Mid-Year Reflections

July was an “off” month on challenges. I determined this back in my January planning phases — as a way to assess the larger goals of my yearlong project and perhaps set a stronger course going forward for the second half of 2015 based on what I learned in the first.

I’ve done so and with August beginning have changed my approach on goal-setting, in hopes of the self-systemization ideal that I started the year with. Here are some of the changes I’ve made:

Non-Categorization of Goals

I started the year with three categories of goals: Health, Writing, and Lifestyle. This categorization was meant to keep goals varied and expansive. The idea being that if I could succeed in goals across this spectrum, I could build a system or framework that would work on goals in any category. Doing all health or all writing might pigeon-hole me into successfully mastering one corner of my life but nothing bigger.

I don’t think I was wrong in this approach but it had the effect that I was actively trying to avoid. I got stuck in these categories and nothing else. Goal-setting was restricted and habits didn’t overlap as much as they could have. As I learned in April where I turned technology off at night which gave me time to roll out my muscular frame, goals that help one another succeed are ultimately beneficial.

So there won’t be categories going forward. I’ll just set goals on things I’d like to improve on my own life and work on the set-up of the goals so that are not in opposition, but rather in harmony with one another.

Focus On The Means, Not The End

The set up on previous months could aptly be described as this: figure it out. I’d set a lofty goal of something I’d like to accomplish and left myself completely open on how to actually do it. Months that had missed goals could really point back to this as a reason for failure. I didn’t focus on the means as much as the end and a month isn’t a long time for standard methods of discovery like trial and error.

Instead, new goals will focus on the how (or the means), and leave the larger ends unto themselves. If they’re hit, great, but their magnitude won’t be the only measure of success.

Instead, I’ll focus on repeatable smaller tasks which can build habits and create positive change. The actualization of these smaller tasks and habits will be the success factors, not an arbitrary degree to which a larger goal is achieved.

Carryover Goals

Many of the goals I’ve set in previous months were aimed at things I actively wanted to change about myself. Some were challenges to exceed my own expectations, but others were aimed at better living (as I saw it). I found myself in my “off” month of July wanting to continue some of these. Of course, I could do so — but giving it the guise of a challenge made it so much more imperative to my day-to-day.

So, starting in August, I’ll have at least one carryover goal each month. This is a goal I’ve done in the past that will be repeated with the hopes of building long(er) term character change. My hope is that some goals will be carryovers for multiple months and morph themselves into fully formed habits through that process. But that’s to be seen!