February Goals // Road to a Better Me Linkup

At the start of each month, I always sit down and create a list of my goals for the following few weeks. Thanks to Jennie from Breakfast at Lilly’s and Brittany from Southern Soul, I’m now sharing these goals with you through the Road to a Better Me linkup!

 

January Review

To kickoff my participation in the linkup, I shared my 2016 Goals; and I have certainly been more creative and more willing to embrace my unique characteristic. My goal of laughing more often has taken on a strange form, since most of my laughter comes from my workplace. I guess that’s what happens when you end up working with so many wonderful people–you learn how to enjoy work and life at the same time.

 

February Goals

While February is the shortest month of the year, it seems to be determined on gaining further identity as my busiest month. This means most of my goals are academic related–I’m not sure if that makes the goals better or worse. Probably better since I enjoy school so much…

Finish reading Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. This is a rather large book (close to 600) pages, and its circular plot makes it a bit difficult to follow at times. Since we’re not scheduled to finish the book until the start of March, I’d love to finish it a week or two earlier.

Write my research proposal and upcoming paper a week early. No matter how many times I tell myself that I will start my papers early, I fail. Take last semester and my 4 AM rewrite of a twelve page paper for an example…. This semester I’m too busy to allow my perfectionism to morph into procrastination. I have to write my papers early.

Make high grades on my advanced grammar exams. Half of my class grade is riding on how well I study for my exams this month. No pressure at all, right? It looks as if my weekends will be full of sentence diagrams and morpheme charts.

Give two practice presentations of my research paper. I’ve known for over two months that I will be sharing my paper at the Sigma Tau Delta National Convention. However, perfectionist-induced procrastination is my middle name…. The issue is that I’m terrified of presentations, much less presentations of my own research and analysis. I’ve put it off far too long, though, so its time I get down to work.

Run some blog maintenance. This means fixing a few broken links, for starters. I’m also redoing my menu, so that means wading through a year’s worth of blog posts to reorganize categories. I also need to re-brand my different series to be more cohesive and have a better presentation. Who ever said blogging was just a simple hobby?

Publish 10 blog posts. I’ve been posting two posts a week since August, and I don’t want to give up on that now. Even if the month is crazy, I’m dedicated to keeping my M/F schedule. This also means staying consistent with all my different series, which is something I struggled with in January.

Participate in a 30 day hand-lettering challenge. This ties into my goal to be more creative in 2016. I’m wanting to get better at calligraphy and hand-lettering my own designs, so working on a small, simple sketch or design each day should be fun and relaxing.

Finish financing my study abroad tour. While I have until the end of may to complete my payments for my trip to England, I’d love to finish paying for everything by the end of February. Despite the refund check from my university (yay for scholarships!) and the two paychecks I’ll receive, it will still be a close call. However, if I pick up a few more hours tutoring and continue to not spend any money whatsoever, I think it will be an achievable goal.

What is your main goal for the month?