Dec 1

The big picture that I've revised a bit. I'm trying especially hard to focus on the wording of my goals. You will not see a "don't" or a "won't". Instead, I am trying a thought process that will hopefully bring more positive into my life.

Financial: Buy a house someday. Save up enough money for retirement. Save up two months salary in our savings account for emergency use.
Spiritual: Live in and for each moment, appreciate, breathe. Let go of the negative and embrace the positive in each aspect of life. Embrace patience.
Career: Become a professor at a university. Stay on top of experiments and what they mean. Step outside the box more, and embrace change and technology.
Health: Eat well, mostly plants. Drink water. Take my vitamins. Minimize the consumption of processed and fast foods.
Physical: Wake up at 6am. Be strong in my body by regularly exercising 30 minutes each day. Focus on getting my hands better, meaning rest them at intervals, and give them a break when needed.
Organizational: Be organized. What does that even mean? This is something I will need to work on...
Holidays: Enjoy them! Be reasonable with gift purchases, food and drink.
Relationships: Focus on the people in my life and enjoy them. Make it a priority to talk on the phone more often.
New Things: Try something new every week.

Here are my smaller goals for the month of December. Since I am trying to embrace the positive this month, I am going to look at my goals for November, but I am also going to "let them go", so to speak. Some worked and others didn't. I will set different goals this month, and perhaps come back to those goals I did not achieve at a later date.

Financial: This one is a little tough with the holidays. Use cash to purchase all Christmas gifts. Put away $100 in retirement savings (current account). Look into retirement account options at Stanford. Look into a budget and finances tracking program for the computer. I would like to continue bringing my lunch to work most days (this goal worked really well last month! Yay, me!). Also, work on payments on the credit card. Luckily, we have a card with 0% interest until March, so we are focusing on paying this one off by then.

Spiritual: This month, I am going to focus on the positive and practice patience. In order to do this, I am going to embrace a little bit of "self talk" (which I do all the time, anyways - Yup, scientists are weird). When I start to feel negative, I will acknowledge that feeling, and then talk about it with myself. A lot of times, I have negative feelings that are not super helpful, and can actually hinder my progress on a goal. Instead, I will try to acknowledge these feelings, and ask myself what I can do now, or in the future to make this situation better. I will also practice patience, which is a skill I lack most days. When I feel exasperated and ready to blow, I will step away, take some deep breaths and focus on enjoying the moment or the view.

Career: I was able to accomplish a pilot experiment in November, but now I need to analyze my data. This month, I am going to focus on my lab notebook. This is where I record everything I do everyday. I often slack off on this, and this can be really detrimental (as in, how did I do that expt when it worked? Ugh!). So, that will be a main focus for me. Also, I would like to continue with the goal of reading more science in general. I get TOCs delivered to my inbox nearly daily, and I am going to focus on revising the list of TOCs I get, and probably adding more to the list. Once that's done, I will focus on reading those TOCs the day they come.

Health: This month I am focusing on drinking more water, taking my vitamins and cutting out or minimizing processed foods. To do this, I will fill up my water bottle and tea cannister every morning when I get into work. When they get empty, I will make sure I refill them so I always have water with me. I will also purchase another water bottle that I can take with me wherever I go. When I bike to work, I will focus on having a drink or two while I'm riding in as well. My vitamins will be on my bedside and I will take them before bed every night. When I'm traveling, I will make sure to put them in my case and place them bedside wherever I am. The processed food may be a challenge, as we are planning to drive to CO for Christmas, and being on the road is never easy. However, I plan on taking some healthy snacks with us in the car, and I will try to make healthy choices on the road. At work, I will strive to just not have any money for the vending machines, and I will make sure I have some nuts or healthy snacks in my desk drawer. The biggest challenge here might be what to eat when I get home from work. If I have the time, I will try to plan out some menus for dinners during the weeks we are here. This way, knowing what we are going to eat might make things a bit easier.

Physical: Instead of focusing on getting up at a certain time, I am going to focus on going to bed at by 11pm every night. That means, in bed, with the covers on at 11, not heading toward bed. I will also focus on not sitting so much. It's easy to get sucked into computer or scope work, but it's not good to sit for so long. I plan on using timers to help remind me to get up and move around, even if it's just walking around the room for a minute. I will focus on 30 minutes of exercise every day, even if that just means a walk around the block after dinner. I would like to focus on core strength this month, so I plan on doing some core strength exercises for one minute every day. 

Organizational: I am taking a cure from my good friend Coodence on this one. She suggested a Moleskine notebook (they are really nice looking!) to carry around with me wherever I go. I used to do this, but I found it cumbersome. My "to do" lists tend to be excessive (as in, one 8.5"x11" daily!). However, I do think it's a great idea and one I will return this month. Today, I am heading out to purchase a notebook, where I will write my goals for the month in it, and then try to pare things down to weekly goals (instead of daily ones).

Holidays: I will focus on the beauty of the holiday instead of the "to do" list. I would like to write a gift list and get those things bought (preferably online) by Dec 10th. I also need to make a Xmas card list and have those sent out by Dec. 15. This weekend, I will put up the decorations (no tree this year, though :( ) and I would like to take some time to enjoy the lights and the music associated with this time of year. I will practice patience and try to take the negative out of the holidauy.

Relationships: This month, I will focus on listening. I will put down my phone or my computer. I will also make a priority to call my family twice a week, and to call my in-laws once a week.

New things: I will try something new every week and I will keep track of the new things I try.


Well, there you have it, folks. My goals for December. Let's see how I will do!