “day in the life of a personal assistant” post, and maybe a post about our new favorite go-to breakfast, I’m pretty confident that at least three of these will make it to fruition.
3. Continue with my nighttime routine.
   • I’m really disappointed with myself in terms of this goal. I was doing so great in June and I’ve just fallen off the wagon with this. I noticed my skin was doing so great, I was getting more sleep… I’ll get it back together, starting tomorrow. Lol.
4. Write 5,000 words by July 15th and another 5,000 words by July 31st.
   • Done. As of today (before writing this post) I was at 7,736 words. That’s awesome. I’m not exactly in the mood to write but I’m pushing myself outside that comfort zone of only writing when I’m in a creative mood, and that’s a total win by itself. Here’s to another 5,000 words this month!
5. Don’t let the “no spend” month turn into eating garbage.
   • We’ve been doing really good with this. It helps that a new ‘healthy’ grocery store just opened near us so we did our weekly grocery shopping there and made our budget stretch a little further.
6. Complete a sticker kit. Make a keychain. Perhaps loom a bracelet.
   • I have to say, I’m so proud of myself for this one. I finally completed a sticker kit. I’ve been trying to do this for what feels like a year (it probably has been close to a year) and it happened! As you can see from the picture, my theme was honey bees. I’m so thrilled with the outcome that I’ve already started designing another kit. I can’t wait to show you that one too!

Alright, so all in all, I was a little more gracious with myself for July. I gave myself less goals to reach and while none of these goals are simple, they aren’t outrageous for me. However, with less goals, I felt more compelled to ensure I finished more of them. Like the sticker kit, since it’s a sixth of my goal list, I didn’t want to fail again. I made it a priority and knocked it out less than halfway through the month.

I’m proud of myself for setting goals that are more realistic but also, I need to make sure my monthly goals push me outside of my comfort zone. The word count goal keeps me writing, and it makes me more motivated to write these posts, since I said I could use blog posts to boost those numbers up. This month has been great so far, I’m excited to see what’s to come!

Did you set some monthly goals for yourself? How are you doing? Check-in in the comments below and let me know how you could be kept more accountable!

Until next time – Xx.