I’ve already admitted how much of a list person I am. It will be no surprise that I also made a list of summer goals to accomplish this summer. I do so every year, and for the most part, I accomplish them effortlessly. Then again, I usually try not to be too ambitious.

Last year, my summer was pretty boring. I did, however, beat my goal of reading over sixty books (sixty two to be exact). Essentially, that is how I spent my summer. I gave myself one major goal, worked hard and achieved it.

This year I decided to be a bit more ambitious. I made myself a bigger list and felt very inspired to accomplish it. Nearly halfway into summer, however, I’m not feeling very motivated at all.

Here is my list:

1. Re-teach myself Italian
I took Italian for four years in high school, and even won an award based on my excellence. Unfortunately, I let my skills slip and haven’t practiced very much in the past two years. I have put off taking my language proficiency test in an effort to place out of my college’s language requirement, and I need to kick some serious butt so I’m not stuck repeating four semesters of Italian. But studying in the summer for a class I haven’t even taken yet is not very exciting. With no real push, I have been slacking.

2. Workout at least 5x a week
Well, if this wasn’t ambition at its finest. At home, I don’t have access to a gym. But since I’m staying at school for the summer, I have the added perk of full gym membership. Plus, since less students are on campus, the gym hardly has a line and I can use my elliptical as long as I’d like. But of course, it’s not so easy making sure I go day after day. And keeping a healthy diet up is even more painful. I try to look at Pinterest for ‘thinspiration’ but when there’s a 16 Handles a block away from my apartment, I simply can’t help myself.

3. Watch entire series on Netflix. Most importantly ‘Greek’
Sadly, this is the only goal I have been keeping up with. As an ABC Family junkie and true to life sorority girl, it was just plain wrong that I had never watched ‘Greek’. I spent the first month of summer falling in love with Casey and Cappie, and alas, now I am on to re-watching an old favorite: Make It Or Break It. The real issue here is how I waited so long to learn the beauty of Netflix.

4. Read more than I did last summer
This goal baffles more more than the others because I can’t imagine why I’m not motivated to read. I have a huge library at my fingertips as well as a Barnes & Noble at my doorstep (it really is only two blocks away) and I can’t seem to get through books nearly as quickly as I’m used to over the past few summers. I think the issue is I’m not as excited to read the books I am, so I’m trying to find a happy medium between catching up on literary classics and reading books I actually want to. 

While I didn’t let myself get crazy ambitious, I still can’t seem to make a true dent in any of them. What’s nice is that I’m realizing this in the beginning of July rather than at the end of August. I’m determined to make some changes! I have two months left and I would like to return to classes saying I did something meaningful with my summer!

Lovelies, what are your summer goals? How do you stay motivated to achieve them?

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