Tag: goals

When Life Is Going Great

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My last few posts were all kind of dark so I decided to take a step back and get my life together.

This is what that looks like:

1. I moved back to St. Louis.

I was in Houston, TX for three months before I came crawling back home but to be fair, I didn’t come back because I was homesick, I came back because I was broke. The job that I moved down there for didn’t work out and then the second job I was able to get was horrible and ended with me filing a formal complaint with the company’s HR department due to verbal abuse from my boss. I had such a hard time getting a job because I didn’t have a car. I had several interviewers tell me the reason they were not going to hire me was because I didn’t have a car. It makes sense, sort of, Houston is huge but I was even turned down on a job that was literally across the street from the house I lived in because I didn’t have a car and I was young and they were afraid that if they trained me for the position, I’d leave within the next ten years. No, I’m not making this up. Yes, they did really say this to me but they were also nice enough to give me temp work on the weekends. But the big defining reason why I came back home was that I was broke and in serious credit card debt.  For the majority of my three months in Houston, I lived on my credit cards and my credit score fell from 750 to 702 and now I’m about $4,000 in credit card debt. So yeah, it was time to come home.

2. I lost 10lbs in Houston

I wish I could say it’s because when I moved to Houston I truly did do one of those “New City, New Me” things but it really came down to money. I know what you’re thinking and no, I didn’t starve myself. I did the opposite. While In Houston, I stayed with my very affluent cousins. It was meant to be a stepping stone until I found my own place but when the big job fell through, it became apparent that I might end up staying with them for a much longer period than any of us had imaged. I bring up their money because it’s an important factor in health. They had enough disposable income to buy really healthy food (such as fresh fruits and vegetables) as well as higher grades of meat. So while I was down there, I ate my normal meals with the addition of fresh vegetables and I naturally lost weight. I lost about a pound a week and I feel great.

3. I’m more than 50,000 words (200+ pages) into my novel

I’ve been trying to write a book since I graduated in May of 2017. I’ve tried several times but for one reason or another, I failed. So while I was jobless and feeling sorry for myself, I sat down, scrapped everything but my characters and came up with a new story. I wrote a nineteen-page outline over the span of three days, in September, and started writing the book when I came back home in October. It’s December now and I’m more than two-thirds of the way into the first draft and haven’t made any significant changes. I’m pretty sure I’ll finish this first draft this month. I’m just so excited about this.

4. My first “real” job

In November, I landed my first “real” job a year after graduating from college. I now work at a library making close to triple the amount I made last year and I finally have health insurance. When I tell you life is going great, I really do mean it. I lucked up on this job. I flew home from Houston on a Saturday and by the following Monday, I had a job interview with a bank. After the bank job interview, I didn’t want to go straight home because I wasn’t sure If I landed the job and I didn’t want to think too much about it so I walked to my local library just to say “hi” to the librarians I grew up with. When I stepped in and told them why I was back In St. Louis, they told me they had a job opening and I should apply for it.

When I didn’t hear back from the bank the next day, I applied for the library’s job opening. A week later, I went in and did the interview and test for the position and was called back a few hours later. Because of how poorly I did on one section of the test, I assumed I wasn’t going to get the job. I assumed that they wanted to tell me that face-to-face because we’ve known each other for all these years. But when I arrived, I was informed that there may be an opening for a higher paying position and they wanted to know if I was interested. I told them “yes” and they told me I had to wait a week to have this new position approved by Human Resources. A week passed and I received a phone call from HR informing me of my new job position. I was elated beyond description. I’d been having such crappy luck, job wise, that it’s hard to believe this all happened this way.

I’m just super happy that life is finally going great.

Eight Goals For 2018

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Hey everyone, welcome to 2018. Another year has come and gone and with the changing of the year, comes new goals and new achievements.

Here are my eight goals for 2018…

1. Lose 30 lbs

I know, I know. It’s a bit cliche but weight loss is a goal of mine this year but until like most people, I have an actual quantitative goal here. Plus, I started my weight loss journey last year when I went from a size 16 to a size 14. I think it’s super important to have an tangible weight or size in mind when trying to lose weight. It makes the process not so mysterious. There are tons of people who want to lose weight and get fit but because their goal is so aloof they never achieve anything because they never have a set goal to reach. I also think it’s important to set realistic goals for yourself when it comes to weight loss. Losing 30 lbs is very doable over the span of a year. It’s actually doable in the span of 3 to 4 months but that requires a lot of dedication and focus.

2. Read More Books

I haven’t read a book for fun in four years. I know, that’s crazy, right? I used to devour books but college killed that for me. I had to do a lot of reading for school, whether it was literary novels, textbooks, screenplays, articles from pretentious scholarly journals, or non-fiction books. By the time I was done with those, I was burned out and didn’t want to do anything but watch movies and television, which wasn’t all bad because that helped me with my studies. But I would like to get back into the habit of reading for fun again, especially genre fiction.

3. Make More Meaningful Connections

I’ve touched on this subject before on the blog. I want to make more friends but I want these relationships to be more meaningful. I’m still young so in theory, it should be easy for me to find people to link up with. But I’m starting to realize not all friendships are genuine. Sure, I was aware that there are some friendships that exist purely out of envy. This is where you get the frenemies complex. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I went through a lot of personal stuff last year and when I really needed people to lean on, the people I considered my closest friends didn’t even reach out. It was the first time in a long time that I honestly felt like I was alone and I was really hurt by it all because I’m usually the emotional support in my group of friends. To know I couldn’t receive that same support, especially when I rarely ask for it, made me see my friends in a very different light. And so, developing more meaningful connections is a major goal of mine for 2018.

4. Write More

This one is very self-explanatory. At the beginning of each year, I always set a goal for myself in regards to the amount or types of creative pieces I create. This year, I would like to write at least two novels and a screenplay. It sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. As long as I keep to my deadlines, this should be pretty achievable. I just have to stay motivated and plan accordingly.

5. Take A Trip

I’m really trying to focus on saving money this year, so I don’t plan on doing a lot of travel but I would like to take at least one trip this year.

6. Take More Chances

I’m a pretty cautious person. I’ll even admit to being an overthinker but this year, I would like to put myself out there more. You know, engage in some crazy activity and be more socially adventurous especially since my physical location isn’t going to change much this year. This also goes hand in hand with developing more meaningful relationships. I really want to have a more exciting social life. I sometimes feel like I’m all work and no play. I want to change that.

7. Find A Job

Well, actually, I have a job but it’s not in my degree field which is understandable because I have a scriptwriting degree and I don’t live in California or a very big city for that matter. St. Louis is a hub for start-up companies that relocate the moment they get enough funding. We’re not a bustling city and the only work I could probably find St. Louis with my scriptwriting degree would be in theatre because we actually have a decent theatre scene here, but I dislike writing stageplays. The world is cruel and full of irony.m, I know. After some serious thought, I realize I’m selling myself short. Sure, my degree focuses primarily on writing for film and television but I also had to take the same core curriculum as the students that majored in journalism, public relations, and mass communications. If I can’t find a screenwriting position in St. Louis, maybe I should search for a job in one of the related industries.

8. Stop Doubting Myself

This is a big one for myself and it’s also going to be the hardest to achieve for several reasons. It’s easy to achieve goals such as travel, writing, or job hunting but it’s much harder to achieve goals that depend solely on your inner self. There is nothing I can work towards. Nothing I can plan. Nothing I can save for. This is a goal that has to be achieved based solely on my ability to believe in myself.

Inspiration in the Dark

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A while back I made a post about my yo-yoing weight and how I wanted to make a permanent change because I was tired of how my life was going. It’s been a few months now and I wanted to give you all an update.

It’s important to note that I have severe scoliosis—it just isn’t obvious—so my workouts are a bit limited. My limitations come in when I’m dealing with weights. I’ve been advised by a few doctors not to lift weights so my workouts usually consist of toning exercises (basic Pilates and resistance training with a resistance band) and cardio. I can do the Pilates and resistance training at home because I have yoga mats, medicine balls, exercise balls, kettlebells, small dumb bells, and several sets of resistance bands. But the one thing I can not do at home is the cardio because I hate running. So for the cardio, I was going to the gym and using the elliptical for an hour, four times a week.

This went on for about a month and a half before I lost my motivation and gave up. But wait, don’t roll your eyes just yet, let me explain. I lost my motivation because even though I was slowly slimming down I was losing a lot of muscle. Yeah, you see, I’d actually stopped doing the Pilates and resistance training and was focusing my time on the cardio because that’s all I had time for and it was working. But because I wasn’t toning my body, I lost a lot of the muscle I had in my core and ended up looking flappier than before. A good example of this is the fact that I am smaller than I was when I made the original post but I now have “love handles” because my stomach isn’t as firm as it used to be. Once I realized what was happening, I tried to correct my error but it was already too late. I’d lost some fat that used to sit around my tailbone area and because it wasn’t there to cushion me, getting down on the floor and doing the moves I used to do became painful. My tailbone and spine began to take on too much pressure and it became really painful. So I just stopped altogether.

I didn’t lose or gain any more weight until I went to Texas in the beginning of August. While I was down in Texas, I stayed with a family that was on a diet and I didn’t want to be rude so I ate what they ate and their portion sizes and I actually lost weight. I probably lost about four or five pounds over the span of two weeks just from eating better but because I don’t diet, the moment I got back to St. Louis I ate everything that I’d literally been dreaming about and gained the weight back.

This was around the time my brother became an inspirational figure to me. My fourteen-year-old brother has always been skinny and as he’s gotten older, he has also gotten taller. He has the same body type as our dad. He’s naturally skinny but with him growing so much, he was starting to look slender. He didn’t want to be slender going into high school so for the past month and a half, he’s been going to the gym and working out. Over this short amount of time, I’ve seen him put on muscle and start sculpting his body into the image he wanted. It was easy for him because he was already skinny, all he had to do was put on the muscle. But, just from watching my own friends try, I also know how hard it is to put on muscle and he’s done it all without taking supplements or drinking protein shakes or anything like that. He just eats up everything now, but I get it. He’s hungry, so I can’t really get mad at him for cleaning out the fridge. But watching him get abs, rounded shoulders, and develop the muscles in his back and pectoral region really inspired me to get back in the gym and on the yoga mat.

I know I can make a difference before the year ends.