Whew, I have been waiting to make this post since March. A time when we can take a look back together on the bigger picture. I remember writing many, many times that I have felt like I have been floundering over the past few months. Times where I didn’t see much progress, times where I don’t feel motivated. To be honest, I’m not feeling motivated as I write this. I’m in a lull and I’ve been learning to work through that. One of the things I’ve tried is to say confidently on this blog that I will redouble my efforts. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t work.
I have been getting to know myself more as I continue to write this blog. I’m going to try two new things in this post to help motivate myself. One, review my progress. Hopefully that will be motivating in that: I can accomplish something so it will give me confidence, or I have a lot to still work on so it will give me urgency. Let’s see which one it will be.
Weight Update
There are a lot of things I can take away from this graph. One, is that I lost 15 pounds this year. This was from a combination of more exercise and eating healthier. I think an important thing for me was to learn that even taking one extra step, if you take that step every day, can be meaningful. I didn’t scrap my entire lifestyle and live at the gym, nor did I make myself eat chicken and broccoli every day. I chose methods that were healthier than what I was doing before, and were methods that I still enjoyed. Even when I broke my routine, I looked for ways to mitigate that. Can’t go to the gym? Just do some pushups. Do something, anything. It all adds up.
Another thing I can take away from this is that I’m still young. I can still lose weight relatively easily. I didn’t need to make drastic changes to see a drastic impact. This is a good thing right now but I’m not so sure it was good for my mental fortitude. If this journey was much more difficult, I wonder how I would have stood up. I think I would be just as proud of losing five pounds by now, but what if I was still the same weight as the beginning of the year? Things have come relatively easily to me my whole life but a few things have not. Those things I give up on but those are probably the things I should’ve fought harder for. I want to learn how to fight harder.
Budget Update
This is what Mint says I spent on Restaurants, Groceries, Fast Food, and Coffee Shops in the first six months of 2019. About $1000 a month if you average everything out. That’s 25% above my goal of $800 a month, but I know I have been struggling here so seeing that I’ve only been failing mildly is a relief. Let’s compare it to 2018 to make myself feel even better.
2018 was when I wasn’t even trying. I cut my spending by 30% with my buying groceries thing. It works! I saved $2500 theoretical monies~ June appears to be a month where I just go insane each year. Again, there’s a lot to work on here but maybe looking at what it could have been can be motivating as well. I’m not able to change my lifestyle drastically, but these small steps…they’re getting me somewhere.
Accomplishments In June
- Finish reading Grit by Angela Duckworth
- Finished reading The Neuroscientist who Lost her Mind by Barbara K. Lipska
Failures in June
- I stopped recording my data for the first time this year! I have almost no weight, exercise, sleep, or spending data from the last week of June (hence no post!) Life got in in the way or something….
- I 0-2 flopped out of my first Grand Prix event. My sealed pool was mediocre I think but I didn’t built it well either. Moreover, I played extremely poorly. I think a lot of it was being unfamiliar with what was going on at a big event. Oh well, I drafted for the rest of the day and got some good wins in.
Surprises in June
- Somehow, I got married a month after my engagement. It’s been a whirlwind adventure so far~
- How I’ve been enjoying and wanting to interact with Magic has continuously changed in the three months I’ve been back. I’ve gone from wanting to buy cards to build constructed decks to playing on limited and drafting. Then I wanted to invest in sealed product as Collectible asset class and then go the total opposite way and buy ambiguous lots to treasure hunt. I still haven’t decided on anything concrete.
Moving Forward
- I need some goals, damnit. I’ve just been messing around aimlessly for the past two months.
- Goal one: I’m going to take the Udemy Deep Learning course to prep for the start of my master’s in the fall.
- Goal two: I’m going to go through lecture slide from a statistics pre-req course to prep for the start of my master’s in the fall.
- Goal three: I’m going to use what will hopefully be my study schedule for my master’s course. Tuesday: 7 – 10 PM, Thursday: 7 – 10 PM, Sunday 9 AM – 1 PM (is 10 hours a week gonna be enough?)
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