To Do: Step 1

I wrote last week about Step 1 - figure out exactly what you want to do; I'm still working on it.

The same friend of Mike's gave me a disc by Brian Tracy entitled "Goals!" and he speaks entirely about the importance of knowing your goals, writing them down, and doing something every single day to help achieve your goal. One premise of this talk is that circumstances are irrelevant because if you know what you want and you work towards it with fervor, it will happen.

When I first started thinking about this, I was pretty stuck in, "what is the EXACT career goal I have". Now it's a little different. My immediate goal is obviously, get a job. But is my long term goal to get X job or to get a job that pays X? These may or may not be mutually exclusive but I think a lot of people battle with this.

This topic is polarizing and I understand why. On the one hand, you're working to live - you might not LOVE your job but you have more resources to love your life outside of your job. Money can't buy happiness but it certainly can make it easier (Happiness for me would be having no student debt!). On the other hand - especially as a public health professional - I care about what it is that I do. I want my work to make a difference.

As I think about the goals I have and what it is that I want to start working on each day, I am trying to find a good way to marry job X and salary X.

Mike said to me recently that he could look back to his twenties and see many instances in which he got in his own way, making it more difficult for himself to achieve his goals. I think we do that when we give up, stop looking for work, stop feeling positively about ourselves and our situation, and when we settle. Knowing, writing down, and working towards very concrete goals may be a great way to prevent you from getting in your own way.