2018 Goals. Ep 23

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of two and soon to be three and a practicing physician. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. 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. Hi, this is Laura. This is best of both worlds. Today, we are talking about goals. What worked for us in twenty seventeen with our goal setting, what didn't work for us because that also happens, and then what we're looking forward to in twenty eighteen. And we talked a little bit about New Year's resolutions when we had Gretchen Rubin on a few weeks ago. But we're going to explore a little bit more what Sarah and I have done in terms of goals in the past year. So, Sarah, how is twenty seventeen. Twenty seventeen was pretty good. It was. It was quite a year. Actually, I would say my primary goal of the year when the year began was to have a baby, so like I can give myself a giant check. B I love that check enough, like have another child check because we started trying in January and then had a baby by December. So I don't think it could be much more successful than that. But I have done some like further analysis. Do you do any kind of like post year I don't know, formal evaluation of what went well and what went poorly? Or do you? I mean I do because I can usually get a few blog posts out of it, right, Like you know, I can look back on did I get my stuff checked off on my seasonal fund list? So I'm probably going to do one at some point on did I get all the stuff on the holiday fund list? For instance? And then I did a post on my quarterly goals that I had set for the year, and I did a mid year post on how I was doing on those quarterly goals. So I probably should do an end of your post on how I did on the quarterly goals and if I'm setting them for twenty eighteen, what those might be. Definitely I will say I am like a total sucker, Like if I see a podcast title, you know, from some other podcasts, you know, twenty eighteen goals or a blog post. I there's something about seeing what other people have aimed for and how it went that I find very addictive. And maybe it's just that it gives me ideas of things I might want to do for myself, or maybe there's just some odd satisfaction in watching other people make progress towards their goals. But I really enjoy them. So I hope we can give a little bit of our specifics of what worked and what we hope to do for next year. Yeah. Well, what was sort of interesting to me as I was thinking about this is that some of the things that I would list in like if I'm evaluating myself in twenty seventeen and what was working, you know, in very professional life and personal life, like, many of the things that I think are kind of coolest aren't things that I set as goals. Oh yeah, I agree, because I made a list of like what worked and what didn't work, And some of them were things that I made goals for, and some of them were things that just happened and unexpectedly went well or just well. I guess the things that didn't work tended to be goals that I tried to do that didn't work out as well, but the things that worked sometimes were just very serendipitous. Yeah, I mean, because life presents you with opportunities sometimes and those are really cool. I mean, I think about this podcast for instance. I yes, I hadn't actually been thinking in January goal for year start podcast, get thousands of people listening to every episode, and yet here we are that that was definitely here. I'll share a few of my specific what worked just for fun, but that definitely made the list. I wrote being brave enough to do and jump into the podcast and make that happen, So that was huge. Some other things are reading more and using the library. Another thing that everybody knows about who listens to this podcast is planning weekends in advance and including social time, outdoor time, structure and rest and at work. Something that really helped that is random and specific maybe to medicine, but is having my medical assistant do more chart prep so that everything's sort of ready for my appointments. It's been fantastic, and I will say play dates as social time have been a big win that I didn't necessarily plan for, but now I know that really works for me. So that's something that worked in twenty seventeen. What about you, Well, so yeah, I was looking at the things that worked for me. Professionally, I have. I wrote an entire manuscript of my next book, it's called Off the Clock, that will come out in May, but I had to write all of it in twenty seventeen given the way the production schedule works for this sort of thing. But I also wrote a short fable we will see what happens with that by my publisher and I've been working together on potentially doing a time management fable sort of I'm excited, and a lot of stuff like the one that It's Manager or the go Giver series like that, so that may wind up out next year, but I had to write it this year again. So I wrote two books, so yay. Started the podcast that was another thing that I thought was great. And in terms of speaking, I've really scaled up the speaking business this year, and it kind of started last year ramping up. This year's gone even more so in terms of the quality of gigs and sort of the price charged for them, which is always a good thing. But my favorite speech this year is probably I gave the commencement address at my high school. That is so cool as my twentieth anniversary of graduating. So I went back gave the commencement address and that was really awesome. Wow, that must have been sort of emotional. It was also just walking around the who place because I went to a residential high school for my last two years. That's the way I did the speech. So it was about three hours away from where my parents lived, so I lived there for two years and lived in a dorm and so it's like you have some of the memories you'd have with college, but you're probably even more sort of formational type memories because you're sixteen years old. And yeah, it was quite a time. I mean, it was an amazing experience. I really learned how to learn there because I had never been challenged like that before and so it was a very defining experience in my life. And I was glad to go back and be able to, you know, give a speech that was talking about that but also about you know, just some like inside jokes that only the kids there would get. So that was kind of fun as well. And that's a great year highlight. Yes, I love it. On the personal front. So I do three categories, which I don't know how many of our listeners do this as well. I do professional, and then personally I kind of split into relationships and self because there's sort of things I want to do with the family and then there's things I want to do personally. And it's one way to sort of think about doing both of them if you have multiple categories and you make sure you put something in all of the category, you know. Yeah, In fact, some people I know do like like spouse, their partner, and then also family and then self. Yeah, because they're definitely all three separate and important. Yeah, but I here's makes sense to I mean, so one of the things that went well on the relationship front this year wouldn't have fit in either of those, because I mean in kids or partner. Because we celebrated my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary and I rented a big house on the Jersey Shore and had my brothers and families come for the week as well, and so it was really cool, like we had photos taken of all of us, we did toasts, we did you know, things like that, and so that went really well. So that was cool. And then there's you know, stuff like reading. I read more this year. I was good. Oh you did amazing on the reading front. I'm proud of my own reading and I think I've read like a quarter or less of what you did. But it well, it was hey, anything can anything. Yeah, it was really about scaling up that habit and getting some of those bucket list books off that list, you know. And then running did the running streak this year, and then singing was another sort of unanticipated I've been telling myself that I wanted to get back into singing because I sang for many years to sing in college, sing in post college, like I was in a couple choirs in New York when I was a young person there, and I wanted to get back into it. But of course that's one of those things that it's kind of hard to make happen in life. And I wanted to join the right sort of choir. And then I realized that my church choir is actually better than most church choirs. So I guess I just hadn't been aware of that. Maybe my attendance had not been as good as it should have been or something. But that's great because then you kind of do two things, you get more involved in that community if you wanted to, and you get to sing. So the singing has happened to brilliant. That's been great. Is there anything that didn't work for you? Oh? Yes, I wrote down a whole list so that there are things that I can work on. Okay, so I'll give a few specifics. I will say that, you know, I tend to try to finish books, and I think I to twenty eighteen is going to be the year of just being completely unafraid to abandon them if they don't work. Because my one wrench in reading When I find a book I love, I like read all the time, and if I get suck, I totally just stall and then I can read nothing for a month because I don't like the book I'm reading, but I cannot get myself. So I'm just like really committed to abandoning books. So that's that's going to be. It didn't work for page limit, like we talked about with Anne Bogue, yes, I'm going to go for like the fifty page limit. If I get to fifty page, I'm going to force myself to get to fifty pages and then I can make the conscious choice and I think you're right, Like I have to uphold I have to like upholderize it, like make it like, oh, so this is like the plan. So I'm not failing. I'm just getting to fifty pages and decide I like it. So, yes, that was kind of a fail. I made a lot of attempts that were moderately successful in spending less time on my phone, but I often would fall off the wagon by the end of the month. I don't know, I don't have a great for this. I mean, maybe I just need to give myself more leeway there. But at the same time, I always felt so cleansed and good when I really wasn't using it. So I'll have to brainstorm what could work in twenty eighteen. One work related fail is that I'm really trying to get my patients to communicate me with me through my chart, which is like our electronic system, rather than making a million phone calls back to them. But I tend to be very nice and they prefer the phone calls, and I sort of like, oh, it's okay, you didn't get the studied and I'll call you. I need to be more ruthless because I want to be able to take excellent care of everyone, but I also kind of need it to be like on my terms, and because I have many more of them than they have of me. So I think this year that is something I want to try to get to work, is getting them to use the electronic system that they're supposed to use to make things more efficient and ultimately provide better care, because I actually think an electronic message to patients is in some ways nicer because they can look back at it, they can reread it, it's very clear what the instructions are. This is a phone call when they may think they heard one thing, you know, and I document one thing, but who knows what actually got communicated. So that's a work related what didn't work. And meditation is an interesting one because I was really really into it at the end of twenty sixteen, like I was doing the Headspace app every single day, and then I was doing it in January February, when I got pregnant. I started to have a lot of nausea and for some reason I could no longer well, not for some reason. For that reason, I could no longer get up early and sit there because all I would be thinking is, oh, I feel so sick. I feel so sick, So I definitely fill off the wagon with that. And I'd say it didn't work, except that lately I have been taking time when I lied. Usually I still lie down with Annabelle when she goes to sleep, or now if I'm holding Genevieve and like kind of getting her to soothe. I've been getting into the mind space of, well, this is great time to do like a meditation exercise, and it counts. It counts even if I'm not opening the app and formally count out minutes. If I'm focusing on the breath and I'm laying with her for ten minutes while she falls asleep, there's nothing less special about that than there would be with the app. So I've I've been trying to incorporate and to incorporate that into everyday life. So I'd say that was something that the formal didn't work. But now I'm kind of finding a nice happy medium there. So yeah, that's a taste of my didn't work. So what about you, I don't know. I mean, I'm it's it's been a pretty good year on things like that. I mean, I do keep thinking I want to travel with the kids, but then the little guy is still so hard with that, and he's still so little, a little and I feel somewhat bad about that because my older kids are not that little, and so you know, I want to do more trips with them, but I guess, you know, we still have time. My oldest is only ten, and he'll be with us for many more years, still at home, so we do have some time to travel and I will just Plus, you've done a great job with doing some of those solo trips with older kids. That's so fun as well, So hopefully that will change before too long, that the little guy will be better about that. You know, I always think I'm going to do strength training, and then I don't. I just like running, and then I don't like other things, and so I just run. You know, I've been I've been debating in terms of the weight management, which is a total like New Year cliche, New Year's topic cliched. And it's interesting to me that running every day in twenty seventeen did nothing for my weight whatsoever. That does not surprise me at all. Running never I always felt like if I was marathon training sometimes I would gain like running is wonderful and I love it but that does not supper because yeah, but it's fit. It's gone up if anything, And so I'm debating if I care, which start to which. If I don't care, then right there, you know it's not going to be ever anything I'm going to do about. That's the thing with goals and resolutions. You have to actually want to do it, and you may naturally fall into line there anyway. It is the holidays, there's been lots of carbs around. Everyone gets into healthy mode in the spring and in January. See may just find that pendulum will swing anyway, even if you don't care. And I'd like to do more sort of walking around in addition to my running. I think part of suburban existence, and especially one where I work in a home office so I don't have to walk anywhere, is not good for additional moving around. So I should try to build that in into my life as well. I probably have like the opposite of the like I you know, it's January and a lot of times I do kind of want to get in shape around that time, but this time I'm just trying to like not worry about it too much because I didn't gain a ton during pregnancy, so I don't have a ton to lose right now, and I know that if I try, then all it's going to do is mess up my milk supply, which as we all know, I get very obsessed with. So all I want to do is just like not worry about that for a couple months and just let things fall as they may. And actually I kind of want to not run as much in twenty eighteen. If that's a crazy goal to have, she'll do, but just to do yeah, because I want to do more strength stuff and I just feel like this might be my year to not run that much and then I'll pick it back up when I'm no longer you know, the nutrition source for any babies. And I would love to do long, long distances again, but I think I need to wait until the kids are significantly older. But I guess I don't know. By the third kid, you just realize that everything is so transient and everything's just a phase, and everything's going to change, and I'm so much less of a rush versus my first I think I was like treadmill shopping by like she was three or four weeks old, and I was like, I have to get back to my normal self and now I'm like, eh, normal self, Well, it'll happen, happen eventually exactly the well sleep goes. Don't say that, you know, I just will tell you if I look it back at old posts, blog posts or journal entries of things like you know, I keep saying, well, hopefully a year from now, my little guy will be sleeping better, and then not really, Oh my goodness. Well, if I end up with a severe early riser like you, that will that will be difficult. I'll have to figure something out. Or maybe I would do the like, okay, we're running outside in the dark and you can look at the iPad kind of a situation. I don't know, I mean, I guess in that sense, I feel like twenty seventeen went pretty well considering that I've still been dealing with that. Yes, no, that's huge, and I think twenty eighteen is going to be the year that he turns. I don't hope not to happen at some point, but yeah, no, I mean twenty eighteen, I guess, you know, I say, thinking of some of those goals, I'm launching at least one book, which I hope to well, you know, I hope to go on a solo trip with my husband at some point in the year. Oh yay, Yeah, that'll be a highlight. I will say, I'm already excited for your bood. Well, we may even get you an advanced copy. Yes, awesome, I'll be very excited. So on the goal front, question, do you ever pick like a word for the year? I have not, have you I do. I like it. I think it's fun. I don't always remember it or follow it halfway into the year, but I think there's something fun about picking one that sets a tone. And in twenty seventeen it was breathe. In part because there was so much politically going on. I was like, I need a word that just means, and I think it actually did. It worked pretty well, especially with the meditation that sort of came full circle, right And he breathed in twenty seventeen. Yeah, I breathed a lot. I breathed during labor. I breathe exactly so. And in twenty eighteen my word I picked space, And that is because I just want there to be a little more blank space, and that blank space can be filled with holding a baby, feeding a baby, you know, not necessarily doing great and momentous things I certainly actually have a ton that's going to be going on at work, so I guess to some extent it doesn't make sense because it's going to be a very busy year as we launch our residency. But I hope to somehow create some patches of space for myself in life to be bored. I also want to work on managing physical space and getting rid of excess stuff again, because I think it's time and you know, being just intentional about creating space on my calendar in my day, whether that's to focus on work related projects or do other things. So that's that's my twenty eighteen word. I don't think I can do a word that's okay. I definitely don't have any book. Actually. In Off the Clock, I talk about a woman who had a word for the year, and the word was linger. And I like the word linger. Two oh, savor is a good one too. I could see that being a good word. Yeah, linger. So maybe I'm not a really that would be the word. Yeah, I'm like not naturally a lingerer, But then that would be a nice reminder. That's a good you know, it's a word that means taking your time, but it doesn't have the negative connotations like dottle, dilly dally or whatever. It gets that some of that mindfulness with a more pleasurable connotation. So totally okay. So we've talked about what worked and what didn't work. Do you want to share some any specific either bucket list items or goals that you are excited about for the next year. Yeah, I'm not sure if I have anything coming off the bucket list. I mean because I because you haven't made your quarterly season you know, I've sort of worked on it, but I don't know because when is the holiday seasonal list officially? I guess after Christmas? But will so you need to spare. I told you you need to spread because you do a fall, and you do a summer, and you do a holiday. But I think there needs to be like a spring list. Well, I normally do set quarterly goals, and I started making a list. I mean one of the random things I want to do. I want to try writing some poetry a cool which is yes, exactly random. Will not there is no market for that, in case anyone was wondering. But I don't know. I'm I'm feeling a little bit. Maybe it's just I'm tired. Right now, I'm coming out to the end of the year. I'm like cranking through copy edits on this book. I've just cranked out this fable. I bet that once your book is like fully fully submitted and out of your hands, you're going to have this like moment of clarity where you know what's next. I think you're in that like ramping kind of rush to the finish line portion right now, and that's why your brain is not letting yourself even. Yeah, it's because I get like that when I have a big out right now, it's all the Christmas shopping too, I'm like trying to think about larger goals and I'm like, oh, did we have an equal number of presents under the tree for all the children? Oh my, I'm so glad it is airing in January, but we're recording this at the you know, late December, and so yeah, that's why we're still that's still on my mind. It won't be on my mind on January nine when this airs, so maybe by then, I totally I totally understand that because I think I threw a party when Hanukah ended. I'm like, how can there be because I actually you know. I think I had talked on this podcast about how we were thinking of getting End of Ball an American girl doll, and I bought one, and then we didn't end up giving it to her because there was so much excess. Laura like so many family members, so many gifts, and I felt like every gift was making the worst behaved that Josh and I finally were like, you know what, their big gifts can be birthday gifts because Annabel will turn six in April and the doll will definitely be okay, hopefully she's not a podcast listening's like, wait, I just totally got screwed here. I can reveal that, but yes, I totally get that. Well, I will share a few random goals just because I love hearing other people, so I will give people the excitement of hearing a couple of mine. And I'm actually dividing the year into like five segments because it just makes sense naturally, because the first one is more like maternity leave, and that's until the beginning of March. Then I'm going to be in total work mode, and then it's gonna be summer, and then it's gonna be back to school, and then winter and holidays, So for that first kind of Q one January to the beginning of work in March. I want to take the kids ice skating. It's kind of like a bucket list one, but they've never been and we have a rink right near us, so it's gonna happen. I want to have a couple of date nights so get back into the mode of doing that. We may even bring the baby for some of them, because I don't know right now, I can't picture leaving her anywhere and she would just sleep, so we'll see. But I could leave Annabelle and Cameron at home and that would be okay. I want to revitalize my wardrobe and we will have a guest too, might be able to help me with that, who I'm very excited about as I transition into actual real clothing again, hooray. And I do want to do some reading every single day because I found it's a habit that really gives me pleasure and if I make the effort to do it, then I am happier and I really enjoy it. So yeah, that's a little taste. I will also be posting on probably on the maybe I'll post this on our Best of both worlds and stuff, so people can see my Q one goals in entirety. And Laura, if you have anything that you want to send, I can post that. I won't look as nice as yours. Your like beautiful little planner pages. Mine mine are just scribbled on a I could send a picture of my planner pages, but it's just kind of ugly. I can't explain it. But making them super neat and pretty is like part of the process for my brain and organizing them. So I like writing, and I'll circle something if I need to, you know, emphasize that I haven't done it and I need to do it. And so there's like random angry red circles all over the place. You're like a professor over the page. Well, are we at love of the Week yet? I think so. I think. I hope that gives people enough of a taste of our goals. I'm sure there will also be multiple blog posts for you all to peruse as well, and if you have your own lists, I really I'm not kidding, I'm like a voyeur. I love looking at them, so post them and Laura's comments are on the Instagram because I just enjoy. If you want to tag us at best of both Worlds? Right podcast? Oh yeah, we'd love to say it, or you know, did you even use the hashtag best of both worlds? We'd love to see your goals. Ooh a hashtag? We haven't even done that yet. Yeah. Fun, all right. So my loves of the week are two tried and true baby items that I had to rebuy because we gave them away and I resisted buying another Rock and Play sleeper, but I'm glad I got one because I don't know newborns and my my three out of three newborns seem to only like sleeping in that, and therefore it is the best advice ever. It's worth it, totally worth it. My caveat is I think it gave both Annabelle and Cameron somewhat flat heads, But with that said, they they unflattened with time and no interventions, so I'm just like, it's worth it to me trying to pick how do we give them a flat head? I don't know. It's like very cushy in the back and you're lying them back to sleep. And Cameron in particular are pediatrician even was like, can you make sure the helmet doctor checks him out and make sure and he did not need a helmet or anything like that. But uh yeah, it's just so comfy for them that it's worth that risk to me. And then my other love, because I'm going to give two loves and they're related, is the Halo sleepsacks with swaddle because also a magical combination. And I've been getting some sleep, which is great. What about you. I'm gonna do a shower out to certain toddler TV programs over others. Yes, what are the good So the ones we're watching. I think we've talked about that. This may have been my love of the week. I was anytime I'm up early. He was up at five am this morning. I just like any more. Go Diego Go is a favorite. And the upside of that is there's no commercials, so I don't have to forward through anything. So if I put on Go Diego Go, sometimes I can go get twenty minutes of work done, or sleep for twenty minutes, or even go on the treadmill for twenty minutes, which is which is brilliant. Dora similarly has has no commercials, so then my son is a little bit lessened to that. I don't know if he's already identifying with the boy versus girl thing. Interesting. We also like Paw Patrol. I can tolerate watching Paw Patrol with him. It's a bunch of adventure loving dogs who are in the town of Adventure Bay, which looks somewhat like Seattle. There's mountains close by and beaches and lots of evergreens, so maybe that's where it is. But they solve all sorts of problems. That one does have commercials though, it has a lot of commercials, so that's it commercials. He might like PJ Masks. I don't know if you've checked that out. It's on Netflix, so no commercials there, and it's got a lot of action Netflix. Oh it's really cheap. It does have a wealth of things without commercials. He's like looking into yeah, yeah, and it's like eight bucks versus I cannot stand The Adventures of Chuck and Friends. It's like this, I think, who does things wrong and then learns his lesson every time? Yeah. No, those are dangerous because they identify with the naughtiness and they're like, oh, I'm going to do that too, because it was so cute and all, Like Kayu, I used to think like Kayu was okay, but then I watched a few more Cayus and like, I can't Sankayu anymore. I've heard that about this is another's naughty little four year old. He does look various impish things, and then you know it doesn't work out. Of course, it's another moralistic sort of cartoon, which it has to be because the parents are the ones selecting it at this point. But like you still get all that, like, h he's naughty and whatever, and so another one that I really cannot stand. Chuck is the worst defender, but maybe that's just because he asks for it all the time. Like there are others I don't like but that he doesn't care about as much. So Chuck and friends, I hate you, Oh my gosh. Well, listeners, if you have other suggestions for Laura's youngest, who is almost three, and we're looking for without commercials and without a badly behaved child, then please let us know. Well, all right, we've this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking about our goals for twenty eighteen and what worked and what didn't in twenty seventeen. Again, if you want to share yours with ours, please do. We'll have a podcast discussion thread going on my blog Laura vandercam dot com. We're also on Instagram Best of Both Worlds Podcasts and look forward to hearing from people. Until next time, we'll be trying to make our own work and life fit together. And I'm pretty proud of us here, Like we managed to record this like in between my phone call and Sarah's nursing session, so we're really making it all work right now, all right, thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the Best of Both Worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together. A boy