Personal Update

I want to say everything is going well.

Morning Person
I generally wake up around 9-10 now :) It is SO much better than when I was sleeping in until late in the afternoon, I feel better and I feel like there is more to my day. I would like to be a bit more strict with it and start getting up around 8-9 soon though. :)

Clean Home
This is improving too. I am in the habit of giving the house an overall cleaning/tidying after my morning cardio and then I do the dishes and get the kitchen all clean. It is also a good way to start my day. This last week I am finally doing better with my deep cleaning and giving each room a little "extra attention" each day.

Healthier Eating
This has really been something I am working on/ struggling with. I am doing carb cycling and just trying to keep my foods healthy and nutrient dense. I do good most days most of the day but often at night I find myself really craving junk. I AM working on some healthy snack alternatives to keep around though ;). My Homemade peanutbutter coconut icecream should be ready tonight!

Am Exercise
This is going very well, I do 30-70 minutes of cardio everyday now and......I don't hate it!!!! =O
I enjoy my jump roping and hula hooping while watching tv a lot and it leaves me feeling awake and motivated.

Languages
At first I didn't do so well with this but I have kept track of any times I missed and am making myself make up for the lost time by doing extra time x). Slowly catching up!

NEW GOAL
I want to make the goal to make 1 video per week. for 10 weeks. Even if there is a week or two where I dont manage it the end goal is still to make 10 videos. I am for some reason VERY camera shy, I think it comes from my deep fear of giving speeches, and I want to improve that. I also want to learn to set up a video, record it, edit it, etc. I think it will teach me a lot and be fun. :)

Week 3 Update

Morning Person
This one is going pretty well and this morning I woke up and got out of bed at 9:30 :D. Still trying to regulate my bed time and wake up time but I am really happy about getting a much much earlier start to my day than before.

Clean Home 
This has been going better but still needs some work... I have been tidying the house in the am, going through my daily cleaning list and doing the dishes. Which isn't always super fast and easy because living in China, I don't have a dish washer! * :( *...The dish washer is...me....
However, I do need to do better with cleaning my designated daily room as there was about 2 or so days where I didn't do very good with that last week.

Healthier Eating
This has been going very well :) My carb cycling has really helped me to focus on healthier eating and eating whole foods.

Am Exercise 
This is another goal that I am happy with. I really enjoy my daily cardio session, and not only is it a good workout and I sweat a lot but the jump rope gives my legs, mainly calves, a good workout and while I hula hoop I flex my stomach to work that a bit too.

New Goal! 
15 Minutes per language per day devoted to improving myself at that language.

I have lived in China for many many years and my Chinese is very good but I would like to continue improving my reading and writing as well as continueing to expand my vocabulary. Reading and writing Chinese is HARD and so always room for improvement. :).
For Chinese I will make 10 new characters to learn, as well as do things like reading random books or articles.

I have also been learning Spanish for a little while now. I have a tutor once a week but do not have as much opportunity to speak Spanish as I would like and so I need to be focusing enough time on improving my vocabulary, grammar, listening skills etc.
For Spanish, I will be doing things like watching movies, reading books, doing grammar exercises, studying vocabulary etc.

Lastly I have begun learning some Thai and am in very very beginner stages of it but I have a few books both for speaking and reading I want to work on. :)

In the future I want to spend more time on each language but I think 15 minutes is a very do able start.

Progress and NEW goal :D

I meant to upload this last week. *oops!* 

Everything is actually going pretty well. I feel so much happier overall and I am much more productive and motivated. Being lazy and having breaks is fun but after a while I just need routine and to feel like I am accomplishing things.

Morning Person

I am starting to become convinced that I have some issues with sleep!
In the beginning of my "Morning Person" attempts I had an impossible time getting to sleep and some nights couldn't sleep at all!
After about a week I started to do better and going to bed a bit earlier, with a goal of about 15-30 minutes at a time but I was still having so much difficulty falling asleep at my prescribed bed time. Generally, I would feel a bit tired, but much much earlier than I planned to sleep so, I would stay up. When it came time to actually sleep; however, I was wide awake! So.. the only response seemed to be just to sleep as soon as I was tired! right?....
Well..now I am feeling really tired much earlier than I wanted and not sleeping through the whole night but waking up a few times and then going back to sleep again.
On the bright side I am waking up at 10 now :) Which is only ONE hour away from my initial goal time. I want to get myself a little more adjusted to my current time and then move it up to 9:00.

Waking up earlier has really helped me get more done and I feel a lot happier. :D

Clean Home

This has also been really going well. I am back into the habit of giving the house a good tidying every morning and doing the dishes. After this I work on cleaning the designated room of the house and am also improving at re-cleaning the kitchen after cooking which I was always really lazy with before.

No Junk

Cutting off my nightly snacks was a bit hard at first. Letting myself eat anything else removed any feelings of deprivation but the first few days I was REALLY craving carbohydrates. I have adjusted to it a lot more now and just from that small change I have noticed my diet is healthier :). Hopefully my skin will clear up!

NEW GOAL! 30 minutes of Morning/Early Afternoon Cardio
I have more time now due to my improved sleeping schedule and I want to begin doing 30 minutes of cardio (any form) In the morning or afternoon before I eat.
I want to do this because:
1. Empty stomach cardio is a great way to lose fat and I am having trouble with that last little bit.
2. Exercising in the beginning of the day puts me in a healthier mind set for the rest of the day.
3. If I am later unable to go to the gym I already got in exercise for the day :)

I have begun doing 30 minutes of jump rope and hula hoop intervals while watching a tv show :D. This will be day 3 of this and so far I have really been sweating a lot during my 30 minutes. I wanted to find a form of exercise I enjoy because exercising and being healthy shouldn't be miserable!
I have tried to take up running quite a few times and in the end I have to admit to myself I really just don't enjoy it and it doesn't help that I easily suffer from shin splits.
I enjoy jump roping, which surprisingly does not bother my shins, and it is a great high intensity exercise
I also enjoy hula hooping, which is a good cardio exercise and when I keep my abs flexed during it seems to help the muscles show more when I flex them otherwise.

Two Week Update and No Junk Food Goal

I have definitely made improvements in the last two weeks and am looking forward to next week.  :)

Morning Person
At first, it was a bit rocky. I had a lot more trouble with adjusting my sleep schedule than I had anticipated and quite a few nights I couldn't sleep at all and finally gave up in the morning and began my day.
I felt discouraged and let myself mope about it for a day or two and finally decided to continue working at it.
The last time I couldn't sleep I only let myself take a small nap later on and so I was able to sleep really well that night. I'm very happy to say that I woke up at 10:30 today which is 6 hours earlier than I had been waking up when I began. While I still have a little ways to go I'm really happy that my sleeping is improving.

Cleaning
This also had a slow start as my sleeping greatly interfered with my motivation to clean; however, as I improved my sleeping habits my cleaning also got better. Today I did my Daily Cleaning routine, did the dishes, and cleaned the things on my list of the day :). I still need to improve my routine and make sure i'm doing it daily. I would also like to improve on my night time tidying which I can make a goal of this next week :).

New Goal: 1 week without junk food
I want to make a new goal to eliminate junk food from my diet, starting with a one week commitment.
I'm realizing that I rarely go a day without eating some sort of junk food. While most of my diet is fairly healthy, I attempted to abstain from junk food yesterday and I felt truly deprived! From just one day without anything sweet and processed in the evening I felt grumpy and was unwilling to go without enjoying a packet of vanilla Oreos!
I have been working out for a few years now and have definitely improved both my strength and physical appearance; however, I have always had a little trouble with my diet. It has improved over the years as well but my personal goal has always been to be able to have a six pack, as well as to be able to show more of the other muscle I have worked hard for. While having a six pack itself is not a very important goal when looked at realistically, because it has been something I have desired since I was young. I really want to accomplish the goal for the sake of working hard and accomplishing something that I have wanted. I have only a small amount of fat left to lose but It has been extremely difficult for me to make it budge so I want to focus on eating good, but healthy foods and removing that "dependency" off of a daily treat.

Super Easy Household Cleaning Lists

      I wanted a way to organize what I needed to clean as well as "spruce" up my chore list, cause making things pretty makes them for fun!

I looked at quite a few chore charts and lists online but all of them seemed either too boring, or time consuming to fill in myself.

Soo I decide to go with a super simple idea.

I found a stationary border that I liked online, and simply filled it in with the list.
It is not very fancy but i think it works perfectly, I can easily change the border, and it can also be printed out and put in a notebook or folder. :)

I saved the image into my pictures and used paint to add in the rest.

Tada!

Cleaning Plan

I have looked at some youtube videos and cleaning blogs for some inspiration. I think inspiration and motivation are some of the most important parts of being able to accomplish things. :)

I will make two separate kinds of chore lists. One is a "Daily Chores List" where I will include some things to do everyday to keep house tidy and etc. 

List number two will be a list for each room/section of the house. I will list all the things in each room that need cleaning and will designate one section per day. 

Example:  Monday-Kitchen  Tuesday-Bathroom Wednesday-Bedroom  Thursday-Main rooms + Balconies Friday-Office  Saturday-Misc. 

I want my home to always look like I am expecting company and be in a good routine of keeping it that way. 

Morning Person Plan

This is exactly how I feel!

     I have always hated going to bed and hated waking up. Every night my mind fills with random thoughts that keep me awake, sometimes until 9:00 am the next day, and every morning the self-control I had so much of the night before seems to have vanished completely!

Obviously, i'm not the first person in the world to have difficulty with this, so i'm determined to adjust my schedule and create good sleep habits.
I don't need to rise and set with the sun, there is no reason for it. Simply waking up at 5:00 am doesn't make you a productive person. I still want to enjoy evenings with my husband and friends but for me, personally, If I stay up and sleep too late I feel lazier and after the gym in the evenings, even if I only woke up a few hours before, physical exercise coupled with the sky getting dark tells my brain that it is time to be a lazy bum.
No one wants to do the dishes when their brain says it is time to lie on the couch.

My plan is to slowly adjust myself to an earlier schedule by moving my bed time and waking times 30 minutes earlier at a time. I've looked at other blogs and websites for ideas and most suggest 15 minutes but i'm currently waking up REALLY late and I think 30 minutes every 2-3 days will do nicely :). So about four hours earlier in three weeks.
Nine is obviously not the most ambitious time to wake up but after doing university online, and having random work days. I have rarely had a necessary reason to wake up early, and this time is perfect for me to get a good start on my day and still have time to relax in the evening. :)

How to Set Goals for Personal Habits

The best way to improve yourself is to clearly establish what you want. Everyone has ideas of what they want to be but you can't really work hard for something if you don't know what it is.

1. Brainstorm (I like that word  =D)

I just brainstormed on a piece of paper to start, if I could be anything I wanted what would I be? How would I look? What would my daily life be like? I don't have a full time job but teach English on the weekends and do modelling jobs but those are at random times/ days so it isn't something I can plan into a schedule. I'm also currently on summer break so I don't have any school specific goals just habits I want to establish to improve myself overall. 

2. Condense
So I have about 16 goals and they are already fairly condensed, I want to make 10 main goals that I can focus on a few at a time
-First, I will combine a few related ones together. Being thin and having a six pack can be combined because if i want a six pack I have to lose fat and using less English in day to day life will obviously help to improve my fluency in other languages.
-Crossing off be productive because focusing on all of these goals is going to improve my productivity so it doesn't feel necessary to make it a separate goal.
-Also crossed off Graduate from college because it was more of a goal than a "habit" I want to establish and I have never had an issue with passing classes and etc.
-I also decided to replace losing fat and getting a six pack with "exercise more" because that combined with eating healthier is the only good way to achieve those goals anyways. 

3. Prioritize

So now that I have picked my habits/goals, I need to decide which ones are the most important to me, or which ones I should work on first. I think it is best to only pick 1-2 (3 max if one is easy) because in the past when I felt motivated to begin goals and start the next day off as a productive perfect human being, I always ended up overwhelming myself or stopping after a short time. Trying to establish too many habits at once is just too difficult and will make almost anyone miserable.
My number one habit will be "Morning Person" I don't plan to wake up at 6 am everyday but I would like to start my days earlier so I can get more done and spend more time working on my goals and life.
Habit number two will be "Keep a Clean Home" because I find that I, and most people, are more productive and functional when the environment around them is clean and organized.
I'm going to start with these two and add as I get used to them. :) 

4. Plan
I think it is important to make a plan for the goals so that I know which steps to take and some things to help me improve :). I'm going to make separate posts with my plans for my two current goals. 

5. Begin!

Beginning

I Finally decided to start a blog.
I had spent the last week feeling really unmotivated and well...depressed.
Lying in bed was truly the most glorious thing in the world and there was nothing that gave me the desire to do anything else.

Exercising to get that body you have always wanted?!
Keeping a clean and beautiful home?!
Cooking gourmet meals that are not only delicious but also healthy?!
How about waking up a little earlier? Maybe?
Nah.....

Today, I finally decided enough was enough; I'm pushing myself so far away from my goals that they are beginning to feel unreachable. Don't get me wrong, I'm not doing badly with my life.
I'm 18, I'm happily married, I've completed a year of college, I'm doing well financially, blah blah.

But lately, I've fallen into a bit of a "productivity" rut. I just seem to have lost that "umph" and desire to work at stuff the way I used to.
I've been staying up until 6 or 7 am and sleeping until 4pm, I haven't cooked in weeks (something I used to love), haven't felt like working out or exercising, haven't stretched in weeks, and all my language learning plans have been forgotten, and I haven't even begun researching the college I was planning to transfer to. The list could go on..

I made a goal on my 43things account and realized I was practically using the website as a blog and having a blog would give me a much larger sense of accountability.
Soo why not start a blog to help motivate myself to improve the way I live :)