As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been giving a lot of thought about making some major changes in my life. Part of that comes from the realization that I’m only 2.5 years away from turning …. 50! OMG, how the hell did THAT happen?!! There’s just something about realizing you’re in the second half of your life that provides the motivation to do things I should have done years ago.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past week thinking about what I want to accomplish, what I need to do in order to reach my goals, and the time frame for meeting said goals. I’ve decided to incorporate the same method my advisor at school uses for my degree program. When we speak on the phone every other week, he gives me two small goals to work on until our next phone call. Breaking things down into these small goals not only helps keep me from being overwhelmed, but makes the tasks more manageable.
With that in mind, I’ve come up with Operation Facing Fifty (OFF). I’ve set three major goals for myself that I want to accomplish by my 50th birthday. Since only one of these goals is health/fitness-related, I’m just considering these general life goals rather than weight loss journey goals. Here they are:
- Lose 100 pounds. This doesn’t include the weight I’ve already lost. This will be an additional 100 pounds from today.
- Earn my B.S. in Information Technology. This should actually be accomplished next year, if all goes well. I plan to immediately start my M.B.A. in Information Technology Management upon completion of my B.S., but I don’t think there’s any way I can finish both by the time I turn 50. I would like to completely my MBA before I turn 51 though, if possible.
- Pay off my credit cards. I was debt-free up until about 5 years ago, but then I gradually let balances start accumulating on my cards. This was mostly due to traveling, which I don’t regret one little bit, but it’s time to get them paid off and get back to being debt-free.
In keeping with my idea of breaking these goals down into smaller units, I’ll be setting monthly goals for each one until they are each accomplished. I have 30.5 months until I turn 50, so that gives me some good chunks of time to work on smaller short-term goals toward the overall larger goals. Here are my kick-off goals for August:
- Lose 5 pounds.
- Take the final for my management class at school and get it knocked out of the way. (Scheduled for 11am on Aug. 5)
- Create a credit card snowball spreadsheet and work toward paying off the card with the lowest balance.
I also have some other shorter-term life goals that I want to work on as well. They all have to do with having too much “stuff” in my home. I would by no means consider myself a hoarder, but I just have stuff that I need to get either organize or just get rid of completely. I actually hope to accomplish all of these by the end of 2011. Here are those goals:
- Unpack boxes. I need to go through the boxes in my spare bedroom that haven’t been unpacked yet since I moved … 11 months ago! Seriously, if it’s not a book and I’ve haven’t used it in 11 months, I probably don’t need it.
- Purge my book collection. Speaking of books, I definitely need to trim down my collection. I have Kindle versions now of many of the classic books I have owned for years. My plan is to donate the physical books to the library or to Goodwill. I also need to seriously trim down my cookbook collection. I pretty much cook from the same 5 or 6 cookbooks all the time, so I could easily get rid of some of the others I don’t use any longer. I probably have at least 50-60 cookbooks total.
- Organize & purge my stitching stash. I literally have hundreds of cross stitch patterns in my collection, many of which I know I’ll never get around to actually stitching. I want to go through all my charts with a very serious eye and keep only those patterns I truly love and definitely want to stitch. The rest will either be listed on the Bay of Evil (eBay,) given away, or donated.
- Purge my closet. I have clothes in my closet ranging from size 26/28 all the way down to a size 14/16. Yes, that’s been my weight gain history over the past 6-7 years. I kept holding on to the smaller sizes with the intention of losing the weight and getting back into them, but my closet is just completely out of control at this point. I know this seems counter-intuitive to get rid of clothes given my earlier goal of losing 100 pounds, but I just can’t keep holding on to them. Given how styles have I’ve aged and styles have changed over the past 7 years as well, I would likely end up just getting new clothes anyway when I’m into those sizes again, so it doesn’t make sense to keep holding on to them. The only exceptions will probably be a couple of my formal dresses that are classic styles and can easily be worn still, but all the jeans and casual tops need to go!
So, there you have it. That’ s my action plan for getting my life on track for facing 50. I hope you’ll all stick around over the next couple of years to cheer me on and hold me accountable on my goals.
As for the letting go of the emotional things from my past, I’ll likely be shopping for a therapist soon, too. Therapy was a great help to me in the past when I was dealing with some childhood traumas, so I know it would help me again in dealing with more recent issues as well.
Until next time …
I stitched a summer pinkeep for 
The sad part is that I know my time available for stitching is about to get drastically reduced, too.
I dropped out of college at the start of my senior year back when I was 21 years old. I said I was just going to take a couple of quarters off, but somehow that mushroomed into taking 25 years off. 
One of my biggest regrets in life has always been not finishing my degree, so now I’m going to remedy that. In fact, my plan is to finish my Bachelors as quickly as possible and then go immediately into a Masters program. 
