Motivation Monday: New Year, New Goals

The start of the year means it's time for goals: evaluating how I did with my goals from last year and setting new ones for this year. Some people may do new year's resolutions, but I like goals, and lots of them. Setting lots of goals helps me strive to become a better person and be accountable for my actions. What also helps me is physically going over and seeing my goals, which is why I like to dedicate a blog post to them every year. Even if no one reads or cares about this post, it makes me accountable for what I set out to do.

Evaluating 2018 Goals

I've color coded the goals I set by whether I accomplished them and/or by how much I did/didn't accomplish them.

Green means I successfully completed the goal!

Yellow means I somewhat completed the goal.

Red means I definitely did not complete the goal.

Professional/journalism

• Get a full-time job

Unfortunately, I did not get a full-time job last year. However, I did accept a part-time job with a school district doing communications, and I did increase the frequency of my freelancing with FloGymnastics, so combining those, it's like I have a full-time job. Technically, this should be red, but since I have made progress, I made it yellow. 

Motivation Monday: Evaluating 2016 and Setting Goals for 2017

At the beginning of last year, I did a blog post about my goals for the year. This year, I'm going to do the same but also evaluate how I did with last year's. This motivates me, makes me more accountable for my goals. and helps me be more serious about them.

Motivation Monday: The 2016 U.S. Olympic Women's Gymnastics Team

Last night, the dreams of five lovely young women came true: the five-woman U.S. Olympic women's gymnastics team was named in San Jose, California.

Simone Biles, Laurie Hernandez, and Madison Kocian became first-time Olympians. The other two members achieved their dreams for the second time.

Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman became the first U.S. women's gymnasts to make a consecutive Olympic team since Dominique Dawes and Amy Chow did in 2000. Douglas is the first reigning Olympic all-around champion to return to the Games since Nadia Comeneci in 1980.

Here they are: @Simone_Biles, @lzhernandez02, @Aly_Raisman, @gabrielledoug and @MadisonKocian! #RioReady pic.twitter.com/AVOjI3ItJM

— USA Gymnastics (@USAGym) July 11, 2016

And all five of these gymnasts provide great motivation and inspiration, whether it be words of wisdom on social media or in an interview that have helped them accomplish their goals and make it to the Games. Each of them has taught me something special, something I can use as motivation when needed, which makes rooting for them even better.

Motivation Monday: Find Your Passion

It's been a while since I last did a Motivation Monday post. And though part of the reason for that is lack of time, I've also lacked ideas. I created a Motivation Monday blog series in an effort to post more consistently, and at the time, I thought I'd have the time and plenty of ideas.

While I could've just been posting a bunch of inspirational quotes every Monday, I didn't like the idea of doing that week after week. I thought it'd be tiring. I felt like it'd lose its purpose or something.

But I figured out a way to possibly make it less tiring and repetitive when I do post quotes for Motivation Monday. When I do post quotes for these blogs, there will be a theme that all the quotes relate to. This week's is passion.

Motivation Monday: Keeping Busy with Classes, Clubs, and Internships

Being in college is not easy. It can be rather busy. Of course, there are classes, which every college student experiences. But many add even more on top, like clubs, Greek life, jobs, and internships.

This semester is perhaps my busiest one yet. Although I'm currently only taking four classes, I have a lot of other responsibilities and commitments. I am the writing editor of the University of Illinois' official yearbook, Illio (which is essentially a job); an intern with FloGymnastics as the University of Illinois Correspondent; the secretary of the University of Illinois' To Write Love on Her Arms UChapter; and recently joined the Illinois Sports Business Association. In addition, I just found out last week that I will be adding another class during the second half of the semester as part of a sports media industry immersion trip to Portland.

It certainly looks like a lot to handle, and it is. I don't think I've ever had so much on my plate before. So why do it? Why pile an internship, two clubs, and a job on top of schoolwork? What's the motivation behind it? Isn't there a worry that it's too much to handle?

Of course. Since this is the most I've ever been responsible for, I'm definitely worried. But I'm not going to let that stop me from making connections, getting involved, and best preparing myself for my future, which is what these activities are doing.

Motivation Monday: My Favorite Workout Clothes

I'm going to try to start posting on Mondays more often, and this Motivation Monday series should help with that. In Motivation Monday posts, I will share my motivation behind something or just share some of my favorite motivating words. (Note: I won't necessarily post a Motivation Monday post every Monday.)

For the first installment, I'm sharing what motivates me to work out. While I know the health benefits of exercising and working out, I do admit that it's not easy to always get up and go to the gym when I don't have a lot of time or enough energy.

One thing that really motivates me to get up and do some physical activity is cute workout clothes! I know that I'll have more incentive to go to the gym if I have new clothes I want to wear to the gym. If I don't go to the gym or work out at all, then when will I wear the new athletic clothes I got? I wouldn't want them to go to waste! Here are some of my favorite workout clothes that motivate me to be more active.

Some of these brands are available online, so click on the respective heading to shop them.