Day three of 31 Days of Goal-Setting! Today’s question is: What other goals did you set throughout 2015 and why?

Days 1 and 2 focused entirely on New Year’s Resolutions. But January 1 is hardly the only time of the year in which you might set a goal for yourself; it’s just a particularly common time.

As always, the “why” is as least as important as the what of your goals. Identifying the purposes behind your goals helps you think about what is important to you, and whether your stated ambitions are actually in line with what you consider significant.

I had a LOT of supplemental goals that I set for myself throughout 2015 – at least 15, in fact. Again, I’m just going to talk about three.

Keep my laptop on my desk except when watching movies

Why? I have a habit of lounging on my couch with my laptop, which encourages me to waste a lot of time mindlessly browsing social media, rereading interesting posts that I’ve already read, and so on. My thought was that by keeping my laptop on my desk and only using it sitting at my desk chair, I would feel less overly comfy and waste less time online. (The “except when watching movies” part is because I don’t own a DVD player so I hook up my computer to the TV to watch movies.)

Start following the 5×5 StrongLifts program – that would be this program, specifically.

Why? I was re-considering my goals midway through the year and thinking about specific fitness goals, one of which was being strong! (You might remember yesterday I talked about how how my gym-going was boosted midway through the year? Yeah, this is why – because I identified more clear goals that I was pursuing by going to the gym.) I also had been thinking about making the switch to a barbell or free-weight routine instead of weight machines. I happened across a recommendation for this program, thought it looked cool, and decided to start.

Research mindfulness practices and begin some kind of daily practice

Why? The concepts of mindfulness resonate with me. Practicing mindfulness could help me achieve a lot of my longer-term emotional and psychological goals (which I’ll talk about more in Part 3: Finding Your Purpose later this month).