Month: April 2008

taking stock of my goals

Today is the day I’m supposed to do an end-of-month inventory on my goals. But I won’t, I know it. I’ve been avoiding looking at my status against what I’m supposed to be accomplishing.

I don’t want to know.

I haven’t reached my financial goals, I know without even looking. I haven’t achieved my weight loss goals, I know without even looking. I haven’t reached my professional goals, I just know. I don’t need to see it on a sheet of paper to know that.

I worked really hard to make sure that the goals I set this year were realistic. And I’m still falling short.

What’s my problem? If I had a therapist, this is the part where I’d moan about my counter-productive attitudes, my self-destructive tendencies.

The good thing is that these tendencies never make it into my workplace. No matter how much my personal time is wrecked by my personal foibles, they don’t seep into my job. I get my work done, and done well, regardless of what I have to suffer through to make it happen.

A friend of mine convinced me to start the program through “An Artist’s Way at Work.” I’m finding that the daily pages are getting my creative juices flowing. The words that were stuck in my brain, in my throat, are getting out in the pages of my journal, and now in here.

Unfortunately, I’m being slow in actually posting the words, but I am writing them.

Just losing the weight I have lost required tremendous willpower, especially as the people around me were ever-so-subtly attempting to sabotage my commitment. I don’t know if they were aware that that’s what they were doing, but it is. And I survived it.

Thankfully, the sabotage attempts from family have stopped. They seem to understand that I am fully committed to seeing this through.

bad day

Tired, hungry and short-tempered. I’m indulging today, right now, in a bacon cheeseburger with fries and a diet soda.

Diet be damned, at least for today.

This is my first diet cola in more than six months. It will be my first real bacon cheeseburger in just as long.

I won’t bother weighing myself tomorrow. I haven’t weighed myself in more than a week.

I know that I would lose more weight if I were faithful to the diet. The problem is that that’s not fun. My way, I deviate every once in a while and still lose a pound every week or so. As a plus, I’m not so bored with the diet that I quit altogether.

Today is stress-induced. I know that I haven’t been following my diet lately because of stress. My react badly to emotional factors. And there have been a lot of emotional factors lately.

I wish I were one of those people who get stronger with challenges. I always rise to the challenge, always meet my goal, always do the thing that needs to get done — but I sacrifice my personal well-being in the process. I over-eat, sleep less, keep weird hours, and start forgetting things like daily pages and meditation and yoga, and it all goes to hell in a hand basket.

Is work worth that?
What’s my choice?

I’m sitting in an empty restaurant, having “lunch” at 3 PM. I forgot to pack any snacks, protein bars or anything to tide me over. I haven’t been drinking my water, have had too much caffeine and am too stressed. Surely not conducive to a good emotional being.

Did I mention that my back hurts? Yes, one more thing to add to the list.

My friend says “find your bliss.” I’d love to follow that advice, but I don’t know what my bliss is.

Gonna stop typing now, gotta finish my lunch and go back to the office.

overdrawn

I spend far too much money on small things. My budget is sinking, one penny at a time.

Got a text message alert from my bank that an account has insufficient funds. Insufficient funds? Not possible.

I logged into my account and checked against my spending list (that I keep on my PDA). It didn’t add up. Until I realized that I had logged an expense under the wrong account.

Very odd. I don’t do things like that. Is it a sign of other things?

personal

One of the benefits of blogging, even with the highly erratic blogging schedule that I keep, is the outlet for things about which I want to vent. There are things I don’t want to talk about, things I don’t want to be questioned about, that still need to be aired.

Sometimes things happen that I know I need to share, that for mental health I need to share. But I don’t really want to engage in conversation, not real face-to-face discussions with people I know. I don’t want the daily questions and follow-ups and well-intentioned support.

For these issues, weaknesses, awkward confessions, I need the anonymous support network of the two or three readers I have. Just getting the words out and knowing that someone, somewhere, is reading them… Well, that’s enough for me.

My weight loss is one of these topics. I appreciate the words of encouragement I get from friends and coworkers, but I hate answering questions about my diet.

What do you do? What do you eat? How are you maintaining your commitment? Aren’t you tempted?

The same questions over and over abiout how I can resist temptation and the daily challenges of staying on track. The truly intrusive tell me about their own weight loss failures and give me their best wishes that I have better luck (with some adding that my kind of weight loss is always followed by weight gain).

My brother being in a warzone is another topic. What’s the adequate response to someone asking you “aren’t you worried about him?” Am I supposed to show tears each time I talk about him? I try and stay upbeat, positive, but that’s not good enough for the masses.

On my blog, via Twitter or whatever other tool I happen to be using, I can just ignore the responses I don’t want to deal with, and embrace those I do. What a wonderful thing.