Due to a visit from my parents and a sewing machine that just wouldn’t cooperate, this post is coming out a day later than I planned on.

July went pretty well overall as far as life goes, but my goals for July went decidedly less well. The month started off well enough, but after a very minor shoulder injury I fell off track on pretty much everything for a couple weeks. While I did get back on track with my workouts, I would have to say I failed at all of my other goals for this month. This failure really has had me examining how I set goals, what caused me so much difficulty and what I can do differently from here on out to help myself succeed.

The thing that probably caused me the most difficulty was expecting too much out of myself. Even as I say it now it sounds kinda like a cop-out, but I do believe that I was a little overly-ambitious in my goal setting last month. Most of the goals were to be completed every day, which didn’t leave much flexibility for days when I didn’t sleep well, came home from work exhausted, or just had a rough day. Another thing that contributed to my difficulty was that I decided to adjust my sleep schedule by two hours. Getting used to waking up two hours earlier and going to be earlier as well had me feeling a bit zombie-like for a week or so.

These things considered, I had to decide how to go about setting my goals for this month. I don’t want to have the same downfalls to happen, so this month I’m doing things a bit differently. I’m only going to set two goals, and both of them will not be an every day goal.

August Goals

1) Week 1-4 of Kayla Itsines Bikini Body Guide! I am super excited about starting this guide and can’t wait to get started. I have actually be planning on doing this guide for almost a year now, but I wanted to wait until I was in better shape. And now I am finally taking the plunge and starting!

2) Meditate 3 times a week. I didn’t do well with my meditation goal last month, but I really do want to succeed at this. However, every day was just a bit too much for me starting out, so 3 days a week seems a little more manageable.

And now for some fun! Here are some of my favorite moments from July!

Mosaic ice cream table. I made this years ago, but decided to have some fun playing with my camera and took a few pics of it. Still one of my favorite pieces!

I love that I caught this picture! Achilles looks equal parts ridiculous and adorable!

Hopefully next year I can get some better pictures of the fireworks. I still had a great time! It was the first time in probably 5-6 years (at least) that I got to go see fireworks!

I still can’t get over the fact that I am actually successfully growing plants! Even better, that I am growing food! I really have never been much for gardening, but I am loving watching these plants develop.

Can you believe that this narrow path is what leads to the stunning view in the picture below?!

So that’s it for me! July didn’t go quite as planned, but I have high hopes for August! How was your July? Did you meet some goals? What goals are you focusing on for August?