Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 3: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 3: our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
Speaker 2: from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1: Term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2: This episode is airing at the very end of December
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. We are going to be looking forward
Speaker 2: to twenty twenty six. Yes, this is our annual Goals episode.
Speaker 4: Sarah.
Speaker 2: We've been doing this for a while, haven't we. We
Speaker 2: have been doing this for a while.
Speaker 3: It's become somewhat of a tradition to record these episodes,
Speaker 3: listen to them ourselves, and then comment on them a
Speaker 3: year later. And in fact, I will just give my
Speaker 3: traditional disclaimer that I've been given at least the past
Speaker 3: couple of years, that I'm not entirely ready to commit
Speaker 3: to my goals yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a little bit of a timing issue in
Speaker 2: that these episodes air over the holiday break, which, regardless
Speaker 2: of whether Sarah and I are working over the holiday break,
Speaker 2: the people who produce this podcast do not wish to
Speaker 2: work over the holiday break, and so we need to
Speaker 2: get in all our content at a time, And so
Speaker 2: it is early December when we are recording this, and
Speaker 2: so a lot of people do not necessarily set their
Speaker 2: goals or resolutions in early December. We may be a
Speaker 2: bit more oriented toward future planning getting into this sort
Speaker 2: of thing than the average person. Even so I probably
Speaker 2: would not be setting all my goals by early December.
Speaker 1: I mean you might, Sarah.
Speaker 3: No, I mean I'm not totally ready, and I just
Speaker 3: consider this episode my goals as they exist right now,
Speaker 3: and probably the final list will be similar. But as
Speaker 3: an example, we did this episode a year ago and
Speaker 3: I made no mention of in visil line, but I
Speaker 3: did end up setting that as a twenty twenty five
Speaker 3: goal that I ended up following through on, by the way, which.
Speaker 1: We didn't even talk about in the year and review episode.
Speaker 1: By the way, but.
Speaker 3: It's because I had gotten my notes from our prior
Speaker 3: episode and not from like actual real life.
Speaker 4: But that's an example of something.
Speaker 3: There may be little tweaks, little additions, reframes, et cetera.
Speaker 4: And we're allowed to do that. But here are our goals.
Speaker 3: As they stand as of now in draft form.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if I ever have a don
Speaker 2: for it. I mean, because you can always abandon a goal.
Speaker 2: So then I mean, is it like.
Speaker 3: Totally like it's a working document. But I do consider
Speaker 3: the done when I write them an ink somewhere on
Speaker 3: a twenty twenty six volume of something, then they're just
Speaker 3: then they're done.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, all right, here we go. I mean, what
Speaker 2: categories do you generally use?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I generally use personal, some kind of relationship or
Speaker 3: family category, and sometimes there's like a home category. This
Speaker 3: year I went with personal relationships, family, home, and work.
Speaker 4: What about you?
Speaker 2: So I do that in the opposite order. And this
Speaker 2: is just because that's how I always say it. Like
Speaker 2: when I'm speaking, when I'm have my set order of things,
Speaker 2: I tell people to make your list of one hundred
Speaker 2: dreams in the category of career relationships self, right, So,
Speaker 2: and then when I talk in my you know about
Speaker 2: making your priority list for the upcoming week. The order
Speaker 2: I say it in is career relationship self, and so
Speaker 2: hence when I am making goal lists, it is career
Speaker 2: relationships self. And because I did the notes for our
Speaker 2: year and review episode, we did it in the order
Speaker 2: of career relationships self. But because Sarah did the notes
Speaker 2: for this episode, we are going in a different order, right.
Speaker 4: Sarah, Yes to me.
Speaker 3: I rationalize it as, or envision it a sort of
Speaker 3: widening circles, like your own self, and then the people
Speaker 3: write around you, and then like the greater, larger world
Speaker 3: and maybe your environment. Obviously, there's no one right way
Speaker 3: to order your goals, and no one right way to
Speaker 3: define your categories, so you can do categories that are
Speaker 3: more specific than ours. Sometimes I've heard really whimsicals sound
Speaker 3: in categories, and your choice of how to divide up
Speaker 3: your goals is yours.
Speaker 4: But I do feel like having some.
Speaker 3: Sort of categorization sometimes makes it easier to generate than
Speaker 3: having one big, long, lumpy list.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and certainly some people, yeah, have an I don't
Speaker 2: know where I would put something like household goals. I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess I might put it in relationships category unless
Speaker 2: it was something for me personally financial goals. I tend
Speaker 2: not to set those. But that might be either in career,
Speaker 2: like if it was for my earning goals, or I
Speaker 2: guess if it were household maybe that would be part
Speaker 2: of relationship.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: For me, that would be in family and home.
Speaker 2: Family and home, okay, yeah, but those are categories that
Speaker 2: other people might certainly use. I mean I tend to
Speaker 2: think of career, relationships and self as reasonably comprehensive because
Speaker 2: you can kind of put everything in there, Like if
Speaker 2: you have community goals, like that's sort of part of relationships,
Speaker 2: or if it's maybe more of a hobby goal but
Speaker 2: that's part of a community, that could be the personal self, you.
Speaker 3: Know, yeah, or health goals and personal.
Speaker 1: Health goals not personal. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I would say self is like your own personal mental, spiritual, physical,
Speaker 2: emotional health as anything in that category.
Speaker 1: But lots of different stuff.
Speaker 2: So okay, we're going to start with personal then, because
Speaker 2: Sarah made the notes.
Speaker 3: Right, I did, all right, So for my personal goals,
Speaker 3: the first one is going to be embrace hobbies. And
Speaker 3: for examples of this, I want to learn all of
Speaker 3: the Taylor Swift Life of a Showgirl songs confidently on
Speaker 3: the piano. I want to try cross stitch by doing
Speaker 3: at least one project. I want to play with fountain
Speaker 3: pens and I might even dabble in some baking or something.
Speaker 3: Just go all in on hobbies. So that's my number one,
Speaker 3: and that's them part because I recognized that the loss
Speaker 3: of running in my life has been a little bit
Speaker 3: more of a loss of a hobby and social connection
Speaker 3: than it has been a fitness which has been a
Speaker 3: bit surprising to me. But yeah, I'm looking to find
Speaker 3: some great hobbies to fill Tho, those.
Speaker 2: Are all the hobbies. So how does that work with
Speaker 2: that is still in the social hole.
Speaker 3: It doesn't fill the social hole, it fills the something
Speaker 3: to like. It wasn't just social. It was like, let
Speaker 3: me look up all the shoes and listen to the
Speaker 3: running podcasts and I don't know, like read running blogs
Speaker 3: and things like that.
Speaker 4: So those all transition to the crafting world.
Speaker 2: It can be.
Speaker 3: Actually, my sister has demonstrated it can be kind of social.
Speaker 3: Although I don't really have plans to join like a
Speaker 3: cross stitch circle or anything like that. But let's just
Speaker 3: start with phase one.
Speaker 2: Phase one to do one cross stitch project, enjoy, then
Speaker 2: join the cross stitching story.
Speaker 3: They could actually see some day doing like School of
Speaker 3: Rock with piano, so that could morph into a more
Speaker 3: social goal. But I think step one for next year
Speaker 3: is going to be like figuring out which one of
Speaker 3: these I want to take a little bit deeper.
Speaker 1: All right, Then you have fitness goals too.
Speaker 3: I have to have a fitness goal, like I just
Speaker 3: feel complete with a fitness goal. Obviously I can't have
Speaker 3: a running one, but I would like to try to
Speaker 3: get to level two at Club Pilate's, which should doable.
Speaker 3: I think usually around one hundred classes is when you
Speaker 3: can test into level two at my studio, and I'm
Speaker 3: on track that by the end of the year I
Speaker 3: should be past the one hundred class mark. There is
Speaker 3: a level one point five as well, which is like
Speaker 3: really level two. So the level two is kind of
Speaker 3: more like level three, and I'm currently at that quote
Speaker 3: level one point five, but interested in growing my pilate's practice.
Speaker 3: Your karate belts, yeah, oh, they should have like some
Speaker 3: kind of marker that would be cool, like you walked
Speaker 3: in there with your purple headband or purple headband.
Speaker 1: I'm a purple headband, Okay.
Speaker 3: I would like to always have presentable nails now, This
Speaker 3: does not mean I always need a professional manicure, because
Speaker 3: that's not realistic. But I have sometimes done manicures and
Speaker 3: then just left the nail polish on to an embarrassing
Speaker 3: degree and it's just not cool. So just always want
Speaker 3: to have my nails look reasonably presentable. My invisil line
Speaker 3: cured me of biting my nails, like I have not
Speaker 3: bit my nails since March or whenever I had put on,
Speaker 3: So that's great, But one step further would be just
Speaker 3: getting them a little bit nicer. I'm going to continue
Speaker 3: my wardrobe goal from last year, which I made some
Speaker 3: progress on, but I want to work on my accessories
Speaker 3: and jewelry. I want some date night outfits. I still
Speaker 3: want a speaking outfit, and I have a specific goal
Speaker 3: to get a couple of dresses I have altered that
Speaker 3: don't like quite work, and to get two more colors
Speaker 3: of scrubs.
Speaker 1: Excellent.
Speaker 2: Well, while you're in Philadelphia, here, there's a Fig store here,
Speaker 2: so you could come visit it in downtown.
Speaker 3: True, I know that from the Frugal Girl, So maybe
Speaker 3: I'll make a little outing.
Speaker 1: That'll be fun, the pilgrimage to the Fig store. That
Speaker 1: could be fun.
Speaker 2: All right, So my personal goals self goals for twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six, I want to do regular library visits. Currently,
Speaker 2: this fits in my life in that I can stop
Speaker 2: by the big library in our community sort of on
Speaker 2: the way to get Henry from choir.
Speaker 1: Practice on Wednesdays.
Speaker 2: That's worked out well as a time to happen in
Speaker 2: my schedule. I feel like I've gone through a lot
Speaker 2: of the books that I might want to get at
Speaker 2: our local branch that is a three minute drive for
Speaker 2: my house, so I do need to go to the
Speaker 2: bigger library in order to have this be an appealing
Speaker 2: thing to do. But there's a ton of stuff I
Speaker 2: haven't found there. It's about browsing and seeing, oh that
Speaker 2: looks interesting, and you know, I'll just grab six books
Speaker 2: and bring them back three weeks later, and some of
Speaker 2: them I will have read and some of them I won't.
Speaker 2: But it also is helpful for having coffee table type
Speaker 2: books like I love looking at garden books or you know,
Speaker 2: home decor books and things like that, and it would
Speaker 2: be pointless to buy them because it would be clutter
Speaker 2: and they're like fifty bucks apiece. But the library is
Speaker 2: great for that so that I can page through it,
Speaker 2: enjoy it, move on. I want to wear my jewelry,
Speaker 2: so regardless of whether I want new joy or not,
Speaker 2: I don't wear the stuff I have. And this currently is,
Speaker 2: you know, working from home, like I don't necessarily get
Speaker 2: all done up for anything. But when I do go
Speaker 2: out in the world, I can put on my earrings.
Speaker 1: I can put on. An part of that is I
Speaker 1: also will need to get my ring resized. I think
Speaker 1: I need to just accept.
Speaker 2: That I have not worn my wedding ring in about
Speaker 2: a year. And I don't know if it's that I
Speaker 2: way more than when I got married at age twenty five,
Speaker 2: or my knuckle got bigger. I don't really know, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't comfortably fit, and so I would like to
Speaker 2: wear it again. I am still happily married. Not that
Speaker 2: your ring means anything for that, but you know, I
Speaker 2: need to go get that taken care of. And it
Speaker 2: just acknowledged that my knuckle is unlikely to go down
Speaker 2: in size, even if five loose weight.
Speaker 3: I think it's really common. Actually they get like joint
Speaker 3: swelling over time. Yeah, without any other real change in
Speaker 3: body sign Yah.
Speaker 2: So exactly in terms of my listening project, I am
Speaker 2: ninety percent sure I'm going to do Mozart. However, I
Speaker 2: have not constructed this calendar yet because I was hoping,
Speaker 2: I had this vague hope that somebody else would have
Speaker 2: made a motz Art calendar that I could borrow, much
Speaker 2: as I had done the Beethoven calendar. This past year,
Speaker 2: I constructed my own Bock calendar and it was fine.
Speaker 1: It was just a lot of work.
Speaker 2: So if it were a way to avoid that work
Speaker 2: with Mozart, that would be exciting.
Speaker 1: But I have not yet found anything.
Speaker 3: This is a great AI use case, and I hate AI,
Speaker 3: but well, I don't hate A. I have complex relationship
Speaker 3: with AI. But this would be like one of those
Speaker 3: where the first draft could possibly come from One of those.
Speaker 2: Could come from Yeah, I mean, because it's a multi
Speaker 2: part thing. It's both getting the complete catalog and putting
Speaker 2: it in chunks of like thirty to forty minutes of
Speaker 2: listening a day, which I think will cover it from
Speaker 2: what I can sort of, because you have to figure
Speaker 2: that out first, like how much music is there, and
Speaker 2: then finding recordings of it, and then finding the best
Speaker 2: recordings of it because nobody really wants to listen to
Speaker 2: the middle school orchestra, the middle school orchestra doing the bait,
Speaker 2: you know, the Mozart to whatever. I declined and they
Speaker 2: wouldn't do that. But anyway, you want to choose good stuff.
Speaker 3: So oh, we totally did that in my high school orchestra.
Speaker 4: So there you go.
Speaker 2: So I don't want that recording. I want a different recording.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's a lot of work. So I guess
Speaker 2: maybe I will have AI try to do the first.
Speaker 2: But if somebody's listening to this and like, hey, I
Speaker 2: found a Mozart project that you can borrow, let me know,
Speaker 2: I would love it. In terms of reading, I had
Speaker 2: thought about rereading Shakespeare's plays in their entirety, but then
Speaker 2: I just had I don't want to read all of them,
Speaker 2: Like I don't want to read whatever John the second
Speaker 2: or like Henry the fourth part one, I don't want
Speaker 2: to read those again.
Speaker 4: Didn't you do this like a few years ago?
Speaker 1: Yes, but I feel like I didn't get all of it.
Speaker 2: So what I'm going to do is a Shakespeare's Greatest
Speaker 2: Hits project where I'm going to reread about twelve plays,
Speaker 2: so one a month, with commentary, and so then I
Speaker 2: can go through even slower and make sure I'm getting
Speaker 2: like all the word play and stuff, and having already
Speaker 2: read all of them. It's at least a second reading,
Speaker 2: and for these the greatest hits, it's more like a
Speaker 2: third or fourth reading, so I know what.
Speaker 1: Happened in the plot.
Speaker 2: Now it's more about figuring out everything else that you
Speaker 2: wouldn't necessarily see on earlier readings, and going through in
Speaker 2: reading Shakespeare scholars on them as well.
Speaker 4: Super cool.
Speaker 3: It's like getting a layer deeper.
Speaker 2: I like that, Yeah, and then I have, yeah, just
Speaker 2: two more. I'm going to do strengthen flexibility three times
Speaker 2: a week. I'm going to up this to three, but
Speaker 2: five ten minutes is fine. This is about frequency, not duration,
Speaker 2: and I think I'm pretty much there already, so this
Speaker 2: is just about holding myself accountable to it. I'm going
Speaker 2: to eat produce for breakfast. That's a reup from last year.
Speaker 2: But what I'm going to add to that is roasting
Speaker 2: veggies once a week when not traveling, so that's going
Speaker 2: to be about like forty times this year. I will
Speaker 2: do a giant sheet pan of vegetables, so broccoli, cauliflower,
Speaker 2: put them inn olive oil and salt, roast them for
Speaker 2: twenty minutes. They're far more palatable that way. But that'll
Speaker 2: just be a way to sort of increase produce consumption
Speaker 2: in my life.
Speaker 4: Do you have a certain day of the week you
Speaker 4: think you'll do that.
Speaker 2: I often wind up doing it on Sundays because then
Speaker 2: we can eat it with Sunday dinner and then all
Speaker 2: week and all week or at least to Monday and Tuesday,
Speaker 2: and I usually get through the button. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: Well we're going to take a quick ad break and
Speaker 2: then we'll be back with the other categories of our goals.
Speaker 1: So we are back. This is our annual goal episode.
Speaker 2: These are our goals for twenty six with the disclaimer
Speaker 2: that we were recording this in early December, meaning that
Speaker 2: things could change in the next month. So this is
Speaker 2: not carved in stone, more written in pencil, but this
Speaker 2: is at least what we intend to do over the
Speaker 2: course of the year. So, Sarah, your next category, relationships.
Speaker 2: What do you have here?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is a repeat because I found like,
Speaker 3: I feel like I only got my footing on it
Speaker 3: at the very end of twenty two, which is to
Speaker 3: continue planning in two date nights per month and plan
Speaker 3: the main when I do my monthly planning at the
Speaker 3: beginning of the month.
Speaker 4: The second one is kind of funny.
Speaker 3: I would like to help my husband manage his work
Speaker 3: schedule better by inserting myself directly into the loop with
Speaker 3: his office manager and requesting time off. He has said
Speaker 3: it's fine for me to do this. I wouldn't have
Speaker 3: inserted myself without consulting him first, but we've just run
Speaker 3: into issues too many times where he's like, wow, I
Speaker 3: should have requested that day off and I'm like, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: but you needed to do that a few months ago,
Speaker 3: and it didn't happen. So instead of nagging him to
Speaker 3: do it, I work at the same house system, so
Speaker 3: I can just email the manager myself and see see
Speaker 3: my husband and make sure that if there are days
Speaker 3: our family wants to have off all together, to make
Speaker 3: sure that is reserved in advance. Number three, I want
Speaker 3: to wholeheartedly celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary, and we definitely
Speaker 3: have this on the pipeline already. We have a weekend
Speaker 3: away booked that I think it's going to be really
Speaker 3: special and fun. And then we're also going to Hawaii
Speaker 3: with the family, which is where we went on our honeymoon,
Speaker 3: So go big or go home.
Speaker 4: We're going to do it.
Speaker 3: And I would like to complete the thirty six Questions activity,
Speaker 3: which is thirty six questions to fall in love that
Speaker 3: I learned about from Elizabeth who blogs it optimist amusings
Speaker 3: It's New York Times activity, and I think it'd be
Speaker 3: really fun to do on a little weekend get away.
Speaker 3: I would like to see my parents and sister at
Speaker 3: least three times, and to be honest, I've already planned
Speaker 3: in I think four times that I will see them,
Speaker 3: so that's hopefully.
Speaker 4: Going to work out well.
Speaker 3: I would like to call my family members more, especially
Speaker 3: my parents. I talk to them sometimes. I feel like
Speaker 3: they get a lot of life updates via my blog,
Speaker 3: but I don't love that because then I'm not hearing
Speaker 3: what they have going on, and I just would rather
Speaker 3: have more back and forth. So I'm going to try
Speaker 3: to do that more in my commute home or while
Speaker 3: on walks, et cetera. All right, that's relationships, what about you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this one is a re up from the
Speaker 2: year is to go to three pro sports events, plus
Speaker 2: I want to add one concert, which we did last
Speaker 2: year too. I mean we went to George Strait and
Speaker 2: that was a lot of fun as a date night.
Speaker 2: But to be on the lookout for concerts we might
Speaker 2: go to. But it's just, you know, in general, makes
Speaker 2: date nights more interesting. It's fine to go out to dinner,
Speaker 2: but if you have tickets to a sporting event, you're
Speaker 2: probably gonna wind up doing it because you have to
Speaker 2: do that ahead of time. And a concert as well.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of stuff that comes through Philadelphia. We've
Speaker 2: got Lincoln Financial Field here where the Eagles play, and
Speaker 2: so most of the major stadium tours do come through here,
Speaker 2: so there'll be stuff to choose from, so planning on
Speaker 2: doing that. We are doing some family travel over Christmas
Speaker 2: and New Year, so that will be on the trip
Speaker 2: when this airs. As with all my family trips, I
Speaker 2: want to have several enjoyable moments, and I think we will.
Speaker 2: But this is not necessarily a low stress trip. And
Speaker 2: I'm sorry to be vague podcasting hair, but.
Speaker 4: You will definitely hear about it later.
Speaker 2: You will definitely hear about it later. But you know,
Speaker 2: I want to go into it with a mindset of
Speaker 2: adventure and enjoying ourselves and patients. For anything that does
Speaker 2: not go entirely as planned. I am also having a
Speaker 2: spring break trip with Sam, my sixteen year old that
Speaker 2: I think will be a ton of fun just the
Speaker 2: two of us, so I'm going to really enjoy that,
Speaker 2: and then coming out of this, I also want to decide,
Speaker 2: depending on how our Christmas trip goes, if we can
Speaker 2: aim for a sort of really big family trip in
Speaker 2: the summer of twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 1: That would need to start being planned probably in January
Speaker 1: February of twenty twenty six, if we're going to do it.
Speaker 1: So that's the travel one.
Speaker 2: I'm going to my twenty fifth re union college that's
Speaker 2: going to happen most likely. I haven't signed up for
Speaker 2: it yet, but I live close enough so I will
Speaker 2: most likely be going for at least a night or two.
Speaker 1: But I think it's actually going to be kind of
Speaker 1: fun because I'm in a pretty good lifeespace.
Speaker 2: Compared to where things could be twenty five years out
Speaker 2: of college.
Speaker 1: I think it's not bad, so that's always helpful.
Speaker 3: And twenty five is a big one, like I feel
Speaker 3: like a lot of people will attend that didn't necessarily
Speaker 3: go to all the in between all the other ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to continue doing one on one time
Speaker 2: with my kids when I can and notice it. So
Speaker 2: obviously I've got the spring break trip, but looking for
Speaker 2: other opportunities. I do a lot of shopping with one
Speaker 2: child and some other activities. People like to do different things,
Speaker 2: so it'll be fun. And then this is just a phrase,
Speaker 2: facilitate gathering. So think about when people are in the
Speaker 2: house in various combinations and how I can encourage that
Speaker 2: more and spending time together, and whether that's setting up
Speaker 2: places that people are going to be together, or making
Speaker 2: family dinners a bit longer somehow, or for instance, my
Speaker 2: kids have to be in their rooms at a certain point,
Speaker 2: but I have not policed if the ones who don't
Speaker 2: have to go to bed have been in each other's
Speaker 2: rooms sometimes talking to each other, and I think that's
Speaker 2: kind of nice that they do that. So but think
Speaker 2: about how we can facilitate gathering in this house.
Speaker 3: Awesome, all right, I think we have time for one
Speaker 3: more before our next break, so let's get to work goals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, what's your goal here, Sarah?
Speaker 3: I would say this is a category I'm not like
Speaker 3: entirely firm on yet, but I do want to launch
Speaker 3: bestly plans Academy two point zero, which is going to
Speaker 3: be similar but a improved version from the version I
Speaker 3: taught several times before.
Speaker 4: Now that I just feel like I have more experience
Speaker 4: and I have not.
Speaker 3: It's like my book came from that, and now I
Speaker 3: can make a better version of that based on the book,
Speaker 3: if that makes sense.
Speaker 4: But anyway, so that's a project.
Speaker 3: I do want to re up my goal about pitching podcasts,
Speaker 3: to just get my name out there, my book out there,
Speaker 3: et cetera. I think there's been a barrier, and then
Speaker 3: I obviously don't like no one likes rejections, right, But
Speaker 3: the truth is if you pitch thirdy or so really
Speaker 3: big podcasts, even if you get one, yes, it can
Speaker 3: be somewhat impactful. So I just need to just do it.
Speaker 3: Another goal that is a little bit of an outcome goal,
Speaker 3: and I don't know how total control, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to try is I want to trade some of my
Speaker 3: call weekends because it's just so much nicer for me
Speaker 3: to take either the Friday, Saturday, Sunday or the Monday
Speaker 3: through Thursday part of call and not do it all
Speaker 3: at once. But not all of my coworkers agree with that,
Speaker 3: so often it's waiting until someone needs coverage and then
Speaker 3: snapping up, hey i'll trade, let's trade the weekend.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to try to really try hard to
Speaker 4: do that.
Speaker 3: With as many of my colleagues as I can, so
Speaker 3: again taking the same amount of call but breaking it up.
Speaker 3: I want to figure out my next big writing project,
Speaker 3: like will there be another book, or maybe more likely,
Speaker 3: how to share some of the content I've created for
Speaker 3: Planning by Season in a.
Speaker 4: Physical way we'll see.
Speaker 3: I want to go to Pediatric Endocrine Society this year.
Speaker 3: That's been a goal for the last few years, and
Speaker 3: I didn't go the last couples, so this it's really
Speaker 3: really time, and I think I am craving that focus
Speaker 3: on the clinical side of things, and also just getting
Speaker 3: to see farflowng colleagues.
Speaker 4: At that meeting.
Speaker 3: And then finally, I would like to separate my business
Speaker 3: finances from our families' finances because right now it's kind
Speaker 3: of all in. You need a budget and I know,
Speaker 3: and some spreadsheets, but it's just like a bit of
Speaker 3: a mess. And I also feel like, since I'm interested
Speaker 3: in card hacking and stuff, this would be a great
Speaker 3: opportunity to maybe open a couple of business cards, get
Speaker 3: the bonuses, but also keep things a little bit more clear.
Speaker 3: It's legal to keep things together as long as you
Speaker 3: report everything the way it's structured. I mean to have
Speaker 3: an accountant. I report every single earning. I do ten
Speaker 3: ninety nine's, I do all that stuff. But it's just
Speaker 3: like the information is not stored in an entirely clean,
Speaker 3: separate system. So I'd like to work on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 2: All right, We're going to take one more quick ad
Speaker 2: break and then I'll share my professional goals. We are
Speaker 2: back talking our twenty twenty six goals. Sarah just shared
Speaker 2: her professional goals both through her clinical work and her
Speaker 2: creative work. So my professional goals this year. One is
Speaker 2: launching big time, which is most likely going to happen
Speaker 2: as so the train has left the station at this point.
Speaker 2: But I want to be happy with what I have
Speaker 2: done to promote it and get it out in the world.
Speaker 2: And I'm trying to shape this as a process versus
Speaker 2: an outcome goal because there's so much you can't control,
Speaker 2: and so I don't know. Maybe I should set outcome
Speaker 2: goals with it, like copies sold. That would be something
Speaker 2: I possibly might do in terms of how many I
Speaker 2: could move before it came out, for instance, like what
Speaker 2: pre order numbers do I think I could reasonably shoot for.
Speaker 2: But for now, I'm just going to say that I
Speaker 2: want to be happy that I have crossed my teas,
Speaker 2: dotted my eyes, all that good stuff. I also need
Speaker 2: to do this, but it is a goal is to
Speaker 2: write Golden Hours, which, as part of my two book contract,
Speaker 2: is due on October first, so I want to write
Speaker 2: it and be proud of it because that will be
Speaker 2: out in the world then the next year, so I'll
Speaker 2: be setting that was a twenty twenty seven goal. Launching
Speaker 2: that one. I want to write fifty two sonnets, so
Speaker 2: I am reupping this is that we're starting to get
Speaker 2: a several reupped goals, as we've figured ones we enjoy
Speaker 2: and want to stick with. But this is writing fifty
Speaker 2: two sonnets over the course of a year, so two
Speaker 2: lines a.
Speaker 1: Day, one sonnet a week.
Speaker 2: But then to kind of tweak this one a bit,
Speaker 2: I want to curate some sort of best of list,
Speaker 2: because by the end of twenty twenty six, if I
Speaker 2: continue with this, I should have theoretically something like two
Speaker 2: hundred and eight or two hundred and nine two hundred
Speaker 2: ten sonnets. So could I choose who is like twenty
Speaker 2: five of those that I really like and then do
Speaker 2: something with them?
Speaker 1: Maybe?
Speaker 3: So I think you should send them to some like
Speaker 3: esoteric literary magazine.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe we shall see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, maybe they'll be excited because they could like
Speaker 2: direct my other readers to their esoteric literary magazine, and
Speaker 2: that would be exciting for all involved. Could happen, We'll see,
Speaker 2: We'll see. And then I want to revise or library
Speaker 2: on the novella I mentioned writing through Ney no Raimu
Speaker 2: in November this past year, and I want to give
Speaker 2: an intriguing speech, So something a little out of the ordinary,
Speaker 2: whether that is in terms of location, the concept, or
Speaker 2: the group or whatever else. Probably it's gonna be the
Speaker 2: location that will be interesting to me, but I'm open
Speaker 2: to other interpretations of that. But every year I wound
Speaker 2: up giving at least nine ten speeches, so hopefully at
Speaker 2: least one of them will be something that makes me go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was really memorable in terms of it being different
Speaker 2: for this reason.
Speaker 1: So we'll figure out what that is.
Speaker 3: Yay, Well, that's exciting, and maybe someone listening to this
Speaker 3: will who knows be connected somewhere that will have a
Speaker 3: great idea for that. All right, our last category here,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you have any No you don't, well,
Speaker 3: it's me alone.
Speaker 4: Is family and home Actually second to last.
Speaker 3: Sorry. We discussed on the last episode that decluttering is
Speaker 3: a project. They may not have an end, which might
Speaker 3: be part of the problem, because as I'm reflecting back,
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, actually a lot has been decluttered
Speaker 3: in my house over the years. It's just that I
Speaker 3: never get to a point where I can say everything's decluttered.
Speaker 3: So I'm just gonna like table this for now. So
Speaker 3: when I listen to this a year from now, I'll
Speaker 3: have to have the redefined version of this goal and
Speaker 3: talk about how I met that. However, I will say
Speaker 3: one sub goal I have with the decluttering is to
Speaker 3: hire a consultant of some kind, whether it's someone who
Speaker 3: comes in my house or someone that works with me
Speaker 3: one on one, because I need that accountability piece. So
Speaker 3: even if that's the main deft part of the goal
Speaker 3: right now, I'm going to get another party involved.
Speaker 2: I really do think, as we talked about in the
Speaker 2: last episode, I mean, as you're thinking about structuring this
Speaker 2: like actually listing twelve spots and then assigning one a month,
Speaker 2: and I feel like that could happen, and then you'd
Speaker 2: know if you've done it.
Speaker 3: Yes, But then let's say you get back to January
Speaker 3: and then, like the one you did last January is
Speaker 3: like disaster again.
Speaker 2: Didn't you have to do it again? Because like again,
Speaker 2: it doesn't stay done. It doesn't stay done forever.
Speaker 4: That's the problem with this goal.
Speaker 3: I know it needs help because my vision for what
Speaker 3: the end looks like is probably not actually maybe not achievable.
Speaker 3: But I'm not ready to come to terms with that yet.
Speaker 3: I need to work.
Speaker 4: Okay, So category.
Speaker 3: I created one about fun just because I didn't feel
Speaker 3: like I had too much fun embedded in my other goals.
Speaker 3: I guess the travel is fun, but I want to
Speaker 3: aim for one long form performance every month, so it
Speaker 3: can be a movie on streaming TV. It does not
Speaker 3: have to be anything elaborate, but maybe some months it'll
Speaker 3: be a play or concert or something like that. I
Speaker 3: have a lifelong well, I've decided I'd like to make
Speaker 3: it a lifelong goal to see the leaves in the
Speaker 3: fall once every year until I die.
Speaker 4: So yeah, and then I've.
Speaker 3: Mentioned sidewise that I want to work on my points
Speaker 3: and miles games, So I do want to work on
Speaker 3: that because I want to have a banger travel year
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 2: So leave it at that, all right, need some points
Speaker 2: in miles to make that happen. Yeah, I don't really
Speaker 2: have anything in this. I just hope in general, to
Speaker 2: enjoy myself. I hope to enjoy myself in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: So I guess I could remind myself to enjoy myself
Speaker 2: as I'm going through everything that is happening professionally and personally,
Speaker 2: because many things can be stressful, but don't want to
Speaker 2: only enjoy them in retrospect.
Speaker 1: Do you choose a word of the year, Sarah? Are
Speaker 1: you going to do that this year?
Speaker 3: I haven't chosen my year. Well, funny that we're using
Speaker 3: the word choose. So I have been toying with something
Speaker 3: about choices or the word choose or something like that.
Speaker 3: But I don't actually like the feel of the word
Speaker 3: choice in my mouth, like it's too close to moist
Speaker 3: or something like I.
Speaker 4: Can't I don't like it.
Speaker 3: So I'm toying with select because to select is to
Speaker 3: choose but also select implies maybe a more elevated approach
Speaker 3: to things, a more deliberate approach, and that you're choosing
Speaker 3: things maybe higher up on the selection ladder.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: This is also a work in progress, but maybe something
Speaker 3: along those lines, partially inspired by.
Speaker 2: Your quote and Juliet School of Possibilities. By the way, Yes,
Speaker 2: expectations are infinite. Time is finite. You are always choosing
Speaker 2: choose well, but yeah, if you don't like the word choice,
Speaker 2: sidn't we being about moist hopefully brownies and not like moist,
Speaker 2: like shower or some floor.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Anyway, many many things can get with that.
Speaker 1: We have to like the word you choose, So I
Speaker 1: don't really, I don't.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to choose one, and I'm not doing
Speaker 2: any twenty six for twenty six lists or are you
Speaker 2: doing that? Nah?
Speaker 3: I'm I mean the decluttering thing twenty six categories of
Speaker 3: decluttering thing I am toying with, Okay, And maybe that
Speaker 3: would gamify things a little bit.
Speaker 1: Ooh, I like it.
Speaker 3: And if I make some of these categories kind of small,
Speaker 3: it might deintimidate the project a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like each one you could have three different drawers
Speaker 2: and like the same thing be one of the twenty six.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think you could totally make that work
Speaker 2: and each one would seem so doable that.
Speaker 1: Like socks socks socks is a kidd Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good use of that.
Speaker 2: All right, So those are our goals for twenty twenty six.
Speaker 2: We will be listening to this episode both in like
Speaker 2: June when we're recording our midyear check in and November
Speaker 2: when we are listening to it.
Speaker 1: So hello future Laura and Sarah.
Speaker 2: Yes, I hope everything has gone well. You've been enjoying
Speaker 2: yourself and selecting well, only fun surprises in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: only fun surprises, please please please? Okay, So question this
Speaker 2: week's question, Sarah, what are your feelings on streaks? I
Speaker 2: have mixed feelings on streaks. For myself, I would say
Speaker 2: I'm generally not pro streak for whatever reason. I just
Speaker 2: be like, I'll throw the baby out with the bathwater
Speaker 2: and be like, oh, well, I mess the streak up,
Speaker 2: so now I won't do it. Versus, if I give
Speaker 2: myself the goal to mostly do something and I do
Speaker 2: it ninety percent of the time, I can just feel like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm really achieving my aim and I win versus if
Speaker 2: it was a streak that I failed.
Speaker 4: However, I do think in this.
Speaker 3: Short term streaks can be kind of tantalizing and motivating.
Speaker 2: What about you, Yeah, you have a streak with a
Speaker 2: regular streak freeze option that was kind of if you
Speaker 2: do something ninety five percent of the time. I could
Speaker 2: see how that could be a good mental model lingos
Speaker 2: streak freeze concept.
Speaker 4: Oh, I use plenty of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I.
Speaker 2: Am totally fascinated by the idea of streaks. I love
Speaker 2: to write about it different people doing various streaks. I
Speaker 2: did a running streak myself well, eleven hundred days of
Speaker 2: running at least a mile every day. My father has
Speaker 2: read his thirty minutes of Hebrew pretty much every day
Speaker 2: for decades. What I'm also finding myself fascinated though, by,
Speaker 2: is the number of streaks that people have that are
Speaker 2: not intentional at all. And I'm guessing most people listening
Speaker 2: to this have at least a few of these.
Speaker 1: I mean, just so you think about, like.
Speaker 2: You've brushed your teeth probably every day at least once.
Speaker 3: And I've definitely worn my envisil line every day.
Speaker 2: For decades, you may have been brushing your teeth at
Speaker 2: least once a day, and that's not something you think
Speaker 2: about as like evidence of your ironclad discipline. But it
Speaker 2: is true that you've done it. So why have you
Speaker 2: done it? Why have you done it every single day?
Speaker 2: I mean it's not automatic. You don't like roll out
Speaker 2: of bed and your teeth magically get brushed. You have
Speaker 2: chosen to do it on some level. It's just that
Speaker 2: it's so easy. It doesn't take much time. It's built
Speaker 2: into your life, like you plan for aberrations, right, you
Speaker 2: travel with your toothbrush. It's pleasant, like the result, so
Speaker 2: you have a nice, minty, fresh breath. I think it's
Speaker 2: more negative reinforcements if you don't do it.
Speaker 4: I don't know that it's pleasant for me.
Speaker 2: But either way, I mean, it's a fine line one
Speaker 2: way or the other. Either you're happy that you've done it,
Speaker 2: or you're very unhappy if you have it. Yes, So
Speaker 2: what else have people done? I mean, you know, those
Speaker 2: of us who drink coffee, I've probably had coffee every
Speaker 2: single day.
Speaker 3: My streak broke in the hospital, and let me tell
Speaker 3: you how much I was begging those ice You doctors
Speaker 3: to give me some coffee and you wouldn't and yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Didn't want to break that one.
Speaker 3: And that's another example of it has both positive reinforcement
Speaker 3: and very powerful negative reinforcement.
Speaker 1: But think about this.
Speaker 2: If you are a coffee drinker, you have a streak
Speaker 2: of drinking coffee, probably pretty much every day, again, maybe
Speaker 2: for decades. And it's not that you set out to
Speaker 2: have a streak. I mean, you can call it an
Speaker 2: addiction if you want. There's a fine line between streaks
Speaker 2: and addiction. But somehow you've managed to do that. So
Speaker 2: the question is if you have a different streak that
Speaker 2: you would like to do, like if you would write
Speaker 2: to read a short passage in something I don't know,
Speaker 2: a spiritual text, or if you want to write in
Speaker 2: a journal every day, Like, how could you make the
Speaker 2: incentives the same as that long term streak that you've
Speaker 2: done sort of without really thinking about it.
Speaker 3: Super interesting as I am pondering this, I do think
Speaker 3: having a powerful negative motivator of not doing this streak
Speaker 3: is probably the stronger push for most people. It's my
Speaker 3: hot take.
Speaker 2: Hot take, all right, well, something to think about for
Speaker 2: all of us. So, Sarah, what is your love of
Speaker 2: the week this week.
Speaker 4: My kids sleeping in.
Speaker 3: Ten years ago, if I could have envisioned getting to
Speaker 3: start a lot of my weekend mornings in a nice, peaceful,
Speaker 3: serene house with everyone asleep until maybe nine, I couldn't
Speaker 3: have believed it. But we are here, and it's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it happens. It does get there eventually. I love
Speaker 2: that too. I love days when I don't have to
Speaker 2: set an alarm, and there's so few of these, like
Speaker 2: even on weekends because somebody's gonna have some sort of
Speaker 2: athletic event or a contest or whatever. Like often there's something,
Speaker 2: there's a reason I'm set in alarm, but there's occasional
Speaker 2: days when I don't, and it's kind of fun to
Speaker 2: have those. We were recording this shortly after the long
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving weekend, and there were at least a few days
Speaker 2: on that weekend where nobody had to be anywhere because
Speaker 2: of the holiday, and so yeah, it was It's kind
Speaker 2: of nice just see how the day starts, and especially
Speaker 2: as the kids are sleeping in. Who knows how late
Speaker 2: I could be sleeping in, Probably not as late as
Speaker 2: I think. Well, the older Dune kills and thirty it
Speaker 2: was longer, Yeah, exactly. All right, Well, this has been
Speaker 2: best of both worlds. We've been discussing our twenty twenty
Speaker 2: six goals. We will be back next week with more
Speaker 2: on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
Speaker 3: or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can.
Speaker 2: Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
Speaker 2: been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us
Speaker 2: next time for more on making work and life work together.