mirror matrix habit tracker (my new moon goal-setting system)

This has gotten to be a bit of a chunker of a blog post, so here’s a TLDR; last Friday was the new moon in Gemini and also Lincoln’s birthday, so first I talk pet numerology (what else?) and then go on to talk about my personal development plan for manifesting my dreams by goal-setting with the moon cycles including how I now track my habits towards my goals with what I call my “mirror matrix”.

may 22, 2020 — new moon in gemini, and, Lincoln’s birthday!

Just for funsies, I decided to look up some pet astrology and numerology for Lincoln on his solar return.

If you take Lincoln’s date of birth (5.22.2016) and add up the digits (5 + 22 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 6 = 36) then reduce that again to get a single digit (3 + 6) we get that Lincoln’s number is 9. See below for a snippet I found on Number 9 pets —

“This pet is a very touchy and emotionally-tuned pet. Where the 1 and Aries energies are much more fiery, the 9 temperament is more watery, like the sensitive Pisces. This number and zodiac sign both display the sensitivity to not only their owners’ commands and people but to their surroundings.”

alphee.com

Reid is Aries, and I’m Pisces. 🙂 And, Lincoln will come check on people when they sneeze.

“These pets actually know what you are thinking! They can intuit how you feel and if you are sad they will be right by your side to console you and lick your tears.”

Lincoln literally did exactly this one time when he was a puppy and I was home on lunch to let him out, sitting on the couch crying over my recruiting role.

Often this can be the runt of the litter and can be overlooked.

Also, he was actually the runt (only 7 lbs at 8 weeks old when we got him!) but the logic isn’t lost on me how all puppies in his litter would have this birthday and therefore this number and they can’t all be the runt. I digress. (You can also find your pets number through their name and letter chart on the site linked above, but most agree if you have your pet’s birthdate, then use it.)

manifesting with the moon

This new moon also ties in with how when we got Lincoln, I feel like it was one of my first tastes of manifesting. Which, to me means: deciding that you desire something and then taking intentional action every day towards making that dream come true.

And, I feel like it helps if it’s something that you truly want authentically for yourself (i.e. not because someone is telling you you should, or you feel obligated by society to want it). I think it matters that this want comes from a desire deep within your soul so that you have a personal connection with what you want — and that can help fuel your motivation to follow-through on your daily habits you want to be doing for yourself.

So for example, because I really wanted a dog, I got on the email list of this breeder I found the year we moved to California and proceeded to pepper Reid with puppy pictures for 3 years.

When I began learning about Tarot as a personal development practice at the end of last year, I also found blog posts about a monthly practice for goal-setting and aligning your intentions with your daily routine + habits with check-ins following the phases of the moon.

There are tons and tons of planning systems out there for how to structure your moon cycle goal-setting, but another thing I’m trying to do recently is to get better in touch with my intuition, so I wanted to create a self-development system that would be motivating and inspiring and feel intuitively aligned with my own personal flair.

Mirror Matrix Habit Tracker System

background info

So, now I’ve been developing this system ever since!

The new moon that was in February was the Pisces new moon, which is my sun and moon sign so I feel like end of February to end of March for me was a time of introspective reflection. It was when I decided to return to remote therapy and my therapist gave me the assignment to spend a week just journaling about what I want to do, all the possibilities, and what I want to create for my career.

Then, the Aries new moon March 24th marked the time to take the knowledge I was then armed with of my own inner desires and start to take action on making the changes I want to make in my life. This was when I decided to track just the one habit of brushing Lincoln for 10+ mins/day on my side of our bathroom mirror.

April 23 – May 22, 2020’s moon cycle began with the Taurus new moon, about grounding and foundations, and I introduced my 9-habit matrix tracking system I drew on my mirror. This stemmed from how I remembered being very motivated as a child by the “gold star chart” for potty training. And also, something I did truly like about recruiting was the incentive bonuses. Knowing that I’d get an extra $4k this quarter if I made the calls/placements was maybe the ONLY thing keeping me working toward their goals for as long as I did.

how I use the mirror matrix

I’ve decided to set habits + goals in three different categories: body, mind, and spirit. You can pick your own categories, whatever makes sense for you! For example, you could do personal, relationships, and career.

In each category, I pick 3 habits I want to do daily (or weekday-ly). Check out last moonth’s that I copied down in my notebook below before erasing it. You can see the tic-tac-toe chart in the upper left with columns labeled “B, M, S” (for body, mind, spirit).

My body habits for last month were:
1) move 15+ mins/day,
2) do my AM at-the-mirror routine of dental/skincare/haircare, and
3) my PM bedtime routine.

To the left of the tic-tac-toe matrix are the rows of the chart labeled with:
1) |
2) /
3) \

So, when I do the first habit in that column, I give myself a “|” on the mirror. After completing all 3 habits in that category, I’ll have a completed “*” for that column that day. My own “adulting” version of a gold star! XD Ha!

Then, what I’m still deciding is if I want to have an overall star goal, with one reward for the month’s habit tracker star-completions, or if I want to do it by category. Thinking for now, I’ll just pick one then maybe add on more next moonth.

new moon ritual

1. Copy down the mirror tracker before cleaning off the last moon’s habits.
2. Review of previous moon cycle progress: total up metrics towards last moon’s goals.
3. Go through my diary since the last new moon and collect ideas. (Snippets for adding to my manuscript + journaling about what I want my matrix to be for the next month.)
4. Set daily habit intentions, goals, and rewards for new moonth, commit, and draw out mirror matrix.

last moonth review

Starting with this next moon, I’ll have my goals and rewards set to review here. But, I hadn’t added that to my system yet for last month. So, for now, I’ll just share the metrics I collected that helped me set my goals/rewards for this month.

I had 9 completed stars for body habits, 19 for mind, and 16 for spirit, totalling 44 stars.

I wrote 11,100 words in my diary, which filled up another notebook I wrote on the final page of on the new moon Friday, and used up one pilot G2 .5 pen.

this moonth’s mirror matrix, goals + rewards

*	B	M	S
|	yoga / cardio 20+ mins	DMG diary + meditate	write 1k words towards novel first draft
/	pee clear (70+ oz. hydrated)	meds + vitamins	publishing / blog work 2 hrs weekdays
\	self-care routine (teeth, skin, hair)	brush Lincoln 10+ mins	helpful for life work 3 hrs weekdays

body goals

• lose __ inches/lbs — start by taking “before” measurements + pictures
• 8 sober days

mind goals

• stop my skin-picking + cheek-biting once and for all!

spirit goals

• 25k words written towards my novel first draft
• 8 new blogs posted (2-3/week)
• self-publish “Two Little Trees” as a children’s e-book by the end of June to learn Kindle process