snowflake challenge - day thirteen - set some goals

[growlery]

content notes: some mild but potentially triggering talk for disordered eating

~

i have a whole bunch of these! it was just new year's, and i always get really into new year's resolutions because i love navel-gazing. most of these are more long-term, though? more places i want to direct my life towards than destinations i want to reach, i guess.

my biggest most important overarching goal is something i have called No Perfect, because tldr a bunch of personal shit perfectionism is my fatal flaw. accepting this about myself has already like, helped a whole bunch. realising how much of what i do and think is wrapped up in this?? mind-blowing, lemme tell you. therapy is wild.

so that's the big-un! i have some more directional goals:

• learn shit about plants. i cannot continue to aspire to plant parenthood knowing what little i know about plants. my mum is mega super extraordinary into gardening, and it's been real fun doing little bits with her and learning from her so. More Of That.


• figure out how to use my slow cooker. i got a slow-cooker for free from a lovely person on OLIO like two years ago? and i have never used it. my mum used it once when she was visiting. none of the things i know how to cook or enjoy eating involve a slow-cooker, but i want to find things that i do.
  
  i have saved a bunch of recipes. i have saved a bunch of recipes in general, i just haven't. set the time aside to try them. i hate cooking and don't enjoy eating it's hard to justify spending time on it to myself?? but, directional goal. i want to work on that.

i have some more, like. habits i would like to get into/build?

• swim regularly. i hate everything about exercise and exercising but i fucking love swimming and wanna do it more. half so people will get off my back about doing no exercise at all and half because i guess it'd be kinda nice to have some upper body strength and not get a stitch from walking too fast.
  
  also being in the water is super relaxing! i'd love to be one of those people who starts their day with a swim because tbh that sounds lovely and peaceful, but also i hate waking up. but maybe with something like that to look forward to it'd be easier! who knows. gotta think about how to make this habit happen.


• some kinda skincare routine. i used to hate putting shit on my face and so did no skincare at all except attacking spots with spot gel stuff. sometime in the last couple years i got kinda into it! i have a bunch of lush stuff i love and enjoy putting on myself. so.


• praying/spiritual activity. It's Complicated with religion, and i fell out of doing basically any of this, and i want to make it a regular part of my day. idk. spiritual feelings. that's a whole separate post i am Not going to do


• spending time with people. since i moved away from where i went to uni, most of my social stuff happens online, Which Is Fine, but i made the stunning realisation that seeing people i care about in person is good, actually.
  
  a problem i have is i make plans and end up cancelling the plans because of feeling bad, which is fine, but then i never reschedule the plans. which is unfortunate because if i made plans with that person i really wanted to spend time with them! and i'm not throwing that away exactly but i'm, like, letting something important go there. especially since knowing that i do this makes me reluctant to make plans in the first place, so i want to be better about this.


• eat regularly. sigh sigh how did i forget this at first. bad relationship with food + shitty appetite = hey have i eaten anything in the past 24 hours? i've set this as a goal in the past and tried to put parameters on it but quite honestly fuck that. it hasn't worked. it's probably made the experience more stressful. the goal is to eat regularly.

i have some destination-type goals too!

• learn arabic. a lifelong goal lmao. my dad is egyptian but never spoke arabic in the house, and i learnt some at sunday school but retained a pitiful amount, and i sporadically use memrise to like work on vocab. it's just gotta be something i put more effort into if i want to get it done, and i wanna Do That Thing this year.
  
  for something concrete: be able to carry a conversation and understand what other people are saying. i'm starting small.


• gm a tabletop rpg. i have a tenuous idea for a monster of the week campaign set in northern ireland w/ celtic mythology and i'd love to make it happen! just need to set the time aside to make it happen.


• work on web development. my webdev skills are Not Great, and javascript still massively confuses me; i want to change this. at work i use java and i've done a lot in python and i just wanna diversify a bit. also me and one of my friends had a genius idea for a website and have done nothing with it in... six months? so it'd be nice to be able to make that happen. also i've owned a domain name with my wallet name for literal years and done nothing with that either. SO.

Comments

[clachnaben]

these are good goals babe, and I think you think about them really well. directional goals! No Perfect is something I constantly have to beat myself over the head with, so we can be No Perfect buddies.

also, if you ever want to come to the Olympic pool and go swimming with me, that would be awesome. I found with skating the way to get into the "habit" was just do it whenever i found the time and energy, and then I found the time and energy for it slowly increased.

also if you figure out how to use a slow cooker let me know!! jack and I have had one for years (jack bought it completely on a whim??) and I think we use it once every six months max.

[growlery]

thanks babe ♥ how can we be No Perfect buddies tho when you're perfect.......

i keep telling myself i need to go because it's the olympic pool and it's right there. we should do this! i should have time and energy next week maybe?

i will share any and all knowledge i glean. maybe i'll do something with the recipes i have on pinterest, because that's maybe the worst platform to use for recipes but i do not know where else to look for them tbh.

[sylvaine]

Maybe useful: Make an Impromptu Slow Cooker Meal With This Basic Formula

Food is so HARD. I only got to where I am now with eating regularly because my work schedule is so regular and because I precook EVERYTHING, so it's less of a Daily Fucking Struggle.

Oh man, I should go back to memrise. I started trying to learn a bit of Arabic there but memrise it turns out really doesn't work for me for alphabets I need to learn.

[growlery]

printing this out immediately, thank you!!

yeah i can see it being not the greatest for learning an alphabet. i've found it useful for vocab but i rly need to work on grammar and like, constructing sentences, and literally everything else sigh.

[sylvaine]

Regarding apps more focused on "literally everything else", heh, my girlfriend recommended me Mango Languages some time ago - it was too involved for my tastes, but might work for you?

[growlery]

this looks super interesting, thank you for passing on the rec!

[sylvaine]

I'm looking at language apps myself atm and came across Beelinguapp, which also might suit your purposes? (Promise this is my last rec, I get overenthusiastic xD)

[growlery]

oh i've heard about that one, i should check it out.

recs are always appreciated thank you!!

[badfalcon]

Those are some awesome goals and it looks like you have steps in place to achieve them - good luck!

[growlery]

aww thank you!

[croissantkatie]

Oh god, I feel you on the No Perfect things so hard. I'm working on shifting how I view my work to being more like that, but it's hard. I think it'd be helpful to think like that with more things as well - but baby steps!

Ok, so, I've had 2 plants for years because my parents gave them to me and I remain very surprised I haven't killed them. But I really got into Having Plants when my housemate went away for 3 months and left me with all her plants (along with detailed instructions lol) and it was super nice? More plants 2k19.

Slow cookers are great! They just require, like, forethought? Which I'm not always great at. For some odd reason, there are 3 slow cookers in my house. I have a few slow cooker recipes which I use and really like - not sure if they'd be to your tastes, but always happy to share!

Ugh, swimming. I should really see about getting back into it. I loved swimming so much. But now I don't have a swimming costume and getting to a pool is complicated, and it all seems a bit too much effort. I have however started doing yoga semi-regularly! In large part to get people to fuck off when they tell me exercise will help me feel emotionally better. Fuck you, it's not a miracle cure (this is aimed at the world, not you obvs).

Good luck with everything darling! <3

[growlery]

No Perfect is hard, it's a whole reprogramming process. good luck with it!!

more plants 2k19 for sure. that's so good you've got this far!

aww i'd love to see your recipes babe, thank you!

not a miracle cure AT ALL, ugh, people can be so obnoxious about this. i'm glad you've found something that works for you, that's what matters ♥