2023 Goals: Annual Goal Setting Fun!

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. 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. 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. Welcome the best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode two hundred and eighty two, airing at the very end of twenty twenty two. This episode is going to be all about twenty twenty three, what our goals are for twenty twenty three, and longtime best of both worlds. Listeners know that we have been doing these goals episodes since twenty seventeen, looking forward to twenty eighteen. We're saying, what are our twenty eighteen goals going to be annual tradition. We certainly enjoy doing that. Sarah, what what is the I know you love goals? I mean you you love to listen to goals podcasts and read goals list. What is the appeal for you? Because life is short and I want to do cool stuff. I don't know that that's like so silly, but I don't know. I just we do so many things unintentionally, and yet life is so limited. So I think there's just so much value in taking time to think about what we want to do with every slice of time that is expected, not necessarily guaranteed to be given to us. But if we think of the next three hundred and sixty five days as potentially a gift that we are given that we can't take for granted, I want to think about how I want to use them in the best way possible. So that's why I enjoy sitting goals. But why New Year's goals in particular? So when is a holder? And yeah, I like the arbitrariness of it. I mean, I don't know, it's like a fresh year, fresh month, fresh fresh day. Let's hold on, Like why not? Why not? Why not set good goals for the year. Yeah, we've enjoyed thinking about this. I mean, just a few things. As people are thinking about their goals framework for the upcoming year. Sarah has a great phrase that goals are here to help us, not harm us. Right, So if something makes you feel bad about yourself and otherwise like you are a failure, perhaps that is just a goal you need to not deal with for a while and put that somewhere else and not have that going on in your brain. Specific and reasonable goals often tend to be the most doable. Another thing is to put the goals somewhere that you can check in on them during the year. So recently, when Sarah and I did our Year in review episode, we went back and listened to our Goals twenty twenty two episode from last year to see what we had said, and I think we had tried to check in through the year. We did a mid year goal update as well, and that just helps, like with remembering, like what did you actually want to do? I mean, because if you don't look at it, it's kind of hard to remember some of them. I mean, some are big enough that you probably will remember. I mean, we both were planning on moving this year, and we didn't forget to move, But there are many other things that could be a bit more unclear, Like you know, I forget and buy earrings. Buy earrings? Yes, and you're like, did I ever get around to buying earings? You may not even have remembered that that was a goal until you looked at it on the list. So making it somewhere you can see, and when possible, putting actual dates and events on the calendar is also helpful for making sure they happen. Yeah, I recommend looking at your annual goals list at least every quarter quintile if you use those units of measurement, because any less frequent than that and it's unlikely that you're going to be able to make meaningful progress on things, mostly because they just won't be top of mind. So I would set that as a minimum excellent. Well, with that in mind, since this may wind up as a lengthy episode, we're really into goal setting this year, we'll go ahead and dive right in. So, Sarah, we're going to start with the category of work. And I think you have sort of work as in your clinical work, and then you have worked now as in your blog and POJEC tasts and various other courses and all that your creative work. So what are your goals for twenty twenty two? Here? Yeah, I'm going to combine them into the category this year. For the first time and a while, I only have one real clinical work goal. That's not to say I do not want to be an excellent clinician. I just don't really have new stuff that I'm working on this year other than the fact that I really want to go to an in person conference like I wanted to last year and see all my old colleagues. And yeah, that's just really a goal and something that's really important to me because I want to feel connected to the pediatric endochronology community and being able to see people who do that elsewhere is a big part of that. So definitely my biggest goal from a clinical perspective, from the BLP Shoebox, boww whatever empire. I want to success run the first cohort of Bestily Plans Academy and learn from that and launch future cohorts, so hopefully that part of my offerings will grow. I want to pitch myself as a guest on some of the kind of bigger podcasts that I enjoy listening to, understanding that not everyone's going to want me starring other podcasts, but hey, even if I ask five people and I get one yes, that can be meaningful in terms of getting my material out there, and then that was it. Those are my three work goals. Excellent, those are awesome. Yeah, I should do some more podcast pitching now that you've reminded me that I should do that. So my big work goal for the year is to sell the back catalog, and in the writing book world, back catalog means basically your old books, so the new ones at the front of the catalog where you looking at a big catalog of book offerings, but the ones that would be in the back so still in print, but are not, you know, actively being sold anymore. Anyway, I've written a lot of books, some of which I think are decent, so I want to get them out into the world. I got a message on Instagram recently from somebody who told me she was reading one hundred and sixty eight hours and found it very helpful, even though it was written in two thousand and nine, and I'm like, hey, that's probably true. Maybe other people would have that experience. So I made a print up of how many books I had sold of the various different titles, and I want to see that number for all of those be significantly higher. At the end of twenty twenty three, so I need to figure out how to do that, how to interest people in some older books. And speaking of old things, I want to repurpose some of my old content. So I have about one thousand Before Breakfast episodes, which are all short essays that I could do something with. I have something like twenty five hundred blog posts, a few hundred newsletters, various other things. I think some of these could be given new life in some form. Find new audiences, come in different formats, whatever it is, but get new readers for those, and finally do some new original time research. And I have a pretty good plan to already do this as part of my time tracking challenge in January, for anyone who winds up signing up for that January nine through fifteen. This year, we're all going to be tracking our time together, So please join me and maybe participate in my research as well. Ooh, I'm going to do it. Okay, awesome, all right, our next category of goals. I made some random categories this year. I don't know, like, well, okay, go to a little off the rails, but that's okay. I made a fitness category just because it didn't feel totally in the personal category, although that's really where it belongs. But as we talked about in last week's episode, I want to make this a big running year. So I'm just going to say I'm gonna want to make fortys prs, so that means like personal records since I turned forty and I'm currently forty two and i'll turn forty three and hopefully in twenty twenty three, So it's gonna be that hard to make prs because I just haven't trained that much in my forties. So in a half marathon, in the five k, and potentially a marathon, which also would be easy because it would be my only marathon in my forties, so I have a guaranteed pr no matter what happens. I do want to make you some some directed coaching and planning on doing some kind of virtual coaching, although I may get my fast friend to coach me maybe we'll see. And then I'm going to do the nutrition group coaching with our last guests, probably in the spring. I'm going to keep running weekly with my faster friends, so it's fun to have like a little bit of social running time. And I want to try super shoes, which my husband has already bought and I'm already super jealous, and yeah, you need to buy those I do. Okay, I do. And then strength training. I want to keep up twice a week at least because I think it's just a very important adjunct to running, and I don't want to scrap it in favor of more miles because I don't think that's a worthwhile trade off. And this isn't really for fitness, but more just like an activity I miss and want to do in some form. I just want to go to in person yoga at least once or twice and just see if I still enjoy it all Right, once or twice in the course of the year, that seems like it should be doable. But I think that's something that you need to like write down and remember, because otherwise you probably won't just randomly go to a yoga class. So yes, well, I will see this list on a seasonal basis, so I don't think I'll forget it. Okay, did I do it this time? No? I did not? All right, maybe next time. Yeah. Well, my goal is basically just to keep running three times a week again, I run with Josper. At some point, I do want to have some sort of strength training goal, but I cannot come up with one that feels motivating to me, so I got to work on that. I guess, I don't know. I welcome suggestions of something people have done that would be helpful, maybe you know, designed to help with some like core strength, get rid of back pain, which I occasionally have, but I don't know. As quid, I mean, I could do something as like a little bit every day as part of my morning rituals, or I could do a goal like three times a week. You know, I don't think I'll stick with that though, So maybe it's like twice a week that I would do some more formal strength work. I don't know, but neither of those feel necessarily completely motivational to me, so we'll see. I wonder if you would enjoy one of those like push up or squat challenges like that they have on apps where you you know, you're trying to get up to X number in a row, but they kind of like prescribe you a certain amount per day, but they're really quick, Like it would be like ten squats or something like that, so it would fit well into your quick mourning rituals. Yeah, my bite sized morning routines yeah, well, we'll see. That's my idea for you, stay tuned people. I'll hit some strength goal. If I don't set it, I will do some strength training in twenty twenty. Okay, well that's that's something. Yay, all right. How about home in the category of home, Yeah, so I think two years in a row, I wanted to do the Organized three sixty five hundred day program. Well, Organized three hundred and sixty five has kind of restructured their programming, and I think their new structure is going to be even better and more flexible for me. So I don't have a specific like one hundred days of organizing that I want to get through, but I want to use the Organized three sixty five framework to get to the point where I can go to any room in the house and feel like I've just given some thought to what's in there. I'm not saying everything has to be perfect. I'm just saying like that we don't have random stuff piled up in various corners, and that does include the garage, which my husband has actually done a wonderful job starting to clear out. So I think this goal is more doable currently than it has been previously. Because Number one I'm more motivated and that we actually own our home and like we're not going anywhere anytime soon, I don't think. And number two, the kids are just a little bit older to the point of I could be in the garage or be in a different room organizing and not feel like I'm like needed somewhere else every two seconds, like during the afternoons when they're reading or on screens or whatever. So yeah, I think that part is key, right, because it's just so hard to, like, if you're taking time that you don't have kids with you when they're little to like do this stuff. It just feels sort of defeating, like you're doing chores with the time you don't have the kids. But then it's like once they're old enough to entertain themselves, you get open time on like weekends and evenings again, and so you can do some of this stuff. Yes, like once every minutes, not like precious, because there's really only thirty seven minutes that you're not watching a kid in the entire day. You can do more things like this. And Lisa Woodruff does say she's a founder of Organized through sixty five. This is all non sponsored, by the way, although they are a sponsor of our podcast or have been that when your youngest child turns five, that is a golden window of opportunity of your life able to just fit more in. So we'll see if that's true. And speaking of things you want to fit in, my other home slash organizing goal is I would like to get my car washed. And I'm not saying like, oh, I want to get it washed once a month or something like no, no, no, Like I just want to get it washed period. So like, theoretically this could happen like tomorrow, but it won't. It won't, So I want to I want to get like the deluxe wash where they come vacuum out every crumb and every whatever from the interior and that'll be good. I can't wait. All right, Well, let's take a quick ad break and we will be right back to talk a little bit more about Sarah's home goals and get to mine. All right, Well, we are back, and I was incorrect. Sarah doesn't have additional goals in this category because we moved the ones she had to other categories. So my only home goal, I think, is to get all the boxes put away. Seems like in the second year of living in this house, that should be possible maybe, although the areas where there are still boxes are some pretty you know, intense boxes like basement and storage rooms, so we shall see how much that winds up happening. But I did clear out the guest room where there had been like two dozen boxes over the course of the year, so it might happen. We'll see. I think it'll happen. I think it'll happen. Okay, other hobbies and purely fun and frivolous things. So what do you have in this category, Sarah? Yes, So for reading, I kind of created this reading plan, which is to at least aim to read about ten percent of a novel and one fourteenth of a non fiction book each day. The one fourteenth came from the idea that then you could finish a book like in two weeks, so you'd finish a book every two weeks, or about two nonfiction books per month. It would average out too, and then something like thirty six novels a year, so that would add up to sixty, which is more than I usually read. I usually hover in the mid forties, from forty to fifty basically, And people are horrified at the amount of structure But what they don't always appreciate is that when I set goals like this, I am not there to beat myself up when I don't meet them. I'm totally cool. If I don't meet them, They're just it's just a benchmark to shoot for, And I'm very kind to myself when it comes to goals I set for myself that I know are completely frivolous. So for me, this is fun. For others, they may think this is terrible. So only do it if you would think that was fun. You say, A gentle application. A gentle application, hey, gentle application for music. I want to go to at least three concerts, and I already have two concerts booked, I believe, and I do not have Taylor Swift concert booked because I just didn't get tickets yet. And every time I go to the ticket broker sites like the Secondhand, it's just like shocking how high the ticket prices are. So we will see if maybe they arc and come back down, whether this will become reality for me. But even if I can't see Taylor, I want to go to at least three concerts, and then I do want to kind of revisit my prior music related goal and try to pick one album to play in full each week. Now, I am a very regular listener to the podcast All Songs Considered, and they do a Friday roundup called New Music Friday, as well as often in like a weekly mix, and so I do listen to that, and I think it would be fun to just pick one artist that I've heard from that podcast and just play the whole album. So we'll see how that goes. And when would you be listening to this music? Like what? I listen to a lot of music when I drive home from work. I usually do podcasts on the way to work, and I do music on the way home from work. And sometimes I do music when I'm just like cleaning up at home or the kids are hanging out, and I just want to like cultivate a more peaceful atmosphere. So I do play music regularly. It's just that lately I've just been playing like Christmas music and Taylor Swift, and I want to play other things too, be a little bit more diverse than the choices that are available to me exactly. And I appreciate, you know, more of the wonderful artists that put their work out there and then in terms of other frivolous, not furlish, but like sort of the arts, I want to go to at least two movies in the theaters, two live plays, one art museum, and one ballet. I think that would be a great menu to shoot for for the next year and doable. And then finally, I recognize this goes against what many people are, you know, perhaps trying to do with their habits, but I want to sit down and watch a TV show once a week, either with Josh or with myself, but like fully watch that show. That might mean that that's a night that I excuse myself from my novel reading. I think that would be a few you won't get one tenth of your novel done that night, correct, But I just like miss getting into certain shows. And I have watched very little TV this year, But then the TV that I have watched was like great. Like I don't believe in like haphazardly, you know, turning some station on and just like watching the news or something, but like having a series that you really love and look forward to. Maybe watching an episode of each week can be a lot of fun, either solo or as a couple. So I just want to get back to that. All right, sounds good, all right, well, in my fun and frivolous category again, some of these not so frivolous, but some more so. My reading project for twenty twenty three, what I want to do is read all the works of Jane Austen. So there are six novels that she is sort of known for. Two are actually posthumous, but there's also her Juvenilia, which is not as well known. But I figure if I'm going to read all the works, I'm going to go through to the ones that is before the six novels that she's known for as well. I have my eye on a particular box set that includes at least some of her early works in the Juvenilia, the Love Friendship novel, and then I figure I can find the rest through like Project Gutenberg, of her writings that were not particularly published in novel form in there. But then there's the six of them and it comes out I think about to three thousand pages in the version I'm looking at, so that would see just about ten pages per day in the course of the year. To leave some space for the also non canonical Jane Austen writing from Project Gutenberg or something so that would be the plan, and ten pages would probably be pretty doable. I think that's because the font won't be the Shakespeare size anthology font. It'll be slightly bigger, so it probably won't take more than again in fifteen minutes a day to get through. But my goal from my reading projects, it's always to read something I haven't read a whole lot of before, and I haven't actually read that much Jane Austen before, which seems crazy, but I haven't. And then also that it would be worth doing, meaning that it sort of stood the test of time, right, that people know these works and they have been around for a very long time. So that's my goal. There a couple more. I'm going to write my sonnets this year, and I've said this a lot of times before. I'm like, I'm going to write like a collection of seasonal sonnets this year. It is my daily writing project. And what I'm going to do is write two lines aniambic pentameter per day, which gives me one sonnet per week. Right, so there are fourteen lines and that is to two lines a day. That should give me fifty two in a year. So I probably need to brainstorm on some topics, because the funny part about it is that three of the days are going to be kind of easy, and then the others they have to match the rhyming scheme. So I'll have to I'll have to think about how that goes, like which days I want to do the harder versus the not. But my very unartistic brain was like, well, you could like make a template and then just fill it. That's wrong. Then I do plan to go to Taylor Swift this year, but I won't rub it in. You know. The irony is since you had access to the like fan, you could have bought my tickets. I'm just saying I didn't think of it. Then I didn't ask. Yeah, it's true, Well anyway, too late now, and then well you know, come to yeah, come to Philly to do it. But and then I want to put singing in the three times a week category. So the upside of this is it makes me track it, right. So I'm already usually singing twice a week at least with choir rehearsal and church, and often I do practice the music at some other point too, But I want to add one more sort of focused practice session and maybe I will actually look up some videos on like voice you know, lesson techniques and all that, and hopefully improve in that category. Cool. I love it, and don't worry. I did not expect you to get me tailors with tickets and I'm going to go, so don't worry. It's all going to work out, all right, kids and family. I would like to establish library Saturday. My kids actually really do enjoy going to the library and browsing around and picking stuff out. And now I'm hoping by the end of twenty twenty three, everyone will be able to read a book on their own. Maybe it's a little optimistic. Genie will be in kindergarten. I feel like she's she's been like an early reader, but then kind of installed out at those three letter words because she doesn't like to put too much effort into things sometimes. So we'll see how that goes. But Library Saturday will hopefully encourage the habit. And I think it would be super easy to just go from gymnastics straight to the library to home, so that could be our routine. And then I feel like I always have some family routine that is struggling, Like first it was bedtime and then it was mornings, and then it was whatever you know, And I'm sure bedtime will come back around, but right now, the routine I'd like to focus on for next year is how to best help with homework because I don't want to be overly involved, but I feel like I have to be available and I don't know, it's a challenge, So that's something I'm going to work next year. I do want to make sure each kid in the family gets one on one trip. My guess is that Josh is going to take Cameron on like a snowboarding trip again, and I'm going to take each girl on their own trip, but we'll see how that shakes out. I want to see my niece Miriam and my sister at least twice, and my parents at least twice. Now, one of those maybe could be overlapping see them both at the same time. We'll see, but I feel like I haven't seen either of those enough, so I'm going to try to increase that. And then finally, I want to up my packing game for vacations, not to the point of you, Laura, where I have like one backpack for each person, because I just don't see that happening, but to just be more organized and think through what my kids will wear the way I think through what I wear, and maybe try some packing cubes, which seem to be all the rage these days. Got to get the packing cubes, Yes, exactly. So let's see in my kid's family relationships category. So I want to put a couple time in my you know, three times a week is a habit thing. And you know, when I first read that dime, I'm like, no, no, okay, that is not what I mean. Not that that would be a terrible knowledge, that's a terrible call, but more i' meant time focused solely on each other with no kids, so like eating lunch together when working from home, walking max together at night, going to the gym together, something like that. And of course you know if we have a date night then that would be one as well. But by putting it in my three times a week is a habit category, then I track it right as part of my tranquility by Tuesday scorecards. So that and singing are going into the things I'm tracking as well. And you know, I think it'd be good. It's good to try to spend a little bit more time together, especially as the kids get older and don't need us as much every single second. I am going to aim to get together with friends twice a month. I'm getting better at this. I like to think, you know, it's just about making for it right, same as anything else. And just do more big kid activities when we have Henry with a sitter. You know, I'm doing some big kid travel, which is exciting. Could obviously do more, do some more individual days, and then really come up with some more non screen activities with Alex because that is what he will do all day and then he's quiet and not getting into trouble, whereas when he's not on it then he often is. But you can't just do that all the time. And we've had him in a lot of activities, which is great, but he's going to be in fewer come you know, the next bid in January, and I'm not sure that I want to add more driving to my life. So just you know, I got to sort of just sort of this out what he's what he's going to do. But anyway, that's what I've got there. I feel like he needs a twenty twenty three reading project maybe. I mean, while he's read all the dog Man books, the uh you know, Diary of a windy kitty. But yeah, well maybe find him a new series there. All right, how about your financial goals. I'm hoping that since this will be my first year being completely part time for the whole year, that I can earn the equivalent of my forty percent that I'm not working at my clinical job through my other stuff. I think I'm on track to be able to meet that milestone, and I think it would be a fun and gratifying one. I still want to have a savings goal somewhere in that fifteen to twenty percent range, and then I need to finish estate planning. We started this so many years ago and haven't finished. And then our excuse was, well, we didn't own our house and that's going to complicate matters. But now we do and it needs to happen. So hopefully this year, this year, this is the year. Sounds super confident. You can tell yeah, well, you're either going to do it or you're not. I'm not sure of the point of setting a goal if you don't actually intend to do it, but you know we're going to do it, You're going to do it, Okay. I don't know if I have a financial goal per se it would be nice to match or exceed my twenty twenty two income in twenty twenty three. It's it's somewhat random at any given year. I mean, you'll find this out as you're working for yourself that it is a lot less predictable than if you are getting a salary. But I think the most straightforward way would be doe more with marketing my speaking. That that would be a category that could go up pretty easily just by booking more events. And in order to do that, I just need to do some more marketing, so that will be I guess part of the goal for that. All right. How about travel? Yeah, we have so much awesome travel plan for next year, so I don't have them as goals per se because they're like already booked for the most part. But things that I haven't like already booked that I want to do is I want to somehow figure out how I can see some fall leaves. I feel like this is going to be my year, and then I do want to make sure I get to see my college bfs and we are in the works process of planning something for October, so maybe it could like check off both goals in one trip. Yeah, go see the leaves and see them, so it would be fun exactly. Yeah, Okay, we're not doing stuff that's already booked. I guess my travel one thing, we're trying to do a road trip over spring break, so I want to make sure that that is a good road trip, right like it's you know, we're going fun places. We have fun things planned that we're not just sort of like doing it because that's what we were going to do. I don't know anyway. Various people want to do certain things, and so this is a way to accommodate that. And we're also going to spend two weeks at the beach in August instead of the one we normally do, which it may wind up being a bit more than. We need to make sure we have like regular childcare for some of the time because otherwise it just will have the situation like we had seven years ago or eight years ago or whatever it was when I was pregnant and had the three kids. And I've spoke about this in the past. Is one of the low points of my life life being by myself with them at the beach for many days and the rain and everything else. So hopefully this will be better, Like we'll set up some systems that can make sure they have the fun of the beach without some of the stresses of the beach. So that and yes, I want to see the leaves in the fall too. I think I would like to go to like Vermont, New Hampshire do some sort of cool like see some of the famous leaf roots through there. I do recommend the Berkshires, They're pretty magical in the fall. Oh my gosh, okay habits. So I want to work on my nails. My nails are. I bite my nails. So I put this in the category of like, I want to stop biting my nails the way I wanted to floss, Like I kind of want to but have never committed. But I think I'm committing. I think I'm tired of the way my nails look and feel, and so I just want to figure out nail care, either if it's giving myself my own manicures or going to get them every couple of weeks. Just want to work on my nails, and then I want to do more seasonal skincare. So I just finally canceled my Lower Beauty Back subscription. It was super fun. I really enjoyed it. This is non sponsored. I bought my own subscription. But you know, there's a limit to how many samples of tiny little things that you start accumulating, and then you know, I'll get to really love a product and then they'll send me something different and I want to go back to that other product. So I'm just taking a break from that. And so I want to basically just have like kind of skincare to go with the summer season and then the cooler season and just be consistent and simple about it and use stuff that I love. Sounds good, Well, my habit is going goal is the going to be to keep washing my face every night, which takes a shocking amount of self discipline for me, but that is the goal. So yeah, this has been our goals episode. Want to put out a call for more listener questions. We are looking for some more to use and upcoming episodes we'll be doing a few more mail bags, so we'll sort of concentrate our questions on there. But do you have a love of the week for us, Sarah? I do so one kind of cosmetic purchase that I am going to rebuy. It's always important when when you note that you're either trying something or you're like going to reinvest in something, not invest but you know what I mean. The Lilabo shower gel. I enjoyed a bottle of it that lasted me from like May to November, so six months. It is the five hundred mL size, so it's pretty big and it's not that cheap. But again, six months of use is pretty good, and I love the basil scent. It's so good every single shower. I never got tired of it. So I'm going to treat myself to another six months of showering bliss. Sounds awesome. Well, I guess my love of the week is my puzzles again. I'm back into them. It's good. I'm getting a little bit obsessive about them. My goal is to do a few more in the new year. Anyway, this has been best of both worlds. We've been talking our goals for twenty twenty three. We will be back next year with more and making work and life fit together. 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.