June Goals

During the second to last week of May I started a new job.  I'm now an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher to an awesome bunch of Chinese students through a program at Greenville College, my alma mater.  Yes, that's right, I am a college graduate.  So in the end of May two big things happened: I got a job and graduated from college.  These two coinciding events brought me quite a bit of stress.  Since I began focusing all my attention on preparing lessons for my ESL classes, I left many of my emotions about leaving college unattended; I didn't take much time to reflect or process what was happening in my life.  I knew that I needed to stop everything and write in my journal, but I didn't.  I keep plowing through the lesson planning and the tasks of everyday life and if I had free time I wanted to be with people, with my friends and my family.  But then my second week of teaching began and I couldn't handle the load.  I broke down one day and through a conversation Joshua I realized that I needed to take the time to revive my emotional, physical and spiritual health.  Last week I made steps towards this revival; I went running once and wrote in my journal a couple times.  That was good, but sometimes without clear goals I let myself slip back into tunnel-vision/get work done mode.  These are my goals for the month of June:

I'm excited about these goals because I really like doing all these things.  I have already played soccer once this week, I have written in my journal twice and I have been praying for my students (almost) daily.  The Cloister Walk is an intriguing book about the author's experiences at a Benedictine monastery.  I have a bad habit of not finishing books, but I hope to finish this one in June!  Although I am focusing the most on my physical, emotional and spiritual well-being, I would also like to spend time being creative.  Working on craft projects and making things to sell in my etsy shop has often been a stress-reliever for me.  When I'm being crafty I am thriving and I get more excited about life.  I think having these goals will encourage me and remind me to continue to take care of my whole being.  Do you make monthly goals?  I got the idea for making monthly goals/blogging about those goals here.