7 questions that will change your life

I was tagged by a new meme by 3PrincessesMomma. She asks 7 big questions that can change your life. They are:

1. What will I try to improve on next week?
2. What was I most proud of this week?
3. What was my biggest accomplishment this week?
4. What have I done to get closer to my life goals this week?
5. What was hard for me this week, and why?
6. What was my biggest waste of time this week?
7. What did I do this week that made me ashamed?

The meme originated from a post she found by John Chow that linked to Alex Shalman’s Seven Questions That Will Change Your Life.

The whole idea is that you’re supposed to be asking yourself these questions on a weekly basis to keep yourself on track, and to get yourself that much closer to achieving your goals. If you’re not reflecting on your goals and keeping track of your progress, it can be so easy to get off track. Alex Shalman talks about this:

By answering these questions for myself in my writing journal, or journal diary as it is sometimes called, I force myself to take a hard look at myself. I may spend months or years treading water, not getting anywhere, if I didn’t take this time to analyze myself.

For me a week is enough time to pull myself back if I’ve gotten too far off-course. If I’ve stopped exercising for a week, I would be ashamed of myself, and my weekly review would get me to the gym first thing Monday morning.

I was hesitant at first to answer these reflective questions, I think because I was afraid of what I might find. I realized, however, that without setting goals, and giving yourself an idea of where you want to be, you’ll never get anywhere. Stay tuned for a post about goals – coming soon!

So with that said, here are my answers to the 7 questions.

7 big questions that can change your life

1. What will I try to improve on next week? During this next week I am going to try and improve my eating habits. I started working out this week, but my eating habits have been abysmal. Time to start eating more salads, lean meats and other healthy foods!
2. What was I most proud of this week? I am most proud of how I have built this blog to the point where I feel like it is contributing something positive to the blogosphere. Sponsors are starting to notice and are stepping up to the plate to advertise on the site. I received my first Adsense payment this week! Lots of other great things in the works for the blog. I never would have imagined I could build the site to where it is today when I started blogging in January. Thanks to all my readers out there, you really are appreciated!
3. What was my biggest accomplishment this week? We have all our debt paid off, and this week we completed our 6 months of emergency savings, and were able to start saving for a cruise we’re taking in September. That’s a huge milestone!
4. What have I done to get closer to my life goals this week? We’re taking the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University class and through that class we’ve been getting some great advice for how to set ourselves up for a nice retirement. So far we’ve learned about saving for emergencies, getting out of debt, credit card sharks and buying insurance. In the coming weeks we’ll be learning about investing, saving and giving to others. We’ve got a long way to go, but we’re getting educated and having a great time doing it!
5. What was hard for me this week, and why? The hardest thing for me this week was dealing with the death of my beloved grandmother. She was such a beautiful soul that her absence leaves a huge hole in our family. It is hard dealing with her loss, but at the same time she gave us a great example of being strong in hard times, and always keeping a positive outlook. We’re all better people for having known her.
6. What was my biggest waste of time this week? My biggest waste of time this week was playing Xbox 360 for 2 hours last night when I could have been doing something productive. But hey – I guess everyone needs some “me time”, right? So maybe it wasn’t a complete waste!
7. What did I do this week that made me ashamed? That’s an easy one – I’ve been eating like a pig! Even though I’m now trying to get back into shape, my eating habits have been horrible! Yesterday I ate a pastry in the morning out of the vending machine at work. This morning I ate two pastries! That isn’t going to get me back in shape – I need to cut out this “I’ll only have one last donut!” disease! I’m back on track with exercise, now I have to get back on track with my diet as well. You (and I) can find some tools to do that here.

So there you have it. My answers to the 7 Big questions. I’m not sure if I’m going to be asking myself these questions on a weekly basis, but it might not be a bad idea to try reflecting on these things every few weeks or so.

I’m not going to tag any0ne for this meme as it is a pretty personal one, but if you feel like you want to answer the questions, please feel free to do a post of your own, and when you’re done send me the link. I”ll post a link to your reply!