Since I decided to some up with some goals for the week (AND post them to this blog), I must admit that I've felt more focused, just a day after coming up with and posting my weekly goals. I was starting to feel a little stressed and frustrated about how busy this month is turning out to be, and I think I was feeling worn down and a little out of control, at least as far as my schedule was concerned. Ever felt like your schedule was controlling you instead of you controlling your schedule? I was feeling a hint of that.
Goal setting is such a basic thing, and I've done it before, of course, but it's been a while since I've done it for my general life and made the goals public. I have my work goals, of course, as part of my annual evaluation. I have running goals when it comes to participating in road races. I have general ideas in my mind of where I want to go in my life, and sometimes I'll talk with George or others about my goals and dreams. Somehow, though, writing goals down, especially for others--strangers in the blogosphere to see, even, takes them to a different level.
One thing that spurred me to do this was something Scott Smith said on one of his podcasts, either "
The Motivation to Move" or "
The Daily Boost." (I subscribe to both through iTunes and listen on my iPod.) On the shows, he often asks, "Have you done your homework?" On one recent episode, it really hit home when he asked that question, and talked about doing something weekly toward your bigger, life goals. (I've heard him ask that question any number of times, but it made an impression this time.)
I've made some progress on my goals already, eventhough it's just been a day. I've lost .4 of a pound so far , read several pages in a book I'm working on finishing next, run 7.25 miles so far this running week, and got into bed at 11:01 PM last night. All of that, in addition to work and a meeting last night.
In reality, there are many more goals I could've added to this week's goals list, but I figured I'd set up a short list and see how things go. There can be a fine line between a goal list and a to-do list. My to-do list wouldn't be so entertaining, and there are other venues for that.
While I've got goals on the brain, I've done a couple of things podcast-related. I mentioned that I set up a blog as a placeholder for show notes down the road. Well, I did it here on Blogger, and I learned yesterday that it was tagged and blocked as possible spam, so I had to type in a password-thingy to have it reviewed. Sheesh. I'm not sure why a URL called goingtheextramileopodcast.blogspot.com sounds spam-like. We'll see that the Blogger powers-that-be say.
Meanwhile, I've signed up for a podcast account at podbean.com, and my url is
http://goingtheextramile.podbean.com. Since "Going the Extra Mile" is the name of my blog about my personal journey of running, weight loss, and better health, I thought it would be a good name for a podcast too. I'm still a while away from starting a podcast, but it feels good to get started.
One of the books I got is a cookbook called 366 Delicious Ways to Cook Rice, Beans, And Grains. I've already earmarked several recipes I want to try! I love the fact that nutritional values (including sodium) are listed at the end of each recipe. Sodium is often left off of nutritional charts of recipes, it seems, so I'm thankful for it in this book.
Switzer, who was the first woman to register and get an official number for the Boston Marathon, but the race officials didn't know she was a woman until she was running in the race (a race offical actually tried to run her down!). This was in 1967,when women weren't allowed to run in marathons! I'm a couple of chapters into this book, and I think it'll be a good read! I'd love to run the Boston Marathon someday, and am thinking about signing up for a marathon training program (thanks for the link, Susan!) that starts next month.
