2018 July Goals

End of June reminds us that half the year has ended. If I look back at the significant things I did in the half year
 

• Made friends at workplace
• Extensive research on power of belief
• Published my first book
• 80 day streak of clicking photographs
• Completing one year of MA in psychology
• Started cooking decent food

 
There a couple of things which I could not do too. I was not serious about exercising. I missed it on a lot of days. I could not get much time to write articles for the blog.
 
Over the last couple of weeks, reaching my weekly goals has become tough with all the daily responsibilities. At this point of time, I want to take a break from weekly goals and stick to monthly goals as it is easier to create a schedule for the month. Once I become efficient in the various unavoidable chores and can free up more time, I will go back to weekly goals.
 

July goals

 
1.Affirmations
 
Wishing for the best and staying positive helps in going a long way in life. I had been trying to make it a habit but I have still not achieved it totally. I will do this exercise four times a day. There are three types of affirmations I will include for now
 
Type 1: General positive energy
 
Even if I woke up to a bad dream or dealing with too much stress at work, these kind of affirmations help in defusing the negativity.
 
Example:  “Today is a beautiful day. I welcome it with a smile.”
 
Type 2: Short term goals
 
In order to test the power of affirmations, I initially tested them on trivial wishes. Magically, it worked. I will do affirmations on very small wishes to grow my belief in affirmations and visualization.
 
Example: I will complete my work before deadline
 
Type 3: Long term goals
 
Even though affirmations can’t bring an immediate change in long term goals, they keep reminding me of where I want to reach in life and force me to take action towards them.
 
Example: I am a well known writer who helped a lot of people reach their dreams.
 
I will keep a reminder for this for 4 times a day. The success of habit is measured by number of times in the month ( maximum is 4 times a day) by 31*4. Hoping to hit a target of 90%.
 
2.Exercise
 
Irrespective of when I wake up in the morning, I am going to exercise at least for 10 minutes. This can be anything. I can go for a 10 minute jog or do skipping or body weights or a couple of suryanamaskaras. It doesn’t matter as long as I exercise. I am going to measure the success of this as a percentage. Number of days I exercised to the number of days in the month. The target is to achieve at least 95% to start with.
 
3.Cooking
 
It takes me around 2 hours daily to cook and eat. But I will learn to be more efficient and planned. A lot of time goes off in wondering what to cook. I will learn a good number of recipes to not have the dilemma every morning.
 
4.Words
 
Even though on this page  I scored 20,800 for vocab strength, I want to expand and improve my command over the language. Every day I will choose a word and learn its meaning. I will create a story using that word. The next day I will learn one more and use the previous day word also in that story or sentence. This way I will accumulate 31 words by the end of the month. I will use my commute time to learn this.
 
5.Editing
 
Writing is just the first step. The most beautifully written words are the ones which had been edited countless number of times. I want to learn the basics of this art. The following are a few books to start with.
 
The elements of style
Self-Editing For Fiction Writers: How To Edit Yourself Into Print
Write Right!: A Desktop Digest of Punctuation, Grammar, and Style
The Little Red Writing Book
On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction
What Editors Do: The Art, Craft, and Business of Book Editing
Copyediting and Proofreading for Dummies
 
Just one rule per day will do.
 
6.Knowledge on finance
 
A well read person is someone who reads books of all types. Finance is one area I want to be well acquainted with.
 
Here are a list of books to start with
 
The intelligent investor
The four hour work week
Common stocks and uncommon profits
Stocks for the long run
Learn to earn
 
I will try to cover one concept per day.
 
How was your June? What are your plans for July? Let us know in the comments section.
 
Happy July!