2023: Year & Goals Review

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Speaker 1: Hi.

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Speaker 2: This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

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Speaker 3: And this is Sarah Hartunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds.

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Speaker 2: Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life.

00:00:32
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This episode we're going to be talking about twenty twenty three, our year interview How It Went. This episode is airing in mid December twenty twenty three, so the year is not entirely over yet, and it may be possible that some things will happen in the rest of these few weeks of the year. We'll see, well, I'll see, but for the most part, the year has happened and so we can review how it went well. We set our yearly goals for twenty twenty three last year, and if we had a twenty twenty three goals episode, we had a midyear check in Sarah, when do you usually set your yearly goals? So when did you set your goals for twenty twenty three.

00:01:14
Speaker 3: I believe I set my goals for twenty twenty three, probably sometime in November or so of twenty twenty two, as we were preparing for this episode. I'm really grateful to our listeners who continually give us feedback that they enjoy these episodes, because I really like doing them. I like having a deadline for myself or having to get at least a preliminary version of my annual goals done. And so that's how we did it in twenty twenty two, at least that's what I remember.

00:01:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I remember setting goals and you know, November as I'm like, oh, yeah, we're going to have to do this episode. So it forces us to be a little bit more organized and systematic about doing it. But of course, whatever goals you set for the year, there's also things that happen that are related to the goals, things that are just random highlights. So let's go I had to talk about a few of our highlights from twenty twenty three. So, Sara, what was really exciting for you this year?

00:02:06
Speaker 3: Well, this was a really big year for me professionally because it was the very first year I had where the entire year was spent working part time in my clinical role without any kind of other work obligations, and so I was free to spend the other forty percent of my time kind of building my creative offerings, you know, building best laid plans, creating courses, doing more in the Patreon like, doing lots of other things. And it was a lot of fun. I feel like I learned a lot, But just settling into that and experiencing what life was like in that hybrid position was was a really big part of twenty twenty three for me.

00:02:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you traveled some interesting places as well. I know you guys took some pretty epic trips over the person.

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Speaker 3: I mean, not quite as epic as you as we'll get to. But we did one really big family trip that was kind of something we had saved for or for a while and thought about, which was our Disney cruise to Alaska. We also spent time in Vancouver and then Vancouver Island as part of that, which was really really cool. And then we took some smaller trips, including one to DC that was a Spring Bank Venture, and I had always talked about having like my kids picked destinations around age ten. This was belated because Annabel was eleven when we took the trip. She had just turned eleven, but she had still kind of selected the destination, and so that was really fun to see that come to Fruition.

00:03:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, or even just I mean with your Alaska trip, seeing that you could take two weeks off as a family, I think that was a pretty big exciting goal. I mean, with jobs that are not terribly flexible, that obviously requires a huge amount of planning. There was also a best laid plans live I believe.

00:03:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a big, big professional milestone for me. I definitely have never ever created a live event. That's not something I had experienced with in my life, and that was one of the bigger pie in the sky goals I had said for twenty twenty three. So it was so much fun to have that come to Fruition. I think you were a big part of the success of that event because so many of the people who came were like, I know you through best of both worlds, and I'm sure when they heard you were coming, they were super super excited to join in so I appreciate your contributions to just being there even as I designed and created the event, and it was honestly so much more fun than I even thought it was going to be, So that was cool. And then finally running, it was like such a running year twenty twenty three, and I haven't had a running year in a long time. I mean really, the last time I was very very serious about my running was probably two thousand and nine, so that's quite a gap. And we can go into detail about the various trials and tribulations of that. Maybe we'll talk about that later in the episode when we review specific goals, but I do feel like it just deserves a shout out as like a highlight of the year that it was a big running year.

00:04:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean certainly I was reading about your running on your blog and you'd be posting about these fifty sixty mile a weeks mile weeks, and I mean, just people think about that, right, Like what it to fit fifty to sixty miles into a life where you are practicing medicine, you're running a creative business, you are raising three children, Like, it's just kind of a lot. It's a testament to how much you were able to organize your schedule to make that fit.

00:05:17
Speaker 3: And I enjoy it. I mean if I didn't like you, wouldn't have done that, right obviously, Yes, So yeah, so you're highlight highlight reel again. We're going to delve into way more detail about these past experiences of twenty twenty three in a bit. But Laura, what does your highlight reel look.

00:05:33
Speaker 1: Like my highlight reel or like the twelve grid three and there was some nine grids whatever it is we do on social media. I've never quite figured that one out. Well. We had some really awesome travel this year. We partly began the year with me and my three older kids in front of a Buckingham palace watching the fireworks in London, so that was pretty cool. I went to Acadia. I spent two weeks at the beach in the summer. That was something I'd wanted to do. I really liked the beach and you know the rest of my family at least tolerates it. And we have this house we you know, rent most summers, and so I was like, well, I could rent it for two weeks. You know, it's still cheaper than actually owning a beach house or something like that. So we did that and then we went to Norway, the four older kids and Michael and I went to Norway at the end of the summer, and that was quite an adventure professionally, you know, it was fun to be on the Today Show again. That's something I hadn't done for a while, like being on National TV really since before the pandemic. So it was fun to kind of get dip my toe back in the water of that with the then hilarious result of my outfit was then photographed for a website like called shot my TV that you could just like this my first time as a fashion icon. Apparently. I took four retreats. These are really highlights for me. It's something I you know, talked about wanting to do. Obviously, you and I have our short recording retreats together. We always a good excuse in late winter to Fleet of Florida go see Sarah. But I also took a novel writing one over the summer where I more or less got a draft into shape of a book called The Norwegian Secret to Enjoying Winter. I met up with some writing colleagues and in Portland and you and I met up in Boston, and then I did Best Laid Plans Live, which was a ton of fun. I think. You know, obviously you ran the whole thing, but I was glad to contribute as I could. I think my key contribution was leading the late night going out part of it, because Sarah is a wonderful hostess, but not at ten pm She's like, I want to go to bed.

00:07:32
Speaker 3: I think I did join for part of the second night, so I get a tiny bit of credit, but no, I was like bye. And also I had been like teaching all day, Like I was like, I need I need some I need a minute.

00:07:41
Speaker 1: You need to get away from the rest of us. Yes, yes, So I would make sure that people were going out and hanging out at the bar and all that, and Sarah was doing the rest of the show. What else, Oh gosh, I mean, well, Taylor Swift that was fun, Billy Joel concert, and you know, also just some really cool things with the kids, like running five kids with Jasper and having him joined choir with me, seeing hearing both my kids, my middle school kids play in their jazz band, like watching Ruth be the Wicked Witch of the West in a summer theater production and that was a true highlight. Indeed.

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Speaker 3: All, yeah, the kids stuff is really really fun and it is interesting how at a certain age your kids kind of like performances like become really really enjoyable to watch, like I'm sure seeing Ruth perform is like really truly delightful. And so I feel like we've reached a new milestone there.

00:08:34
Speaker 1: Yes, No, it's true, Like the jazz band is actually good, Like it's jazz i'd want to listen to, which I can say. You know, I've sat through elementary band concerts and you know in the past, you know, there's a learning curve for everything. But they're getting very very good the more they practice. If they practice more, they'd be even better. And so that's an ongoing source of our discussions. But yeah, it's actually fun to see these kids concerts now.

00:09:00
Speaker 3: And I feel like we both noticed some of our kids growing up a lot like.

00:09:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I was just say. Boy, Alex has matured in so many ways over the course of twenty twenty three. Began the year really concerned about how everything was going with school and all. That was really challenging, but he's really been coming into his own in many ways, and it's become a lot more fun when it's less of the source of parental stress dealing with him. And so I've seen him make a couple of really excellent choices lately that I'm just so proud of him for. So, Yeah, that's been an awesome development over the course of the year.

00:09:37
Speaker 3: I love that. All Right, Well, let's delve into some specific goals, and we're going to take the format of actually going back a little bit to what we said in our episode. So if you're really wanting to audit our intentions, you too could go back and listen to that episode and see how excited we were about some of these things. And now we will keep the verdict like, did they happen? Were we successful? Did we decide to pivot? Yeah?

00:10:05
Speaker 1: Because that's okay too. All Right, Sarah, let's start with you, because you know you were like, I am going to make this a big running year. So let's go a little bit more into the specifics of it.

00:10:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I will quote my notes. I said I wanted to make forties prs in the five k half and potentially run a marathon or start training for a twenty twenty four marathon, and I wanted to hire a coach, do nutrition group book Coroaching with Megan Featherston, run a half, and I did and tried super shoes. I had not tried super shoes, which are like the kind of faster new generation of shoes are out there. I have done every single one of those things. So I feel like, again, like that was. If there's one area where I actually like did everything, it's that except for the fact that I did not run a marathon this year because of a freak injury involving my car that you all heard about before, but no one could have seen that one coming, including me, So I give myself a free pass on that. And since I did mention training for a twenty twenty four marathon, I'll just say, yeah, that's still my hope. So now that we're talking about next year's goals because we're not, we're not, but since I.

00:11:06
Speaker 1: Do out here, we were like, there's going to be a goals twenty twenty four episode in two weeks, So we're like, Okay, as we're making notes for this, make sure we don't talk about twenty twenty four. We're only talking about twenty twenty three in this episode. But I will say that you wound up signing up for a twenty twenty three marathon, but that was not in the original twenty twenty three goals. So in fact, all your running goals have happened from where you set them at the beginning of twenty twenty three. You just decided to be a little bit more ambitious given how good the training cycle was going. Is that correct?

00:11:38
Speaker 3: Yes, and I did set forties prs in the five k and the half marathon, so.

00:11:43
Speaker 1: That's yeah, yeah, No, that's great, that's really exciting. And you're still doing your strength training correct, Yes.

00:11:49
Speaker 3: I mean I fell off of it a little when I was in the peak weeks of marathon training, but for the most part, I feel like I can give myself a pass on that and then I'll just go through or a few of these other here I wanted to. By the way, we're talking about the ones that we did first, so don't get the idea that we did them all, because there's going to be sections coming off in this episode where there's ones we didn't do. But here's my success stories. I went to an in person work conference, I got my car washed once. My goal was to do it once once.

00:12:16
Speaker 1: I love. It's just once once. It wasn't like get your car washed monthly. It's just once, and you got it washed once once. All right, that's goal fulfillment right there. Check check.

00:12:25
Speaker 3: I wanted to watch at least two movies, and actually I ended up watching I think six or seven movies, and many of them in the theater. I think at least five in the theater, so that is pretty cool. I wanted to be a patron of other arts. I went to two plays, maybe one other kids play. I went to an art museum, and I wanted to go to one ballet, which it is happening after this episode airs, but I have tickets. We are going to Nutcrackers, so I can check that one off as well. I wanted to establish library Saturday and more family reading time, which we have done. I wanted to up my path game for vacations by trying packing cubes and consider upgrading luggage. Yep, we got target rolling suitcases for all of the kids and packing cubes for everyone, so that's a yes. I wanted to build my business and work on the growth of best laid plans, best of both worlds, making best laid plans Academy awesome because that had like just started. I don't think i'd even taught my first round yet, and to do more speaking. And I wanted to try to basically make an equivalent to my full time salary with my sixty forty split, and I think I ended up doing that this year. I'm still crunching numbers and expenses and taxes and all that fun stuff, but it's been a really successful year and I feel like I learned a ton about what people really want for me and what they really enjoy in terms of the content and the style. So I'm really excited. We'll not talk with future, but you get what I'm saying. And then finally, I wanted to figure out how I could see fall leaves. I saw some in Boston. I know you didn't count that as a leaf peeping, but for me, comparatively, it counts. I wanted to see my college best friends, and I did in November in Colorado. And then finally I wanted to work on my nails. This is a mixed success. I wanted to get more manicures or figure out some home solutions. I definitely got more manicures in twenty twenty three than I've gotten in the past, and I bit my nails less.

00:14:25
Speaker 1: How does one measure that that you objectively know it was less?

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Speaker 3: Like I know it's less. I'm like, you know, sometimes when you bite them like they'll get irritated. Like I feel like that happened a lot less, but in very stressful situations sometimes it still happened. So probably happens to the best of us. Exactly.

00:14:41
Speaker 1: On that celebratory note, we're going to take a quick ad break and then we'll be back talking about my twenty twenty three goals. Well, we are talking about our twenty twenty three year in review, how the year went, what goals we achieved, what we didn't, various highlights along the way, learnings of from the year. Sarah just discussed all her various victories on the twenty twenty three goals she set. So I had a couple. One of my daily ritual sort of ones was to write fifty two sonnets at the pace of two lines a day, so that's fourteen lines a week, which a sonnet is fourteen lines, so one son at a week over the course of the year, I have, in fact stuck with it. So wherever we are when we're recording this now, or what like forty eight weeks into the year, I have in fact written all forty eight of the sonnets. It's been good, summer, summer decent. I'm happy with some of them. Some are okay. Some are never going to see the light of day for anyone but me, but that's kind of the reality of all writing. I think it's a good discipline to just do something every single day, so I'm glad I did that. My reading project for the year was to read all of Jane Austen. I did, in fact do that. I have now read everything she's written that we know about, so the six novels that are well known. There's also a bound volume I found of her Juvenilia that includes this novella called Love and Friendship and several others her writings from when she was much younger than her published novels. There's two half finished posthumous novels that I read as well. So anyway, everything we know of that she wrote I did in fact read. So that was exciting. I actually finished that a little bit early because I miscounted how many pages there were and so my pacing was off. But whatever, it's good to finish an annual goal. In September, I said I wanted to do some new time use research, which I did. Those who participated in the January twenty twenty three time tracking challenge, many of you filled out surveys for me, so I now can say that people who track their time for a week there are levels of time satisfaction rise to a statistically significant degree. That's good to know. I'm hoping to write about that in the near future, so stay tuned for that. But we are not looking forward, so we won't talk about that. My boxes are gone, yay. That was largely about hiring a house manager. But whatever, even if I didn't do it, I made it happen, so yay. I set a goal to have Alex do more nonscreen stuff. We went through a period of about three months where we took away the iPad because it was not working for him at the time. Then we elected to bring it back this summer when we were traveling. It's been far more under control, and not just in terms of the time, like, he's still probably on it more than I would like him to be on it, but it's not being reflected in bad behavior. So I feel like if you can manage it, then that's a different thing. We've also done just a ton of activities for him. He's in something pretty much every day, which is maybe for some kids a bit much. For him, it's probably even less than he should do because it's good to burn off some energy. So, you know, lots of different things, swimming a couple times a week, karate.

00:18:11
Speaker 3: Parkour, comic book club.

00:18:13
Speaker 1: But the comic book club turned out to be the thing that he liked most, so I just I don't know, I found this, Yeah, I found this brochure at the library. They're like, we're holding a comic book club where you draw your own comics. And it's like, okay, well, you know, we'll sign them up for it. Maybe he said he wanted to do it. And we've done some other freebie stuff at the library, some of which has been a bust, so I didn't have high hopes. But after two weeks he's like, this is my favorite activity. So I'm hoping they do more stuff like I'll sign them up for that. So yeah, that was great. I set a work goal to sell the back catalog, which is my old books. I did a Summer Reads book club where we read through four of my books. We read through Off the Clock, Juliette School of Possibilities, The Courtland Boys, which is a novel I wrote, and The Norwegian Secret to Enjoying Winter. That was my deadline to get that one in shape. To share is that I knew I've had about five hundred people sign up for the club, so it was, you know, a way to focus on some older books. And I could certainly, I mean, at least with The Courtland Boys, I could see it sold a lot more copies in twenty twenty three than it did in say, twenty twenty two, so that is awesome. But I don't know that you know, there were like breakthroughs on any of the books. I don't know who knows what I was saying. I did attempt to sell the back catalog a lot this year, so at least I tried. And I am strength training. I said I wanted to do some sort of strength training regularly in the course of the year. It's something I've said over and over again and really just not done. But a listener connected me with her trainer that she said he did virtual sessions as well. Because we don't live in the same place and so I was like, sure, I'll try this out. And so he and I have been working out together weekly for the entire year, and he, you know, gives me a list of the exercises we do and then I do them again a second time during the week. So, yeah, that's been going great.

00:20:06
Speaker 3: I feel like that's a real testament to the fact that you are allowed to keep trying at a goal that you're failing at, because we're going to get to some fails in a little bit, and sometimes it just takes like a new approach, somebody to help you at different angle and then you figure something out. So that's really cool because I do remember you mentioning that at least a couple of other years.

00:20:28
Speaker 1: We've done this episode many times, or the goals for the next year episode many times, and we all have certain things that we say we're going to do and then we don't. We'll bring up the estate planning at some point, but yeah, you know, this was something that I hadn't done, and it's not as much as I probably should be doing whatever should means, but it's something, and something is better than nothing. And a year and I think I am seeing some progress.

00:20:55
Speaker 3: That is awesome. Well, on that happy note, We're going to take a turn is what didn't happen goals we are either well.

00:21:04
Speaker 1: Okay, so I was going to start with my fails.

00:21:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I want you to start with yours, to talk about the idea of fails. Yeah, goals that we either abandoned, just didn't do, or maybe that we still want to do but just didn't happen in twenty twenty three.

00:21:19
Speaker 1: It didn't happen in twenty twenty three, well, okay. And so the first one is actually when I did the notes for this, it was as a fault in the sense that the whole reason I wanted to do strength training is because I've been having various back and leg pain. Back pain is sort of more like whatever middle age woes, but the leg pain was just bizarre, okay, Like you know, this weird pain in my thighs when I'm standing or walking around is in my right leg only, and so you know, this is like the problem of aging. You're kind of trying to figure out what bizarre symptom you have and like what one weird trick will help it, and you know it's who knows, Like non specific middle aged pain is kind of hard to diagnose and treat, So this is all very frustrating. I've been doing a year of strength training not really seeing any progress with it. But a couple weeks ago I decided I was going to do a series of back exercises every single day, including some stretches, some back strengthening exercises, and I really do think it's been helping. Like I'm about three four weeks into it now of doing it every single day, so no like, oh, is it today a day for it or not, and it's today is a day for it. Every day is going to be a day for it. Just do it. And that's sort of helping in a general sense. But I also figured out this one weird trick for my leg, which is that if I touch my toes, I guess it's sort of like an inversion kind of thing, like been never touch my toes. I think it's nerve pain. It takes the pressure off my lower spine, and if I do hold it for like thirty seveackens or so, I can often like short circuit it like and it doesn't. It stops, It stops, and then it's good again for another bit of time, and then you know it might happen again, and then I can bend over and touch my toes again. But it's like you're not walking around during the day like touching your toes right Like, So it's I didn't randomly come across this, but because I was doing these back exercises, one of which is like doing these inversion type things where you are bent over, I figured this out. Like, so I'm like, whoa, Okay, well that's interesting.

00:23:30
Speaker 3: That's great. Well it was a serendipitous discovery. I wonder if you did yoga because that just involved so many of those types of inversions that if you were like doing that more, maybe you would like open something up. But I actually have no idea, So this is not a professional recommendation.

00:23:45
Speaker 1: Well sure, I'm sure. Yeah, Like if what if I was doing like thirty minutes of yoga a day, do I think that probably could have helped everything in general? Probably? It's just it wasn't something I was doing so and it's not so much that it was like the yoga itself. It's like one specific aspect of it, and that was just the trial and error and figuring it out. Okay, So that was a semi success for there that I started as a fail when I made the notes, but it's not. I have not repurposed my thousand episodes of Before Breakfast yet they're just sitting there, just like they've been sitting there so much for that. I have not finished a new book proposal yet. Tranquility by Tuesday came out in October of twenty twenty two. We are still figuring that next part out. So anyway, I did not match my income for twenty twenty two, so Sarah had the financial goal of making up her forty percent. I am going to be significantly under where I was in twenty twenty two, partly because it wasn't the best year for speaking, which is interesting. It goes up and down a lot. That's one thing I've gotten used to in the course of running this sort of business. And I, for whatever reason, did not do a lot to market myself. We can ask myself why not, but as it is, did not, And so then there you go. I am not necessarily doing all that great couple time. We do attempt to do some like Saturday afternoons when we have childcare for Henry, we go for a walk or something. We haven't done a whole lot of dates, but we are going on our first overnight couple trip. Should have happened by the time this airs, our first trip since Henry, So there you go. But again, there's only so much mental energy, so we've not really been good about that. I said I was gonna do my singing three times a week. I don't know. Maybe I'm doing it. I do it most weeks twice with choir, but I didn't track it. It just wasn't something I decided to do. We did not do a leaf peeping trip. On the other hand, it's been pretty good leaves around here, so I guess I didn't have to go anywhere to see it. So there you go.

00:25:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's really beautiful leaves around where you live, like all the colors and stuff. I mean, the peeping is like a bonus, but like you're getting.

00:25:58
Speaker 1: Leaves, I'm getting leaves. There are leaves, all right.

00:26:02
Speaker 3: It's twenty twenty three unmet goals coming at you. I wrote I want to try going and said I'm sure I want to try going to in person yoga, and I wrote this is less for fitness and more for just something I miss. Did not go well, does beat yoga count? I did you beat yoga at.

00:26:18
Speaker 1: The base is not what I meant though, but so no, So we've done it once this year, both of us.

00:26:24
Speaker 3: I meant like a class, like a real class. But okay, this time I will make it through organized through sixty five. Nope, not even I don't even know if I started, honestly, So okay, I'm not even going to delve into that. I just gave up. I tried. I did try, like some different variation on that, like a fifteen minute declutter, and I don't know. I'm like at a loss. I still want to declutter at home, but I don't really want to do the work.

00:26:50
Speaker 1: You want a house that is decluttered, you just don't want to do the decluttering.

00:26:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I feel like I'm like I'm operating against such forces from everybody else who lives in my house that it just like feels kind of futile anyway, Like even if I decluttered my stuff, like what would that mean? My bathroom is now like Annabel's bathroom two. And there's a lot of cosmetics in there that are not mine and it's a lot and I love it. Actually, Sometimes she shares with me and we do skincare together and it's great, but I'm just saying like, this isn't really my house to declutter right now, So maybe that just tests to be like when I am a empty nest, will defer that a decade or so.

00:27:25
Speaker 1: All right, sound good?

00:27:27
Speaker 3: Okay? So what else I wanted to work on homework routines? I don't know did I Maybe I feel like it worked itself out, but I don't feel like I put any real effort into it. I had a crazy reading well not crazy. I had an interesting reading plan where I wanted to read a tenth of a novel every day and a fourteenth of a nonfiction book every day minimum, so that I would complete three novels and two nonfiction books per month with a total of sixty, which to me is not a huge reach because I usually read around fifty. And I think I started with this, but then quickly realized like that wasn't going to work, because you know, sometimes I did want to read more than that tenth and sometimes I wanted to read none. And the only thing that was really cool about starting this plan was I did start like tracking pages and I was writing in my monthly goals notebook like what I had read on each day, and it helped me to see when I didn't like a book, because I'm like, I have been stuck on this book for two weeks and I've read like twenty pages, like it's time to move on. And I think I did advandon a couple of books because I realized I just wasn't getting anywhere. So it was like a useful exercise to attempt. But and I did read about fifty books as per usual, so it's not like reading was a fail. But that plan didn't actually come to fruition. I wanted to go to three musical concerts, which like didn't seem like that much of a reach, and I went to zero concerts. I wanted to see Taylor Swift. I couldn't spend that money, or I decided not to spend that money. I had gotten tickets to Bell and Sebastian, you know and Old like they're cool, but they can't show, so I didn't get to go, and I think that's it. So I failed on that. I wanted to pick one album to play in full each week based on the all songs considered picks, like they do this thing called New Music Friday, and I thought, oh, I'll pick one of their picks. I'm like, listen to it. I did do it sometimes, like I actually do, like put on an album in the car. I love that. But I certainly didn't do it every single week. And I had a goal to have TV night once a week and I failed. I didn't watch enough TV.

00:29:25
Speaker 1: Guys.

00:29:25
Speaker 3: It's it's a problem.

00:29:28
Speaker 1: I set a goal like that. It's so funny, like, yeah, my goal is to watch more TV, and then you fail at that goal. I, you know, kind of I.

00:29:34
Speaker 3: Read books instead, It's okay, yes. And then I wanted to make sure each kid got a one on one trip. Nope. I did do mommy days like summer days where they were one on one, and that was good. It was actually felt like kind of a lot this summer because I think I did them like week to week, back to back, but I did not take any one on one trips actually. And then I wanted to see Miriam and my sister, my niece and my sister and my parents at least twice. And this is a partial. I actually saw my parents it's three times, including once in DC, but I only saw my sister and Miriam once. However, and I have been given the okay to share this. They now all live in the same place. They all live in Philadelphia, so this should in the future perhaps be easier. I wanted to finish estate planning. I did start, which is more than I've done.

00:30:20
Speaker 1: Another one that's been on the list many times.

00:30:22
Speaker 3: I know. But I did, like reopen our contract with the person, and I have the paperwork and I even have in my mind like the time that we'll talk through some of it and that's it. And then I wanted to do more consistent seasonal skincare. And you know, this goes and fail, but lately with these little partner skincare sessions I'm doing with my child, maybe I could say this was partially complete because I use the Allure beauty box. Yeah, and a lot of the products they have are kind of seasonal, like they'll put heavier face creams in the winter and then lighter mists in the summer. So I don't know if that's a partial credit.

00:30:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, sounds good. It's been a pretty good year. I don't know. I think it's been a good year, do you.

00:31:03
Speaker 3: I loved twenty twenty three. Honestly, it was great. It was great. I could have done without the car thing that was really like a bummer.

00:31:12
Speaker 1: For any new listeners. Sarah unfortunately got hit by her own car.

00:31:16
Speaker 3: I didn't even get hit. Yeah, I got like knocked backwards and thrown to the ground by my car because I didn't put it in park properly. So it was self inflicted and no one else was harmed. No car was even harmed. Nothing was harmed except my leg. And it just like, I don't know, it kind of like soured the last couple months. But other than that, it was an awesome year.

00:31:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. Other than that, well, you know, all the things that could happen. I know, in the world at large, there's many vable things happening and going on, and so we feel very blessed that we have for the most part, been happy and healthy and moving forward on our goals in twenty twenty three, and we certainly hope that our listeners have experienced that same thing as well. We've been very grateful for the growth of this podcast over the course of twenty twenty three. We've been hearing from some new listeners, you know, people being very engaged in the community, and certainly one of the upsides of Bestaid Plans Live. Although it was organized around Sarah's content and other podcast bestlid plans. A lot of people were also Best of Both Worlds listeners, so that was really cool to be able to meet people in person. We also got to meet some listeners in person back in July, we had a small meetup in Philadelphia, so really really great to be able to engage with people. And we love hearing from folks, so feel free to write us with comments, feedback, questions, anything we want to know. Speaking of which, Best of Both Worlds has an awesome Patreon group that we've watched grow over the course of the past year. We have monthly online meetups via zoom. We talk about different topics, so we just wanted to really quickly share what we'll be talking about in twenty twenty four every month, so in case you feel like joining us, that would be great. If you just search on Patreon for Best of Both Worlds pod will come up. It's kind of hard to give you URLs over the air because we're like trying to write them down, but it should come up, and you can check out my blog for the link as well. Why didn't I read through the first six and then you do the second six?

00:33:08
Speaker 3: Right, sure, But I think we should also mention the true community aspect that it started to feel like, and the fact that like we post well, Laura especially posts. I would say I post like once a week. She posts two to three times a week, and we often post requests or questions coming from the community, so someone will will write in like I'm having this specific dilemma. It really does feel like just this collection of incredibly smart women to bounce ideas off of. People have different perspective. It's largely comprised of professional women, mostly with children, some without, or some thinking about having kids, And when you have a question like you get all these different and incredibly valuable perspectives, you get support. So I actually feel like this year it has gelled Like we started as like, oh, we're going to teach. I don't think we even understood how much it would start to have like a community aspect, but I like in twenty twenty three it really did. So I want to share that if anybody is like looking for social media alternatives as you are thinking towards next year, I know a lot of people are trying to be more mindful with their usage and what their consumption looks like. If you are more wanting to turn towards more curated things, this might be a really fun option for you, because unlike the rabbit hole of like Insta or something, you know, it is finite. So even though we're posting a couple times a week, once you're done reading that, you would you'd be able to move on with your life and then if you would, and.

00:34:32
Speaker 1: The comments are both valuable and it's real people in a real community, so the bias is toward being helpful and positive, which is not always the bias and internet comments in general. So yeah, we've really appreciated that. I mean, boy, on our reading thread there is something like seventy comments now, I mean, it's great and wonderful. So that's part of the big aspect of it. And then you know, we have monthly online meetups. In January we're going to be talking about habits in general, our Habit Symposium. February we'll be discussing our first book club selection of the year. We do four in the course of the year. March we'll be talking personal style. In April we'll be talking career Conundrum. So hopefully we can address and crowdsource a lot of career crungoons that people are having. May's book Club number two. June division of labor always a hot topic.

00:35:26
Speaker 3: Then we've decided that July we are going to take off for the summer. The longer I do this creation stuff, the more I understand that there is this inherent seasonality, and we get so much participation for most of the year, and then the summer everyone's traveling and everyone's busy or just wants to relax. So instead of doing a traditional hour long session together, we're going to release a video answering AMA type questions that's just private for the Patreon, so that'll be fun. In August we'll do our third book club of the year. September will be a kind of time symposium as a we'll talk about time blocking, task management, email, all that fun stuff. In October will do a meal planning resource spectacular. November will be our fourth book club. So again, these are quarterly space three months apart to give people time to read the books. And then December is I do a yearly goals workshop. It's a fun way to get a taste of similar content that I do, you know, as part of some of my best laid plans offering so if you just wanted like a little taste of that, it is. I don't think too. Is it too late to join for this month or no?

00:36:31
Speaker 1: Ah, Well if you are, I think this is airing on December twelfth, and our gathering is December twelfth, right, so if you happen to listen to this at six am and you want to join for it'll probably be noon. I have to look at my calendar. Bit yeah, then and you get access, you have to get Yeah, you get all whatever. So yeah, you can go there, you go there. But it's a great way. Like membership is nine dollars a month. You can always just join and quit if you hate it, right and you get which you won't, You won't hate it because you're gonna love it. I mean, getting access to Sarah's goal setting workshop is really quite a bargain for that. So yeah, please join us. We're having a grand old time, all right. Moving to the question, Sarah, are you reading this one?

00:37:13
Speaker 3: I will summarize it. Yes, all right. This listener writes, I'm a mom of a two year old and seven week old, and I wanted to get you and Laura's thoughts on goal setting during the first year like baby's first year. She wants to be realistic, but also makes strides in personal and professional goals. She works in academic medicine, fairly new in her role and does some admin work in addition to her clinical work. So thoughts and advice on how to make goals for that kind of special period of time.

00:37:43
Speaker 1: Well, since I'm coming at this from the perspective of having had five kids, I mean it's special. Of course it's special. But you know, you can't just like really take five years out of your life and say I'm not going to do anything during that time. I mean, life continues and there's so many wonderful things that happen. So I'd say there's nothing wrong with setting ambitious goals even though you have a newborn. You know, I've written books, books, deadlines, launched books, ran a marathon, whatever. You know, it's just like you want to keep living your life on some level, and so life doesn't stop. It doesn't need to. Having kids is not some crazy thing that everything else stops for. I mean, it's part of life. I wish we had more of a perspective that it's like a healthy and wonderful part of our lives and it's not something so separate and different that everything else has to stop for. I don't know if I'm expressing myself adequately here, but I actually believe it's a very feminist thing that we can have babies and do all our other things too, right like that, it's not these are not either or things at all. So you know, i'd say, go ahead, set yourself your big goals, whatever you were thinking of doing, like, especially if they're big professional goals. Make sure that your childcare is set up such as that it sports your life, not only that it supports you being at work, but also having time for rejuvenation outside of work and getting enough sleep. Make sure you have plans for when things go wrong with whatever your initial layer of childcare is. We've always talked about having multiple layers, and I don't know this woman's situation. Maybe her partner stays home with the kids anyway, so I don't you know, I don't know, but whatever it is that is your situation, make sure that you have adequate coverage for your personal life so that you can set those big goals and really lean into them and not feel like you are fighting with one hand tied behind your back because it's really great when we can enjoy our children and enjoy our work as opposed to feeling like they're in conflict. And I think oftentimes when we feel like they are in conflict, it's because maybe we haven't made enough of setups to enable us to succeed on all of it. So make sure you have space for that. Though obviously, you know, you can give yourself grace too, like if something goes wrong, I mean we can't control that, if things go wrong in a health perspective, or a child has special needs that are requiring a little bit more intensity than you thought originally, you know, give yourself grace for that. That's totally fine, but you can at least try to set those goals. Don't write off this time just because you have a baby.

00:40:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, best of both worlds was born in twenty seventeen and I was pregnant and then had Genevieve in the first year this podcast. And the reason that that worked is because it was something I was super excited about doing. So I guess I would say I do think in general, I've been less productive in my first trimester of each pregnancy, not really the second third, second third. I was fine, probably did. I was like hyper so first trimester and then the first year of my baby's life. I had to be choosier about my goals because I was chained to a pump of my own choice and I was really tired, so I still picked goals. I absolutely had goals again, best of both worlds. Here you go. But I do think like you could also, as you said, still do big things, but maybe just be really really selective about what's important to you during those time and then lean into the ones that really like give back to you in terms of like, oh, yeah, I spent my time doing that, and like it felt good and it felt meaningful, and I'm not doing it to like prove a point or just to make somebody else happy, but like, I've chosen this for myself because honestly, during those times, sometimes you really want something that like reminds you that you're still you, and so doing something like starting a podcast or continuing a new podcast like that would fit the bill. But maybe, like if someone had mentioned some research paper that I wasn't that excited about but I felt might be good for my career, like that might have been something to like push to later or never.

00:41:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, so gopher goals you're excited about, maybe be a little bit choosy about anything you are not terribly excited about. Excellent advice in general. All right, love of the week, Sarah. I'm gonna say I'm sure I said this every time we review our goal, but listening to old podcast episodes, I you know, it's actually pretty fun to see what were we thinking at the end of twenty twenty two and in our midyear check in what was life like? Podcasts do have an immediacy to them, which is then interesting to see how life develops afterwards, like what were we thinking about then? And are you still thinking about that now or not? And you know, I'd like to hear how we how we talk, and how we engage with each other, and it's you know, it's a it's a fun podcast to listen to. So there we go. I like listening to old episodes. I love that well.

00:42:17
Speaker 3: I love these episodes in general, and I love goal setting episodes from any other podcast. So if you hear some good ones, I think that'll be my love of the week. I love hearing people review their old goals and set new ones so much fun.

00:42:29
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, Well, This has been best of both worlds. We've been doing our twenty twenty three year in review episode here, trying to look more retrospectively because there is a Goals twenty twenty four episode coming out very very soon. But in the meantime, well, how do I even end this episode? Are I saying? I've listened to all these old beast of both worlds? And yeah, here making work and life fit together exactly? So forth I am losing my mind, all right.

00:42:56
Speaker 3: And enjoy the end of your twenty twenty three There's still a few.

00:42:59
Speaker 1: Weeks left, two weeks left. Let's get to the end of the year, all right, See you next time.

00:43:05
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you.

00:43:13
Speaker 2: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

00:43:17
Speaker 1: This has been the best of both worlds podcasts.

00:43:20
Speaker 2: Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.