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I articulated some six-month goals in February here. Tying my challenges to these longer term goals helps, so here's my six month check-in: Become more financially stable. Establish one month of emergency savings. 50% done. Pay off my smallest credit card Pay down at least 30% of the other card. I've been doing good work but I will need to stay focused to hit this goal by the end of 2017. Become more politically/socially active. Discover what I want to focus on. I've been running a small group of women who are exploring a run for office. Take action (phone calls, protests, letters, etc.) I have taken 10 actions this year. Would like to hit 15. Attend a city council meeting. No progress. Become an even more awesome developer. Finish at least two video series that will help me be better at my job. This has proven not to be a very effective measuring stick. I have been watching as needed. Consider getting certified in April. Decided this was not the right thing for me right now. Write more. I have been writing 10 minute chunks 2-3 times a week. * I'd like to increase that to 20 minute chunks 3-4 times a week. I have written and published more over the last 100 days than I thought feasible. I also want to be editing and publishing my work. Do one full push-up. Nope. Not yet. Not really close, either. Just found this interesting article on the subject: http://www.100pushups.com/your-first-pushup/ For the last third of the year, I am committed to achieving one last goal in each of my categories (yes, I do keep my goals in categories) (yes, it's a bit obsessive) (yes, it does work): WRITING: Finish my poetry kickstarter. DANCE: Finish my dance kickstarter reward. RELATIONSHIPS/SOCIETY: Finish She Should Run incubator. CAREER: Finish the sports card project I've been putting off. HEALTH: Do 104 workouts this year (65/104). FINANCE: Establish one month of planned savings (~$5k). (I desperately want to start paying down my CC faster but this is a smarter choice. Dammit.) LIFESTYLE/ENVIRONMENT: Read 16 books (I'm at 9--got stuck on a Spanish language one! Gotta finish 1.25/month to get there.) Maybe I'll do more than that, but those are projects I WILL finish. It's going to be a lot of work and I'm going to need to be in tip-top shape to get everything done without losing my mind and/or burning out. To achieve those goals, here are my challenge items for this go-round: Quest #1: Three workouts per week (continuation from last challenge) I had great success on this last challenge, but I've been at 2 workouts per week for about two years now. I want to get three workouts to the level of ease that 2 workouts currently are. I find myself taking a bit of a break on myself as long as I get the three workouts in--I'll know that this habit is for real when I no longer feel like I have to hold back in any given workout. Quest #2: Lights out by 10 pm every night plus a new mantra: I'm a morning person!! (work nights only) I'm struggling to not tell you all about what a night owl I am but if you've been following along, you know that I have been doing a variation of this challenge for quite some time. I had some success with getting to bed on time last challenge, so I want to accompany the brute force mechanic of making myself go to bed with some mental work: I am a morning person! I love mornings! I get everything done in the morning! (I feel like a fake peppy sales person right now but I'm going to get there, dammit.) Quest #3: Go for a 10 minute walk three days a week. Sure, it doesn't sound like much. But I've been keeping my head down at work and not getting up enough. Taking a 10 minute break to stretch my legs and get sunshine will only help my mental health and physical health both. I don't want to feel bad if I miss a day here and there, I want to feel like I killed it! Quest #4: Spend 15 minutes a day on a project before 9 pm (5 days per week). So, all these quests to finish something...the scary ones are under career and dance as those are projects I've been carrying with me for WAY WAY too long. There are obviously blocks on these tasks in my mind--I think I will need to apply some classic NF Mindset techniques to get through them. I am also wary of taking on too much at a single time, so I'm going to use the snowball method on these babies. The poetry kickstarter is easiest for me so I'm going to get that done and use the momentum from it to move forward. First that means I'll use the bulk of these 15 minutes times for the Kickstarter for my poems. If I manage to get that done by the time this challenge is over, I'll switch to the dance kickstarter (I swear my whole life isn't kickstarters). Then the sports cards. But I am sure I'll also want to work on some of these other projects (e.g. She Should Run, reading, Phew. When I successfully finish this challenge, that will be three in a row--which means I get to complete another NF quest!