So, today marks the official end of the very first week of the 4040 Challenge, wherein I attempt to make grand change in my life through very small, daily incremental changes. This was a weird week because it was also my first week back at the work/school/regular schedule grindstone, so it required a little bit of a reset. Overall, I was very proud of the way I managed the holidays, which is traditionally the worst time ever to try to lose weight or do anything that requires focus and effort. I managed to lose a net 10 lbs over the month of December, and headed into the Challenge feeling pretty good about my chances.
As a reminder, here are my 40/40 Challenge goals:
Lose 75 lbs
Publish 2 novels and 1 photography book
Grow my online audience to 10k (across Twitter, Instagram, and my newsletter)
Post a blog everyday
Help my local parks group break fundraising goals
So, how did I do? Let's take a look:
I clocked in at 263 lbs, which is down 1 pound from the previous week and a total of 12 lbs down from my original weight of 275. While, I have to average 1.5 lbs per week to hit my goal, I'm really not trying to stress myself out over the weight loss goal. The purpose is to feel better and be healthier, so if I'm doingt he things I need to every week, but the loss is sluggish for some reason, I'm just going to shrug and laugh it off.
I have a plan to publish the first of the three books next month, my Sci-Fi adventure novel, Black Stag, White Doe. The book is written, and the cover design is done, so all I need to do is finish editing it. I have to finish approximately 10 pages per week to have it edited in time to create the digital document and get it loaded up on Amazon. Unfortunately, this was a trash week for editing, and I didn't get around to it, meaning I'm a touch behind. Not stressing out just yet, though, because I will have lots of time this week to edit, and I think I'll be able to leap ahead of schedule. Stay tuned for how that goes.
This was another good week for online presence growth: I nearly doubled my online presence from 2700 to 4688, partially through big growth on my Art and Writing Twitter account, @tresmakesart, and also because I've started to work on LinkedIn and that number is at around 1000.
I managed to post everyday to this blog, as well as add a few to the DogEatCrow blog and my Medium account, so this goal is going well so far.
The local Parks org finished out great in 2019, and things are looking up for this year. Not much has happened yet, but I should have a lot more to report in the upcoming weeks.
That's all for this week, but if you want to follow along with my journey (or better yet, join in yourself), follow me on Twitter, Instagram, sign up for my newsletter, or just follow along with the hashtag #4040Challenge.
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