What are some of your personal and professional goals?
I have sort of tacitly answered this already. Consider a doctorate. Publish or do research or presentations. Eventually (8 months or so from now) possibly think about a new job. Get fit. Become a healthy weight and maintain it. Find joy. Have fun. Spend more time in nature. Develop my friendships.
Having goals is arguably the most important GAL technique. But your goals need to be measurable. "Find joy" for example, that is not a real goal because how do you measure that? How do you know when you've achieved it? Likewise "get fit" is not a goal. "Lose 10 pounds in 2 months" IS a goal, and it's one easily tracked and measured. Or run an 8 minute mile by the end of two months and a 7 minute mile by the end of four months. So refine your goals:
"Consider a doctorate" Not a goal, you can "consider" it whenever. If your goal is to attain a doctorate then set that as a long-term goal and set some benchmarks in-between, such as "apply to college by Spring 2019" or whatever your plan is.
"Publish or do research or presentations" Better, but assign a deadline to that and be more specific.
"Eventually (8 months or so from now) possibly think about a new job" Thinking about it isn't a goal. You're probably already thinking about it. Maybe put "find a new job" on your long term goal list if it's 8 months out. Add benchmarks such as "investigate job options" with dates assigned.
"Get fit. Become a healthy weight and maintain it." Good. Now figure out how much you want to lose and set a deadline for it. If that deadline is 3 months out then set benchmark deadlines in between. For example- make "lose 20 pounds in 3 months" your goal and then break it down into weekly and monthly benchmarks.
"Find joy. Have fun." Not goals. Figure out what goals you need to achieve for those to happen. Maybe losing weight will make you happy, and taking your dog on nature walks will bring you some fun.
"Spend more time in nature." Be more specific, like "Take my dog for a nature hike twice a week."
"Develop my friendships." Be more specific. "Contact Sue, Lisa and Joanne and have lunch with each of them." Set dates for this.
Take a white board and write your goals down. When you accomplish a goal then put a checkmark next to it. As you tick goals off write new ones down.
I'm not trying to pick on you, goal-setting is VERY important and a lot of people come here not understanding how to do it. Hopefully this helps a little!
