I hope you had an awesome first week in meeting your goals through the Improve Yourself! 2010 challenge! If you are not already signed up for the challenge, you have unfortunately missed the deadline and won’t be eligible for the awesome prizes that are being given away this time around. However, I trust that these weekly posts will offer value to anyone looking to improve their life and their marriage, regardless of whether you are officially part of the contest.
If you are a participant, you must leave a comment below giving an update on your personal progress. Please do so by Tuesday, January 12th at 11:59 p.m. central time to be eligible for this week’s giveaway. If you are not signed up, feel free to leave a comment anyhow and give your thoughts on this week’s post or your own progress…you just won’t be winning any prizes.
Baby Steps are Huge
If you have heard of Dave Ramsey and his financial advice, you are certainly familiar with his Baby Steps for Financial Freedom. My wife and I followed this plan to pay off $58,500 in debt, and we continue to apply these principles in our family financial planning.
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The great thing about the “baby step” approach is that it is fully applicable to any area where you want to improve yourself and meet some big goals. Taking baby steps is simply the act of breaking down your overall goal into bite-sized chunks. We took the first step together by identifying our SMART Goals last week.
Each week of this challenge is another baby step in your journey of self-improvement. If your goals are fitness-related, it could be losing one pound, exercising three times this week, or even passing on dessert one evening. Don’t get overwhelmed and discouraged by a larger goal of losing 20 pounds. Just keeping baby-stepping your way toward success each day!
I look forward to hearing about the baby steps you have taken this week. Please leave a comment below letting us know what you did during Week 1 to better yourself.
This Week’s Awesome Prize
This week’s giveaway is a personal favorite of mine and a book that changed my family’s lives. If you want to get your finances in order, pay off debt and “change your family tree”, then you must read The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
by Dave Ramsey.
Just enter your weekly update in the comments below, and you’ll be eligible to win your own (gently-used) copy of The Total Money Makeover. Click the link above to read more about this best-selling book.
And please don’t forget that you must subscribe to Engaged Marriage via either RSS or Email to be eligible for prizes. There is a secret code at the bottom of the post (just above “Related Posts”) that is only visible if you read this post via an RSS reader or in your email. If you are selected but aren’t subscribed (you don’t know the code when I email you), the prize will instead to go the next person drawn.
Last Week’s Lucky Winners
There were three lucky winners in our big first-week kick-off celebration. Congratulations to:
Cassidy who won The Happiness Project
Krystal who won Unclutter Your Life in One Week
Laurie who won The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be
.
Thanks to This Week’s Awesome Sponsors!
The great prizes being given away throughout the challenge are only possible through the generous support of our sponsors. Please take a few minutes to visit this week’s sponsors and check out what they have to offer.
Budgets are Sexy is simply awesome. J. Money provides a site that is packed with really useful info about the world of personal finance, and he does it in his own (pimpin’) way. Entertaining and informative.
Enemy of Debt is the place to be if you want to get out of debt or simply celebrate the goodness that your debt-freedom has brought to your life. Brad is a passionate and informative resource offering a unique perspective on the personal finance scene.
Make Mine Happen “Stop Dreaming and Start Doing” by putting the motivational and informational posts at this site to work in your life!
MomStart is a fantastic resource created by a mother of two who provides an incredible amount of reviews, giveaways and writings related to all of the new things going on in the world of parenting.
That’s it from me for Week 2 of the challenge! Look for the Week 3 post next Sunday. Get your progress stated below, visit our sponsors and go take some more baby steps toward your goals!
Don’t miss the other Improve Yourself posts…here is a running list:
- Improve Yourself! 2010 Announcement. This is the place to start and sign-up by leaving a comment with your area of focus.
- The Prize List. This is where you’ll get the details about the awesome prizes and learn about our generous sponsors.
- Week 1: Set SMART Goals. Learn about smart goal-setting and leave your specific goals for the challenge in the comments.
- Week 2: Baby Step Your Way to Success. Learn how you can achieve any goal by breaking it down into small, easier-to-handle tasks.
- Week 3: Prioritize Your Time for Progress. Learn the importance of focusing on important, but not urgent, tasks to improve your life and achieve long-term effectiveness.
- Week 4: YOU are Responsible for Your Progress. Quit making excuses, take ownership for your results and do the work necessary to make your goals a reality.
- Week 5: Don’t Be Perfect, Be Remarkable! You do not need to be perfect, you simply need to be remarkable in what you do. Don’t you think you can be remarkable in the way your handle your finances? In your approach to fitness? In your marriage?
- Week 6: Stick With It! I applaud you for sticking with your commitment to yourself and your fellow challenge participants. You are now in the minority as we close in on the finish line. Don’t Quit!
- Week 7: Communicate for Success Communication is a certain key to success in nearly all aspects of life.
- Week 8: Don’t Accept Mediocrity! Always get better even if it’s only in small increments. Life is just too short to do otherwise.
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I’ll get things started. It was a tough first week overall in my fitness pursuits with long hours at work and lots of things going on in the evenings.
However, I did get 4 workouts in (3 on Wii Fit and one running around in the snow with my son), and I improved my eating habits. The net result was a loss of 2 lbs. for the week, which puts me on track to meet my goal!
I look forward to hearing from everyone about their progress during the first week of our challenge.
This week I menu planned, which really helped to keep us from going out to dinner each night. I just got home from grocery shopping for the coming week and saved $40 by using coupons and only buying stuff on sale. Yay! I am about to transfer the $250 into our house fund so I have fulfilled my goal for the week!
This week we came up with multiple plans – small steps to eating better/being healthier, outlining family goals & hopes for this year and reviewing our budget from last year while creating this years budget. I am very excited about 2010!
Definitely taking baby steps to getting debt free! Groceries came within $0.17 of budget – this could have been better but it seems many toiletries (soap, shampoo, etc) had been used up and needed to be replaced. We put aside about $60 into savings this week. This number would have been higher, but there was an unexpected bill.
I’m looking toward the future and continuing to do everything I can to save money and pay down debt.
Ok, so the fitness portion of my goal was good this week – even with the snow. I logged a total of five days of workouts (including spinning and bootcamp – glad to be back) and ran about 5 miles… no where close there to my goal of 10/week.
Now, the nutrition goal was decent – I found sparkpeople.com as a resource and I LOVE IT! It allows me to track both my nutrition and fitness each day and therefore I must add each thing I put into my mouth on the computer. This lovely function enabled me to see that I had a 1200 calorie dinner last night at the neighbors pot luck. Great. A little much.
Hmmm… shopping. Well I am a spender. I have no issues buying nice things but over the last several years I have learned that I need to control it. I like nice things but I do wait for sales (and yes, I most certainly have $200 shirts that I paid less that $40 for… that makes me smile). I decided this time I need to watch all of my spending. So – a trip to Old Navy this week left me with a few new (cute!) workout wear items and some things for my daughter. BUT – here is the good part, I put back two shirts for me, and three things for her and realized that I did not need them at all. I consider this progress – I usually would think “oh – its Old Navy and everything is cheap so I can buy it all!”. I also went to Shop n Save – and yes, I am a Dierbergs girl. Um… what the heck was I thinking? I am pretty sure I got twice as much stuff for half as much money and I was a HAPPY about that! All in all, I am being VERY aware of what I am spending. I even got offered another new online teaching gig so that will help and Oh! And I even raised our monthly Roth and SEP contributions so that was great!
Lastly, my relationship with God – well, Noelle (my 4 year old) and I had a great little conversation about how to pray and why and I am pretty sure God was liking that one 🙂 Yes, it was a pretty good week spiritually I would say. Looking forward to next week!
well, did not get in all my workouts this week, but did focus on eating better and lost 5 pounds, so i will not complain. hoping to work up to the daily workouts i am hoping for.
I’ve been studying every day! I’ve also started creating flashcards to help with the speed of my recall 🙂 Now I need to practice working on my oral presenting…
.-= SavingDiva´s last blog ..I want to be….a better housewife =-.
Well it was a decent first week for me. Week 1 of my workout plan consisted of 3 different days with some hard lifting, circuits, super sets, and core training. I got in 5 miles of cardio from running and the eliptical. So that almost went as planned.
The eating habits are better but not where they need to be. My meal choices have been better but I still struggled a couple nights from eating a little too much when I got home from the gig, from ordering pizza on the snow day, and my wife ordering Chinese for dinner. I dropped only one pound. I do know that the weight training doesn’t help me drop weight in the first week or so but I know that I should get there.
Cheers to a better week 2!
I did pretty well this week with my new way of eating. I started the Paleo diet. I didn’t do quite as well with my fitness goals. I went running twice, and went on 3 walks this week. Overall I lost 2 lbs this week so I’m on track for loosing the weight I wanted. This week I’m going to give more effort into getting my workouts in. Hope everyone had a great week!
Mad lunches this week instead of buying out and no ordering pizza so was able to put $50 toward the debt payoff.
I did better than I thought I would, but still wish I had done somewhat better. I created a list that is mostly complete for the things that need to be completed and managed to figure out the approximate times for most things on my list. I’m fairly sure there are things I’ve forgotten but I can add them as I remember them. I also am just start classes up again tomorrow so I have no put the estimated time for the homework for those yet because I’m not completely sure what each classes assignments will look like.
By the end of this next week I will have finished the list I began and have most (hopefully all) of my daily schedules written out so I can begin the slow process of implementing and tweaking them so they actually work. Ideally these schedules will be easy to adjust over the long term as well when my own classes change and when I start home schooling my oldest this fall. I am also going to do my best to leave some flexibility, plan for everything (especially things with the children) to take a little longer, and leave time for me to enjoy my own hobbies since I often find my “fun” stuff gets dropped to the side much too frequently.
.-= Cassidy´s last blog ..The Praying Dad’s Intro =-.
This week did not go as planned for me at all. I had created my To DO list, with what were reasonable expectation – assuming I was fine health wise. I had a bit of a complication with my pregnancy, and was told to sit down and rest for 3 days – this made it very difficult to get things accomplished. I did modify my goals for the week, and I accomplished about 80% of them, which isn’t too bad for a first attempt during a stressful week. Next week, I’m going to be focusing on trying to accomplish my list by delegating more of the tasks I’m unable to do. Hopefully, this week will go smoother. 🙂
Week 1: Variance is supposed to be under 6% and this week it was 2.6%. However you have to understand the way my budget works in order to understand that this week was easy and next week will be harder. My spreadsheet includes bi-weekly “holding tanks” for expenses. My entertainment holding tank is already half empty so that’s going to mean that we need to watch that expense so we don’t go over. Haven’t gone grocery shopping yet so I’m about to drain that holding tank tomorrow and try to remain within budget. My “MISC” holding tank is the one I’m really trying to watch, but in order to keep it under control I need to keep my other items within their boundaries as well.
I could have gotten totally derailed this week with unanticipated child care expenses. Before he starts daycare on Tuesday, Hudson needed several items to take to the daycare such as a stash of diapers, wipes, changes of clothes, pacifiers, bottles, etc. Luckily I had leftover gift cards for that!
PS, I know that the budget is my only official goal but I also worked out 5x this week AND went to church. Booya!
I learned two important things this week:
1. Why I don’t like being told how to do things.
2. One of the very reasons I love my husband is also one of the reasons he makes me crazy.
We had a totally unplanned converstation about why I don’t like for him to tell me how to do things and the conclusion we both came to is that I have always been a self-learner. Clear back to childhood I learned best when I learned things for myself. For example, I taught myself how to read the bible…out of the blue during our family bible study I offered to look up a scripture and read it. I also taught myself how to cook. Mom tried, but I hated being told how to do things, so she quickly gave up and let me figure things out for myself. To this day at work I would rather read a procedure document and give it a go myself rather than have someone show me how. My husband and I came to the conclusion that if it is not imperative that something be done right the first time or be done a certain way then letting me just figure it out for myself may be the best option. It may take me longer but I tend to learn best when I can make it work or make mistakes for myself. This is not an excuse…I know that I still need to work on not reacting in anger when he does help me or give me directions/advice.
Second I feel like I had a bit of a revelation when we were at his sisters this week. He was teaching his 8 year old niece how to play a wii game and I realized that one of the reasons I fell in love with him was his ability to teach kids new things. He is so good at explaining things in a way they will understand and he knows how to give simple/age appropriate answers to complicated questions. I love that about him and it is one of the things that will make him a great Dad. It is not fair for me to expect him to just turn off one of his great qualities. I don’t want him to have to feel like he has to be two different people. How I went from loving his teaching ability to really not liking it at all I don’t know, but I want to get back to loving him for it and not getting irritated with him when he tries to teach me new things, or new ways to do old things.
Knowing that I actually love the very thing that sometimes makes me crazy has already made it easier for me to be kind when responding to my husband.
This week I had a coaching session with a speaking coach here in San Diego. It went very well as we connected about what I would like to be able to achieve as a motivational messenger. I signed up with him to begin a 6 week coaching session.
Here’s the bad news. Last night after much prayer and conversations with my wife I decided to put it on hold. There is a lot on my plate and to add this would not result in the desired outcome. Even though I’m not working with him I do plan to develop my messages over these next 6 weeks with the intention of picking up with him in March or April.
.-= Tony´s last blog ..Debt Sucks! =-.
For week one I di work out 3 times. I swam 40 laps, got on an eliptical machine (about killed me)for 20 minutes and walked. I want to make the specificis of my walking goal to be to walk my path 3 times in 30 minutes.
For eating, I did better the first part of the week than the last. I ate my veggies and drank my water the first 4 days, but not enough the last four days. I need to figure out how to eat more veggies when I’m out of the house all day and relying on restaurant food.
My bonus of reading scripture didn’t go so well, only about 20 minutes instead of the hour I wanted.
This week my baby step will be to take a fruit/veggie snack with me on my days in town.
I did reasonably well this week, getting more out of my time. I started off weak but finished off fairly strong. I did what I said I would: made a list each morning of things to do, set my timer to keep me on track, and ended off the week having written one story and three blog posts. I hope I continue to get better!
Setting goals like this has proven to be pretty helpful for me already!
.-= Kathleen Quiring´s last blog ..Of Couches and Christmas Trees. Or, My Husband’s Stupid Mouth =-.
The first week of the challenge was personally very challenging. My mom had a sudden hospitalization (she’s doing much better) and for a few days we didn’t know what caused the problem. I still was able to stay on my food plan and lose two pounds. Eight to go for my challenge goal!
.-= Bucksome´s last blog ..My Phone is Smart =-.
I am a little bummed that I did not make my fitness goal of working out 4 times this week. Things were just a bit more hectic than I anticipated and I blame part of it on lack of motivation. This week I hope to jump start first thing in the morning so I hope all goes well. Here’s to a better week!
(muttering) Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps. I think I was trying for Giant Steps as I didn’t hit my goals for the week. One was to exercise for 40 minutes, for at least 4 days. And I walked in the frigid cold yesterday afternoon with oldest daughter for 55 minutes! Also hit the streets Saturday night for 30 minutes and stair stepped it at home for 10 minutes. Did a 40 minute walk Thursday night. That’s 3 solid exercising days. But fell short. Cutting out snacks was a total failure. I did well only 2 days. So, my plan is to polish up an apple to set on the coffee table each evening. It’ll be in my face, I’ll surely not grab cookies or candy, right? The other thing to do is to brush my teeth after dinner and to drink hot decaf tea if I feel like munching. I know I’ll hit my exercising goals for the week. Just gotta do it.
***and again, psyched up on winning the book!!!***
Hello all. It’s neat reading about your goals, meeting them, and the challenges. I feel my goal is very similar to Danielle’s. I’ve pledged to lose 8 pounds in 8 weeks. I am well on track and have lost 4 pounds. I did not specify how I would lose weight. I did not promise to work out a certain number of times each week–I am more of an outdoors girl, and the weather just got above freezing today for the first time in weeks!! So, I have not been exercising very much–we do have some indoor equipment.
But, I have done some simple things. I drink more ice water. I drink hot green tea–no sugar. I eat smaller more frequent meals. I breastfeed my little girl, who is 17 mos. old at least 4-5 times a day. In addition to that, I’ve been pumping for about a week, enough to add to her oatmeal.
Speaking of financial freedom, I’ve been reading an interesting book called “Affluenza”. We’ve decided to simplify our lives even more and settle for less. My husband and I decided not to build an addition onto our 1100 sq. foot house, in the hopes that he will be able to get this job in the next couple of years that will pay him about $15000 more every year than he currently makes. We would like to use that extra money every year to pay off our house in about 5 or 6 years. Then, he is thinking early retirement!! He is a sculptor and has a studio here at home where he can work. We also are very much into small farming. So, between helping with kids and my job (we would be able to live off of my income after our house is paid off), helping on our “farm”, and making sculpture, I believe he and all of the rest of us would be very happy!!
Overall, my first week went well. I started Weight Watchers Online, which helps me track everything that I eat. I think this helps me immensely. I logged 2 cardio workouts this week. My goal is three, but meeting my goal for workouts is in the works for week two. I lost 4 pounds in week one. I am definitely on track for meeting my goals, but I know I could do better in terms of workouts. Baby steps…
This week has been great. I am really excited my wife and I started a new diet and it seems to be having us going in the right direction! A few pounds lost. We also put away our credit cards and are using debit to help get us paying off our debt. Pump!!!
So, this week went well overall. I am glad the notes were on babysteps, sometimes I forget this key. I missed 2 of my workouts being snowed into the new neighborhood, but started this week out right. As far as my diet, I did well overall. I did slip once, but instead of giving up on the whole day I got back on track. I lost 1 pound and I am pretty satisfied with that. I think with continued persistence I will see more weight loss next week!!
I personally struggled a bit this week myself, mostly because to start things off I developed a 24 hour stomach bug. The bad part of it was over after only 24 hours but it left a feeling of uncertainty when it came to eating anything for the next 3 days out of fear of vomiting again. Haha! Needless to say when I could eat, I ATE! (Let me have it Dustin, even though you already did.) I did manage to lose 4 pounds amazingly enough. I did good the rest of the week. 🙂
I definitely drank more water, got a little more exercise but was unsatisfied with my progress as a whole. This week I will meet my exercise goals, my daily water intake goals, as well as cutting way back on the diet sodas and salt consumption.
During this 8 weeks I really want to focus on changing my behaviors and build new habits in the process.
I am excited for week two! LET’S GET IT ON!
.-= Brad´s last blog ..In Order To Succeed Financially, You Must Redefine The Word “Deal” =-.
I worked hard this week on my goal! I wrote approximately 1,500 words when all was said and done and did a preliminary edit of my manuscript. The story itself is complete, now to work on – and finish – the short story that will accompany it. The prospect of starting a query letter is still intimidating, but still a goal! This week, I will complete the short story and do a secondary edit, before emailing it to my editor (a friend of mine in journalism whose imput I value) for some feedback! I’ll leave the publication stuff for another week! 🙂
Congrats on the newest addition! Prayers coming your way for your family! 🙂
I struggled last week and accomplished only about half my goals. You can read the details on my website: http://mydoodlebop.com/2010/01/12/improve-yourself-challenge-week-1-update/
The hardest was the Weight goal; I did ok with my caloric intake but terrible with my exercise. I was, however, successful with my marriage goal and am well on my way to my FB Fan goal.
Hey fellow Challenge participants! You can help me reach my FB Fan goal by becoming my fan: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Franklin-TN/My-Hands-Are-Clean-Are-Yours/322428850149
THANKS! 🙂
.-= Kristin Gentry´s last blog ..Improve Yourself Challenge: Week 1 Update =-.
I made some improvements to myself as a mom this week, for sure. This challenge has me thinking of ways to be better. I LOVE that!
Here’s the long version, the post in my blog:
http://musingsfrommomschool.blogspot.com/2010/01/improve-yourself-2010-update.html
In a nutshell, I:
Enforced Wii screen time, even though it was difficult. (Getting down on the floor and actually PLAYING helped a lot)
Read more books to my boys.
Kept my cool more often when I just wanted to blow up.
Focused on making and serving healthier meals for my family.
Didn’t stress out getting ready for church on Sunday.
Attempted to get more sleep, despite a HUGE sleep challenge going on with the baby.
Looking forward to doing even better in Week 2!
.-= Krystal´s last blog ..Improve Yourself 2010 update =-.
Baby steps. Baby steps. Ever seen that movie “What About Bob?” where Bill Murray’s character “baby steps” around his shrink’s office? It seems that is the way to go! FLYlady encourages baby steps and I’ve been doing pretty well with her “system” for several years now.
Ugh, set backs this week though. Sinus infection (out of work 2 days), new promotion, new free lance project, mom’s birthday, grandpa’s birthday, bro-in-law’s birthday, niece’s birthday, and a baby shower @ work! These led to less “free” time, less energy, and more spending than I had anticipated (I HATE when I forget birthdays). However, I did download our checking account transactions & bill calendar so I have something “in hand” to use for discussion.
My baby step this week will be to chart our spending so I can have some hard evidence (gulp) on where we’re spending money & what we can do to cut back. I know this will be a major gut check for me. The good news is we have NO credit cards, so anything we’ve spent hasn’t increased our debt…just decreased our wealth.
Any tips on how to start the conversation with my husband? I am HORRIBLE at bringing up important topics because I hate fighting & will avoid even the possibility of an argument at all costs (meaning I am very bad at speaking up).
.-= Ellyn´s last blog ..Pocket Diapers for Sale =-.
The first week is always tough. The good thing is that I got a new toy to help with my fitness and weight loss goal. My new toy is called Fitbit. You can track your calories eaten, calories used through the activity in your day, track the number of steps throughout your day and even track how well you sleep at night. No weight loss to report this week, but the Fitbit is making more aware of the need to be more active everyday.
I completed two of my four planned workout last week. Getting back into the groove is proving to be more difficult than I thought. That being said, I did drop a couple of lbs and 7/10 of a percent body fat, which puts me on a great start to meet my goal. Although, I do feel like I have a bit of an advantage because I have an at home support system (my wife is participating in the challenge too).
I didn’t get into the swing of things until Friday, but have completed a chapter a day every day since (8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 tonight). Hopefully I’ll go 7 for 7 the coming week, though finding the 45-60 minutes to do this every day is requiring a certain of amount of commitment and self-discipline 🙂
Tim
Here were my SMART goals from week one:
“I obviously would like to boost my Facebook page fans, boost my Twitter followers, get more folks to my blog and my Portland Infidelity Examiner page by:
1) Thank everyone who fans on FB or follows on Twitter–each day.
2) Make one blog post, one Examiner.com post, and at least three FB/Twitter posts every day”
The good news is that I have 22 FB fans (up from about 9), and 140 Twitter followers (again up from about 100 I think). My blog readers and Portland Infidelity Examiner readers are also growing–slowly but steadily and to a good, targeted audience.
1) I have thanked any new fan or follower the day after they signed up.
2) I did make one blog post, two Examiner posts, and FB/twittered every day. In addition, I’m on Reddit, Digg, and Delicious now! So GO TEAM AFFAIRCARE!
SMART goals for my second topic: “Also obviously I am very pro-marriage and have a Dear Hubby with whom I want to have an EXTRAORDINARY marriage! So I want to set concrete goals for my marriage too!
1) Read the bible and do our bible study with Dear Hubby every day at dinner time.
2) Do the thing on the Romance Calendar for him every day.”
1) I’m happy to say that we have kept up with our bible study every day at dinner time, weekends included. We are reading 4 chapters a day, discussing them, and then reading a devotional, so a few more weeks and it will be a habit! YAY!
2) To be honest I haven’t done this every day. Funny isn’t it that I write as if I’m an expert on infidelity and making a marriage “affair-free” but that’s the one I don’t do? This week, I’ll be concentrating on THIS one and it will be 100% next time.
.-= Cindy Taylor´s last blog ..Can Infidelity Really Be "Cured?" =-.
Ok, sorry I’m late to the party. Better late than never though.
Week one update:
I was just barely able to get my 3 problem solving forms completed with my team. I say barely because we just finished our third one 3 minutes ago. It was a huge struggle because of some many other issues we had to deal with this week. I was able to begin my training/coaching of the team on our problem solving process. I will have to ramp it up next week to get everything completed and get the team to preform the process on their own.
Looking through the comments, I see every is running into issues. BUT nobody is letting the issue stop them. GREAT JOB everyone. Only 7 more weeks 🙂
Jeff
.-= Jeff´s last blog ..Frugal Friday Tip – Soda Pop =-.
Anniversary dinner went well
missed the hour together and hour personal time . STS & love letter both 3x. Decent starting point.