February Goals

 In my last post I wrote about how many New Year’s Resolutions just aren’t sustainable. I also gave my solution to the typical New Year’s Resolutions, a 30 day or one month resolution. So here it is, my goals that I have set for myself for the month of February. 

For me, February is going to be about setting a baseline. I know it seems like it is a bit nonsensical. Why didn’t I do this in January? After all that is the first month of the year. Well, to be honest, I just never thought about it before now. So how am I going to establish my baseline. I have set myself three goals related to that, and one other goal. 

Goal #1: I have to fix part of my diet. What that means is that I am going to go through February with no candy and no desserts. I am a huge dopamine addict, specifically when it comes to anything sugar related. I could be driving home from work and knowing a convenience store is coming up decide that I want a candy bar. And when I go into said convenience store decide: Hell, I’m in here and  I can’t decide between Peanut M&Ms and a Snickers Bar, so I’m just going to get both. And not just the normal size portion, but the “Share Size” (for which there is no one to share it with, so I end up eating them all myself.) 

This will get my diet back to a baseline, and reset that. From there I will be able to tweak my nutrition and make better choices based on what my body needs. Which brings me to:

Goal #2: I am going to start quantifying my health more than ever before. I will make a doctors appointment so that I can get some blood work done. This will establish a baseline for me to know where and how much I need to improve my health. The doctor will also be able to tell me basic things like my blood pressure. 

With this information and doctors recommendations I can then try different things to improve my “levels”. The goal here is to try to avoid medication, not start medicating for the rest of my life. I want to know if there are certain foods or supplements that I will help me, or if there are truly things that can only be fixed with medication.

Goal #3: This is more of a challenge, and isn’t really recommended by anyone who knows anything about fitness, but I want to exercise every day for the 28 days in February. I am doing this so that exercise becomes more of the normal instead of the exception. I want to develop the discipline to get off my ass everyday and do something to further my fitness. 

Don’t get me wrong, I know that recovery is just as important as movement, so I am not going to be burning it down every day. Exercise can mean anything that is movement for movement sake. It could be a daily gym session, it could be a ruck up the street and back, it could be a walk to start the day, it could be downhill skiing. My point is that I want to do something that involves movement for movement sake every day in February. 

Goal #4: One of the year long goals that I set for myself was to read at least 12 books in 2025. I just finished my first book, Discipline is Destiny, by Ryan Holiday. I read the first book in the series, Courage is Calling, in December, and I have the third book in the series, Right Thing, Right Now, but I feel like I want to get away from reading about stoic philosophy for a month. 

Therefore, my book for February is The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self, by Michael Easter. I have heard a lot of good things about this book and keep hearing it quoted in podcast, and reading quotes from it, so I figured I would see what the hype is about. 

So that is what I am doing in February, getting back to my baseline and establishing what that baseline is so that I can move forward. What are your goals for the month of February? Are you still sticking to your New Year’s Resolutions?

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