2022 Week 4/52: Sukey Novogratz & Meditation

Hi everyone! Time for Goal Check Sunday Week 4/52! 😃 The phrase I repeated most often to myself was, “Be consistent.” What was yours?

Goal #1: Manage My Eating Disorder

✅(1) Goal accomplished in eating between 1200 to 1700 calories during the hours of 7:00 AM and 7:00 PM for Week 4/52.

Goal #2: Become more organized starting Week 2/52

✅ (2) Goal accomplished in spending 15 to 30 minutes organizing every day using a timer for Week 4/52.

Playing this Instrumental Pop – Work Playlist | Productivity Music has helped me organize every day this past week! I’m not yet used to organizing daily, but every action I take is a vote for my new identity as an organized person.

Goal #3: Write consistently

✅(3) Goal accomplished in writing between 2 to 8 hours every day for Week 4/52. My dedicated time blocks and listening to lo-fi music when writing has kept me on track!

In Week 4/52, I felt that I really pushed myself on days when I delete pretty much all my writing because it’s terrible. But I continue because if I don’t push through, I’ll never get good.

Goal #4: Read books to gain knowledge and new perspectives

✅(4a) Goal accomplished in reading 30 minutes a day for 5 days for Week 4/52. I read James Clear’s Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.

When you have repeated a story to yourself for years, it is easy to slide into these mental grooves and accept them as a fact. In time, you begin to resist certain actions because “that’s not who I am.” There is internal pressure to maintain your self-image and behave in a way that is consistent with your beliefs.

James Clear, Atomic Habits

“I have a bad temper,” was something I used to believe was a core part of my identity. I did not realize that I was emulating my parents and relatives who have bad tempers.

I had to edit that belief when my father’s doctor diagnosed him with cerebellar ataxia and told me that it was best for him to live in a calm environment. From 2017 on, many friends would tell me I have a great temper, that I don’t get mad anymore really, and my tone of voice is on the gentler side.

Dear readers, do you have an identity you thought was an integral part of you until you realized it wasn’t?

🚧(4b) Goal in progress: I will summarize/review 6 books in 2022 and post them on this blog.

Book 1/6: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.

Goal #5: Improve my listening skills

✅(5a) Goal accomplished in listening to one Design Matters Podcast. This week, I listened to Debbie Millman interview Sukey Novogratz.

Look if you have a great diet and you exercise all the time, that’s fabulous. But if you don’t sit and detox your brain, you might as well sit on the couch and eat cheeseburgers. Because your mind can create so much toxicity, and that’s sort of what got me into thinking about meditation.

Sukey Novogratz, Design Matters with Debbie Millman

Thank you Sukey for sharing! Your words were the final push I needed to adopt meditation as part of my daily self-care system.

✅(5b) Every week, I will listen to one TED talk. This week I listened to My stroke of insight | Jill Bolte Taylor.

It is one of the top viewed TED talks and describes clearly what a stroke feels like and how her stroke helped her, a neuroanatomist, understand more about the brain.

Jill urges us to spend more time using the right side of our brain (the present moment, artistic, creative) because we can then project more peace into the world. She cautions that if we spend more time using the left side of our brain (logical, rational, calculating), we become more individualistic and put ourselves first instead of the world.

Goal #6: Emulate Krista Tippet’s (Winner of the National Humanities Medal, Peabody Awards, Webby Awards) way of speaking.

✅(6) Goal accomplished in emulating a sentence of Krista Tippet’s for Week 4/52 from this Design Matters Podcast.

Goal #7: Learn how to grow microgreens from Mark starting 6/1/2022 (Week 22/52)

🔜(7) Goal N/A for Week 4/52.

Goal #1: Maintain my mental and physical health

✅(1a) Goal accomplished in singing two positive songs and one song of my choice every day for Week 4/52.

✅(1b) Goal accomplished in meditating and practicing 25 minutes of yoga 5 to 7 days for Week 4/52.

🔜(1c) Goal N/A for lifting weights 3 to 5 days a week due to my stiff/sore neck.

It’s been around 8 weeks and my neck is still stiff/sore from my poor sleeping posture. Going forward, I will try my best to sleep on my back instead of my side or stomach.

✅(1d) Goal accomplished in doing a physical activity for Week 4/52.

✅(1e) Goal accomplished in sleeping before 11:30 PM every day for Week 4/52.

On Week 3/52, I wrote, “Going forward I’m not going to read in bed. I will greatly miss it, but right now I want to wake up feeling refreshed every morning even more.”

Currently, I realize I don’t want to give up reading in bed for 10 minutes before I fall asleep because I think coming across a novel like 流光之城 and reading it until 4 AM happens maybe every eight weeks. I can accept that frequency right now. But if it happens every 4 weeks, then maybe not.

Goal #2: Work on my marriage

✅(2a) Goal accomplished in continuing my weekly marriage meetings (#182), financial checkups, and date nights with Mark for Week 4/52.

Currently, I’m really happy that we’ve mostly successfully implemented not talking about his parents outside of a specifically designated time which is about 30 minutes a week usually for the past eight weeks.

✅(2b) Goal accomplished in helping Mark organize for 15-30 minutes every day this past week for Week 4/52.

Goal #3: Encourage my mom to expand her worldview starting Week 4/52

✅ (3a) Goal accomplished in teaching my mom English for Week 4/52.

I tested her on the spelling of the 100 most frequently used words in the English language that I taught her for the past 10 weeks, and she scored a 95%! I’m proud of her and starting next week, she’ll be moving on to the next 200 words.

My mom is not feeling optimistic that she will be able to have a simple conversation in English by the end of this year because she feels she still can’t speak English if she is not reading from the Weekly lesson I gave her. She forgets that at the start of 2021, she couldn’t read any English at all.

✅ (3b) Goal accomplished in practicing Senior Yoga with my mom.

We start with a 5-min meditation and then do about 20 minutes of stretching. She’s not yet a fan but feels very relaxed afterward.

✅ (3c) Goal accomplished in teaching my mom how to become more proficient at using her iPhone for Week 4/52.

I taught her how to use Voice Memos to aid her in practicing English.

Goal #4: Prioritize friendships

✅ (4a) Goal accomplished in meeting up with friends 1 to 3 times a month. I met up with Brink and Happy to finalize the details of the upcoming Lunar New Year Celebration.

✅(4b) Goal accomplished in chatting with 1 to 3 friends over the phone/zoom. I chatted with Super P, Monkey, and a Zoom Book Club Session for Week 4/52.

Goal #5: Remember my late father through cooking starting Week 9/52 on 3/3 (my father’s birthday).

🔜(5) Goal N/A of posting recipes on this site for Week 4/52.

Week 4/52 Goal Summary

✅Accomplished goals: 18

❌Goals not met: 0

🔜Goals N/A for Week 4/52: 3

🚧Goals in progress: 1

This week’s completion percentage: 100% (18/18)

Week 1/52 completion percentage: 91% (I missed the 5 to 7 days of mediation and practice 25 minutes of yoga goal)

Week 2/52 completion percentage: 100%

Week 3/52 completion percentage: 92.8% (I missed sleeping before 11:30 PM every day for Week 3 of 52 goal.)

Week 4/52 completion percentage: 100%

2022 Average completion percentage: 95.9%

Dear readers, how was your progression towards your 2022 goals? 😃