Slightly Belated Mid-Year Goal Check In

As I started thinking about my August goals, I realized that I hadn't done a mid-year goal check-in for my yearly goals. Some I've already accomplished, some are works in progress, and some need to be prioritized or reconceptualized if I'm going to achieve them.

Source

For 2011 I set 11 goals.  They were:

1. Run my second marathon.  Done! I completed my second marathon in June at the Team Ortho Minneapolis Marathon, and I'm going for marathon #3 at Chicago in October!

2. Run 800+ miles.  I'm on track for meeting this goal. So far I've run 531 miles in 2011 and this month and September are looking to be pretty high mileage months.

3. Reestablish my home yoga practice.  I've been progressing with this one but not as well as I would like. Some weeks I do about 15-30 minutes of yoga after a couple of my runs, but when things have become busy my mat is the first thing to get neglected. I'm going to try to make special effort to get moving on my mat and meditate more frequently.

4. Run faster in 2011.  This is a work in progress. I still have days where I feel like I'm plodding along, but I am getting faster and I will continue to get faster. So far this year I've run a marathon PR and a 5K PR.  I'm aiming for a half-marathon PR in a few days!

5. Keep a food journal for the year.  I really didn't do well with this during the first few months of the year.  I'd keep track for a few days and then stop for a couple of weeks. Overall, I've done a lot better at consistently journaling since the beginning of May. I have promised myself that I will do a better job in the second half of the year than I did during the first half of it.

6. Present research at at least one conference. I will be presenting research at a conference later this month and at one in October, so I'm on track for meeting this goal.

7. Publish. This one is another work in progress. I do have a co-edited primary source coming out, but it won't be in print until 2012. I'm sending a revised article back out this month, and I hope to have another article to send out here in a few months - hopefully before Thanksgiving. I'm envisioning using the conferences that I'm attending to get feedback on some new research that I'm doing and hopefully getting a workable article out of the process.

8. Get a book contract. I haven't done nearly as much as I should on this one. And I really need to make finishing my book proposal a priority goal soon. Unfortunately, this month is already a little too jam-packed with the conference and the start of the semester. I'm going to aim for September.

9. Organize my files and keep them organized. I've been doing surprisingly well with this one, especially since May when I had to go on a wild goose chase to find a set of files that I had apparently never unpacked from our move last July. I won't tell you where I found these important research files, but I will say that the entire debacle shamed me into actually organizing my files. When I moved offices on campus, this gave me further reason to get organized and stay that way.

10. Abstain from buying clothing in 2011. I have had some setbacks here. I went on a shoe binge that started while I was in Toronto and Montreal for vacation. I also purchased a few things that, while I'm technically OK with because they were replacing worn out work clothes, make me feel a little bit like a clothing glutton. After not such great months in June and July, I feel ready to climb back onto the GAAD-wagon and not buy anything else until the start of the new year.

11. Do more with my Spanish. I have not been doing very much with my Spanish apart from using it for my research. I decided that the best way to jump-start this is to start reading a couple of articles from El Pais every morning and to read a book for fun in Spanish. So as soon as I finish reading my current book it will be onto Hija de la Fortuna. I also decided to start trying to find some more blogs by Spanish-speakers to read on a regular basis, so if you know of any awesome running, food, or photography blogs in castellano, please do let me know!

Did you set goals for this year? If so, how are they progressing? What are some of your strategies for getting back on track when you have slipped up or suffered a setback?