Hello, March. (Time for new goals.)

So, I just finished the first draft of my edTPA.

Which is pretty awesome. It’s a weight off my shoulders, even though it’s not quite finished. I missed my goal of finishing it by February 28, but I’d say March 1 isn’t bad. I still need to go through the revision process, but my plan is to upload everything to Pearson this time next week, and then I can put it behind me.

Unless I fail and have to redo it.

Which would suck.

But I am 90% confident I will pass on the first try.

And with edTPA and Soldier of Dorsa both out of the way, it’s time for a brand new set of goals.

In the interest of social accountability, and because I’ve had a few readers write to tell me it’s inspiring to watch my journey as I navigate through the process of writing novels, going to graduate school, and learning to be a high school teacher, I think I’m going to start posting about my monthly challenges. Hopefully it will keep me honest and, if I am very fortunate, benefit others along the way.

Four domains of goals for 2020

I broke my 2020 goals into four main domains: physical and health (which includes eating habits, workout habits, sleep habits, etc.), relationships (which includes family, friends, and intimate relationships), vocational (which includes graduate school, writing, and teaching), and spiritual (which mainly includes meditation).

But after failing so miserably at my New Year’s Resolutions in 2019, I decided that in 2020, I would take a different approach. With my larger, year-long goals in mind, each month I am giving myself a set of challenges to meet that will further those bigger goals.

For March 2020, those smaller goals include…

1. Physical and health: I’m going to get back to better eating habits, which I allowed grad school to rob me of. In particular, having been inspired by the book Natural Born Heroes (see my post about the book and other things here), I want to give low-carb/paleo another chance, except that this time, I want to really do it right and go all-in rather than half-assing the way I have in the past. I also want to get into parkour, but March is not the time for that. Not quite yet. If I can stick to working out 3x / week, that will be progress enough for now. (Once grad school finishes, I will get back to 5x or 6x / week like I used to and maybe start to really learn parkour, but one thing at a time!)
2. Relationships: Since moving to San Diego, I’ve a little bit had to start over in the friends department. I’ve got a ton of friends… they just almost all live far away from here. 🙁 I’ve been putting more effort into making friends lately, and now I need to nurture these friendships. I’m such an intense weirdo that I often forget to nurture my relationships. I get all into whatever I’m doing, whether it’s writing a novel or learning parkour, and I pretty much hermit up and ignore everyone else. Not good policy! So for March, I want to remember not to hermit and make an effort to do at least one social thing per week. And hanging out with LT doesn’t count. 😉
3. Vocational: As much as I would like to start on Empress of Dorsa, I need to make grad school and getting a job in my new field a priority. So for March, I need to finish up the edTPA (as mentioned above), and once that’s done, it’s time to spruce up the ol’ resume, get some letters of rec, and start job hunting — or at least be prepared to hit the pavement come April.
4. Spiritual: My spiritual life has been a source of consternation for me for a while. I have sometimes mentioned on this blog that I used to be a meditation teacher, and that I’m Buddhist. That’s really just the tip of the iceberg, and this isn’t the forum to get into all my spiritual stomach knots. It suffices to say that in February I decided it was time to stop neglecting my meditation practice, and I so gave myself a very modest goal of meditating once per week. Having successfully achieved that goal in February, it’s time to up the ante to twice per week for March. Will April be 3x / week? Well. Let’s just take it a week at a time, right?

Anybody else got some good March goals to share?

How about you? What are you doing to improve your physical, mental, and spiritual well-being this month? Or this quarter or year or spring or decade? Let’s hear it!