{"id":130,"date":"2022-10-02T15:12:06","date_gmt":"2022-10-02T15:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/?p=130"},"modified":"2022-10-02T15:12:06","modified_gmt":"2022-10-02T15:12:06","slug":"october-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/?p=130","title":{"rendered":"October Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I like to try and set goals for myself, to help me feel like I&#8217;m not just letting life pass me by. It&#8217;s a new month &#8211; so I think it&#8217;s time for some new goals!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Goals for October:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>To catch up with my reading.<\/strong> I adore reading &#8211; I love learning things, and it&#8217;s also an escape for me. One of my New Years resolutions was to read more, and I set an aim of 52 books, which I was managing to keep on track for. Recently, however, my weight and eating has left me without the concentration to read, but I&#8217;ve been feeling better now I&#8217;m following the plans set by my team, and so I hope to do a bit of reading!<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>To work with my mental health team and gain some weight; to really begin recovery.<\/strong> This is probably the biggest of all these goals. After a period of fast weight loss when not coping at university, following my last inpatient admission (2019), I have been struggling to recover and &#8216;get healthy&#8217;. Over lockdown I have tried and tried to gain weight, but my numerous ARFID difficulties have, despite my efforts, only resulted in a drawn-out deterioration. In the last 5 weeks or so, I have finally re-engaged with services, who are actually, for the first time ever, supporting me in the community. We have spent just over a month building some good foundations, but have not yet restored any significant weight. I am desperate to finally get physically better, so I am going to continue working hard (even if it means being patient and not trying to rush) with my team. As well as weight gain, I am hopeful we will help me work on better eating habits, like eating at appropriate times, and I think it will be very important at this point to come up with a more definite list of autism-safe foods.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>To do a lot of blogging and autism-related activities. <\/strong>Yes! I want to work on this blog, and my autism-and-mental-health-advocacy one, a lot more, because I&#8217;m aware they may both feel very bare at this stage! I also always try to devote some of my time to volunteering, whether that is blogging, or delivering webinars, or taking part in research trials and advisory groups! I think I will need to try to make sure I don&#8217;t overstretch myself with these, which is something I tend to do.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>To tackle my list of &#8216;crafts to make as gifts for Christmas&#8217;. <\/strong>Because I am trying to be more frugal this year, I have decided to save money by hand making a lot of gifts. I made a list of these, and to avoid rushing when it gets nearer to the &#8216;big day&#8217;, I want to make a start! I find crafting a lot less stressful than doing art, as it seems to require less concentration, and I worry less about it being perfect, or &#8216;proving&#8217; myself. However, it still requires energy to physically do, so this will be partly dependent on how recovery goes.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Optional goals:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\" start=\"5\"><li><strong>To make a couple of science themed research posters.<\/strong> One of my hobbies is researching things and making posters about what I&#8217;ve learnt. Research is something I just can&#8217;t do when I&#8217;m not eating enough to focus, and I really want to get back into it!<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\" start=\"5\"><li><strong>To get back to doing some traditional art and creative writing.<\/strong> Again, this is something I can&#8217;t do without eating enough to have the energy for concentrating and focusing, and is something I can also just be too anxious to do, because I can feel angry and upset if I feel it&#8217;s not &#8216;good enough&#8217;. But I do really miss it, so I would like to try and do some (recovery depending!).<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>What are your goals for the month? I also will be properly beginning a lot of the positions I have taken up, such as volunteering with the National Autistic Society, and working with the British Youth Council&#8217;s Future Voices Group! <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I like to try and set goals for myself, to help me feel like I&#8217;m not just letting life pass me by. It&#8217;s a new month &#8211; so I think it&#8217;s time for some new goals!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[31,32],"class_list":["post-130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-monthly-goals","tag-goals","tag-monthly-goals"],"featured_image_src":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/fred-russo-3Q83dROp3Fk-unsplash-scaled-e1664723517857.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"saffmae","author_link":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/?author=1"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131,"href":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130\/revisions\/131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/howsaffworks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}