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Set your goals - make the plans - artfully create your life - live it beautifully. Grab the good chocolate and find your muse.

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Home » goal setting

3 Things to Learn From Your Friend’s Weight Loss Journey

August 22, 2019 6 Comments

3 Things to Learn From Your Friend’s Weight Loss Journey {& How You Can Apply It to Your Own Goals}

3 Things to Learn From Friend's Weight Loss Journey | ChocolateMusings.com #weightloss #motivation #learnfromothers #habits

Here are 3 ways you can learn from your friend’s weight loss journey. Well, these are ways that I’ve learned from my friend’s experience. I hope by sharing what I’ve learned, you will find some motivation to tackle a big, looming goal in your life, whether it’s weight loss or not. I believe we can all learn from our friends. Here’s what I’ve learned (so far) from my friend’s weight loss journey.

Use a Fresh Start to Make a Fresh Start 

Do you find it harder to focus on your health goals in the summer? I do. Usually, I take summertime as an excuse to do what I want without regards to previous set goals. With the dawn of a new schedule due to school back in, I want to refocus my efforts.

To succeed, I need to make fitness & weight loss a habit and learn a few things from my friend’s journeys in the meantime.

Learn From Friend's Weight Loss - share | ChocolateMusings.com #goals #weightloss #sharing

Motivation From Others

Creating a healthy habit takes time and sometimes, a great example. My friend, Ani, over at allthatlifestuff.com didn’t let down her guard over the summer, and her motivation and focus are really inspiring! I signed up for the program she’s on (even though I’ve done it in the past) and used some of her techniques to change my daily eating regimen.

She’s using a point system and tries to find meals or food that cost 0 points. If you get used to eating the foods that are lower points and you’ll have better success.

What I’ve Learned From My Friend’s Weight Loss: Share With Others

Sharing is HARD!

One of the hardest things for me to do (and I learned to gain confidence because of my friend) is to share. Sharing this very personal part of my life is oh-so difficult. I hope that by me sharing, I am passing on the goodness I’ve learned from my friend’s weight loss journey and give you whatever motivation you need to take on a big goal in your life.

Train your mind and create a weight loss habit, and you’ll succeed over time. I’ve always tried to find a way to cheat in the past. My mindset would revert to “what can I get away with?” Don’t make an exception. Decide if you want it or not. If you do, then do it.

Things to Learn From Friend’s Weight Loss: Don’t Try to Make an Exception Out of Everything.

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Learn From Friend's Weight Loss Journal Prompt | ChocolateMusings.com #journalprompt #journaling

Do you have a goal in your life where your mindset works against your progress? (Not Necessarily Weight Loss)

Learn From Friend's Weight Loss - Focus  | ChocolateMusings.com #goals #weightloss #focus

Change of Ideals & Focus

After reading Ani’s blog posts, I didn’t want to get away with anything anymore. 17 days in, and I’ve successfully been below my point allotment every single day. Even the day that my boss made me Key Lime Pie for my birthday and I had a huge slice. I’m down 10+ lbs and excited for more.

On the day that I had the pie, I didn’t want to eat it (it was my 4th day in), but I didn’t want to be rude. So I figured out the points and knew what I had left to spend for the day, and I adjusted. I find that when I’m required to be too rigid, I usually snap.

Things to Learn From Friend’s Weight Loss: Focus

Learn From Friend's Weight Loss- No Excuses  | ChocolateMusings.com #goals #weightloss #noexcuses

Past Programs – Past Experience

I couldn’t bring myself to do Whole30 again after I successfully completed 30 days because I felt like I was depriving myself and tried to rationalize the choices I was making.

Any time I start rationalizing, I know it’s not going to last very long. At the end of two weeks for many diets or programs is when most people face their demons – do they want to continue or not? I don’t feel any demons, at least, not yet.

Things to Learn From Friend’s Weight Loss: Don’t Make Excuses!

Learn & Build

But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t learn from that experience. Many of the techniques, recipes, and foods I found work really well for my current project. Do you believe that any single diet or regimen is the answer? I think I’ve finally discovered that isn’t the case. I like to take ‘truths’ from different sources and put them together to make the result that will form a habit. To make something that ‘sticks’ in the end.

What I’ve Learned from My Friend’s Weight Loss Journey (So Far):

  • Share it with others to push yourself forward & they will motivate you in return
  • Focus on your goal
  • Don’t see what you can ‘get away with,’ instead see how you can make the program (or schedule) work for you.

Do something every single day that reminds you of your big goal. Track your progress, create a habit in your life.

Choose someone in your life you can trust, and share your goal. Do not make exceptions for yourself.

You are the one who set this goal, so don’t act like someone else is forcing you to do it. Don’t try and ‘get away with decisions’. As I learned from my experience with Whole30, healthy living is a choice. Make your choice be to succeed with your goal.

This is what I learned from my friend’s weight loss journey. Leave me a comment of something you learned from your friends.

Learn From Friend's Weight Loss - Journal Prompt | ChocolateMusings.com #journalprompt #journaling

What goal are you working towards? Which family/friends will support you? Choose one (or several) to tell about your big goal. What small step can you take every single day to realize your dreams?

Find someone who motivates you and benefit on that motivation. Write down the things that they do to push forward in their own goals. How can you apply those principles to your life?

6 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Find Your Happy, Habits, Health Journey Tagged: goal, goal setting, goals, motivation, weight loss, weight loss journey

Why Use a Future Log – Even If It’s Late.

January 2, 2018 3 Comments

Happy New Year! Why Use a Future Log – even if you’re late starting

I recorded many videos the middle of December – and didn’t have them all ready to go – some until this morning. I wanted to do it, but there was just something keeping me from completing it. Not sure if it was that little voice of doubt in the back of my head, if I didn’t have the right kind of music playing in the background, or if I simply wanted to watch some more of those good ‘ole classic Christmas movies. I want to represent to you that planning can take place anytime, even if you miss a big date like January 1.

Do you ever feel that way? I have seen so many people say the same thing for planning. Here’s your question – why use a future log if it’s starting later than the ideal date?

Want to see an overview for my month? Read the post here & watch the pre-planning video.

Future Planning Can Take Place at Any Time – Even if You Missed A Big Date

Planning can take place at any time. Even if you missed January 1 or the start of a month. I want you to rest assured that just because you missed the first day to ‘go live’ with your plans, it doesn’t mean that you have to scrap the idea. Pick up where you are and move forward. I am here to tell you that it is perfectly ok. Our lives are not perfect nor are our plans. Real life gets in the way of a perfectly planned one. But don’t let that stand in your way, make plans anyway, no matter when you start.

Bullet Journaling Taught me it was Okay to Move Forward

Believe it or not,  And what’s more, taught me to accept it. I used to worry about making a mistake and wanting to rip out pages from the bound book. (Though I never would rip out a page because it would compromise the integrity of the stitching in the book and further ruin it.) Planning petrified me because I wanted the start date to be perfect, my writing to be immaculate, and everything laid out ‘just so’. On my first bullet journal, I messed up on the first line of text. I learned to accept whiteout and move on.

I’ve been really mulling that concept over – and even more so when a perfect stranger reached out to me for advice on how to start. I gave my advice and then I started thinking about the advice I would give myself. I think I will be developing a series dedicated to such thinking. You’ll notice in my video below that I mess up on the lines starting with October.

Bullet Journal Future Log - Why use a log if you are late starting

Here’s My Advice for Starting:

When starting a journal, don’t worry about all the things. 1) Start with A future log, 2) a monthly calendar and try out a 3) weekly log to start. I don’t plan enough to do a daily log, so I don’t.  That’s it. Start with just those three. Then you’ll find that you want to include other ideas in your journal. Those become collections.

Here’s my advice when you start late on planning:

Plan anyway. It will be ok. If it makes you feel better, do a future log starting from January (no matter where you are in the year) and work forward. That’s what I did in my first bullet journal. I started in April and it felt weird to start my future log in April, so I included January-March for good measure and wrote down big events that happened in those months as a review then I started my first monthly with April.

Once you turn the page, it’s not going to matter.  And the last piece of advice: it will be an evolution. Your style will evolve. You will become more comfortable with what you like and don’t like, so I would say skip the frills for the first bit and just focus on including the things you want to include on your spreads (trackers, all the days on one page, a place for meal planning, etc.)

Why Use a Future Log – Even If You Are Moving to a New Journal Soon

I’d like to present my Future Log – I decided to include a future log in this planner even though I would be in this book for just a couple more months. For one thing, I reaaaaally wanted to include a bullet train in my bullet journal since my monthly theme was transportation based. For another thing, I thought I might be more free-minded with my future planning if I knew I would move to a new journal. I would write things I actually wanted to do instead of just the things that I had to do. In this case, I will appoint wishes versus musts.

So here are some reasons why you should use a Future Log even if it’s in the middle of a journal or in the middle of the year:

  • Plan the future – yes, please! Plan the future in front of you and not the past behind. You want to start something because you want to just do it already, but you are letting your past hold you back. So what if you didn’t start on an ideal day? Make today be that ideal day.
  • Don’t miss big dates – who wants that?
  • Dream Big – writing something down makes it more real in your mind, chances are if it is on the calendar, you might work a little harder to achieve it. Even if you migrate it, that dream just became a goal.
  • Add your goals so you are working on an actual timeline instead of a mystical date in your head.
4 Reasons to Future Log even if you start planning late in your Bullet Journal

For the Set-Up: Watercolor – with Markers?

Trying out some new techniques for watercoloring this month – with Crayola Super Tip Markers. It’s a really fun technique and I think this would work for most other markers too – like the Tombow dual brush tip markers.The super tips are really inexpensive and now are more versatile in my life. There are specific marker palettes that you can use, but a simple dinner plate works well for me. I’ve also thought that a piece of transparency film would work well too if you didn’t have a smooth finish plate you could claim from your kitchen.

Watch the video below for how I set up my future log. I’d love to know what your future planner looks like. I’m going to brainstorm some ideas and showcase a few of my favorites in a post to come.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

~Tricia

3 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Bullet Journal, Get Organized & Start Planning, Plan With Me, Planner Spreads, Start Planning Here Tagged: #BuJo, Bullet Journal, Bullet Journal Advice, bullet journaling, future, future log, future planning, goal, goal setting, goals, plan with me, planner, setting up your bullet journal, setting up your planner, train, what to do if you don't start in January, what to do if you mess up

Give your Goals & Plans a Defined Timeline

October 31, 2017 7 Comments

End of Year Planning – Don’t Leave it to the Last Minute

Start Early on Next Year’s Planning with a Super Simple Planning Spread – Give Your Goals & Plans a Defined Timeline. November seems like a great time to set some goals for next year. Specifically the first two weeks of November. Why then? Well because Halloween has come and gone and Thanksgiving or other holidays have not come yet. Visiting family will not arrive yet, and if you are vacationing or leaving, you have some time before the packing begins. There is a certain quiet about this time – the air is still buzzing with excitement that comes from the end of the year activities, but parties and plans have not started up – yet.

Goals & Plans a Defined Timeline - setting up for this month, next month & next year

The other reason it makes for perfect planning for next year is that next year is close, but not too close. You have some time to think. You have some time to reflect. The time is perfect to think about what you want from the next year. I am not talking about achieving anything – though you can certainly include achievements – I am mostly talking about what you want to become as a person. Become what is important to you.  Decide to spend your time doing the things that will give you happiness, joy, and peace in your life.

Use the quiet spaces in the month to plan ahead and define your goal timelines | Start your goals with a timeline, not an obscure 'someday'

Define Your Timelines

This is my variation of the short-term, mid-term, and long-term goal planning. I was never good at using those planning terms – I needed a definition for the meaning of short-term, mid-term, and long-term. So I defined the timelines for me. It makes me work harder because I now have an accountability to time.

Short-term for me is Monthly.

Mid-term is something I want to accomplish in the next 2 months (sometimes I extend it to 3 months). In this case, I will be planning to complete by the end of the year.

“Next Year” I define as ‘by the end of next year’ – these are long-term goals**. I will define these more in-depth for the start of the year. This section is actually the reason I created this spread. I wanted to start thinking about my plans and goals for next year so they didn’t get swept away by the flurry of the holidays.

**I have an even longer-term goal type (more than a year) but I did not include that on this spread.

Break Your Goals into Achievable Times

Break your goals down into achievable times – when you expect to get these things done. Start where you are and give yourself a timeline – not an obscure ‘someday’. Stretch yourself a little, be patient with yourself and make goals realistic.

This month with my focus on simplicity, I made a planning & goals page extremely simple so I was not distracted by all the ‘shiny’ things. I tend to flit from one place to another and never get anything done. So I laid out this page with simple functionality in mind. (The bottom picture shows without lines for an even more simplified look).

Start Early on Next Year's Planning with a Super Simple Planning Spread - Give Your Goals & Plans a Defined Timeline

Whatever Your Plans, No Matter Your Goals

Whatever your plans or goals for the coming months or year might be, take a moment to begin your planning for next year, whether it be to spend more time on self-care, cook more, lose weight, de-junk your house, using a planning & goals page is a good place for jotting down your ideas for yourself.

Do this now before life becomes more hectic so when you are sitting down after Christmas laying out your January planner you smile knowingly at yourself and can think “I’ve already set my goals for next year”. Go ahead, call yourself an overachiever. Because you are ahead of the game.

View the entire Monthly Planner Set up

I’d love to hear what you do to plan out your next year’s plans & goals.

Remember to plan your life so you live beautifully.

Use the quiet spaces in the month to plan ahead and define your goal timelines.

Tricia

7 Comments
Filed Under: Blog, Bullet Journal, Find Your Happy, Habits, Journal Prompts & Ideas, Planner Spreads Tagged: #BuJo, brush lettering, Bullet Journal, bullet journal spread, collection, goal setting, hand drawn, ideas, inspiration, Inspire, leuchtturm1917, modern calligraphy, motivation, page layout, plan with me, planner goals, planner layout, planning to plan, self-improvement, timeline, tips & tricks, tips and tricks

About Me


Hi! I'm Tricia, the creative behind ChocolateMusings.com, I know how it feels to lose your inner muse. After years of darkness (which I call the dark ages of my life), I found my inner muse hiding in the forgotten corners of my soul, I vowed never to lose sight of her again.

Bullet journaling helped reignite the passion for art and living life again while organizing my days. I also discovered modern calligraphy and watercolor. Since then, my use of the bullet journal system has evlolved and I call it 'creative planning'. Here on the blog, I show you how to use your planner to ignite your inner muse and explore creativity and art while staying beautifully organized and living a joyful life.

I invite you to grab some good chocolate and dive into my musings. Let’s ignite your inner muse.

Read more on the about me page. You can also find my policies and disclosures here.

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