professional development

November Goals 2021

2021, goals

Hello!

It’s always going to be a fantastic month with the 1st is on a Monday – my little organisational brain finds it incredibly satisfying and I can’t wait to start my first full month in my new job (at what point do I have to stop saying ‘new’? It’s been three weeks!).

My October Goals were somewhat of a train wreck – I expected to be unemployed the whole month and take some time for myself, work on creative projects and do lots of reading, but I got really depressed and overwhelmed by the concept of being unemployed for an indefinite amount of time and I started a job after only a week of not having one which had a much longer commute than from my bed to my office in the spare room, so time has been short, energy has been low but my mental health is on the way up (I hope!), so I’m cautiously optimistic about November.

Without further ado, these are the five goals I’ll be focusing on this month:

1 – NaNoWriMo

It’s National Novel Writing Month – the time where thousands of people all over the world get square eyes from looking at their laptops and attempt to write 50,000 words in just 30 days.

I saw a wonderful article the other day when I was doing some research on journalling of someone who just used it as incentive to write – he included journalling, blog posts and a fictional story (I believe) in his word count and although I’d love to write a 50,000 word novel this month, I think I want to include some ‘diary’ aspects to my word count too. Though they might not be a diary of my life and they might be relevant to the story, which would be an incredibly fun character development exercise if nothing else.

Wish me luck and tweet me if it looks like I’m not writing!

2 – Update my Portfolio instagram

I really intended to do this when I was unemployed so I could use it to get employed, but I haven’t updated my @salportfolio account in seven months, so I’m going to work on doing a bit catch up then it’ll be much easier to do little updates as and when (assuming I don’t forget about the account again).

3 – Cosplanning

I love the amount of words people mush together to make new words – cosplanning (thank you sibling for the introduction to that one!) is when you plan what cosplays you want to do (cosplay itself is a portmanteau of ‘costume’ and ‘play’, and yes I’m impressed that I used the word ‘portmanteau’ too).

I’ve spent all year saying I’m working on a cosplay, but I’ve spent all year putting it off but with the creation of the Mystery Machine prop for an office Halloween costume (see in my ‘Treasured In… October 2021‘ post), I’m feeling very creative and inspired but I want to properly evaluate what I’m capable of (both in terms of skill and the time I can dedicate) and figure out at least one costume to wear to MCM ComicCon next May. I have plenty of time, but if I’m doing it I want to do it well.

4 – Wedding Planning

As of November 5th, there’s less than a year till our wedding and it still doesn’t feel real! I feel like I’ve booked all the ‘big’ things but hopefully we’ll get really stuck in to working with the venue soon and it’ll start to come to life!

This month I want to review my goals for 2021 and work on anything that needs ticking off, particularly figuring out our finances in regard to the wedding and really knuckling down with the saving!

5 – Southampton trip

And with our anniversary in mind – my fiancé and I met in halls when we both went to Solent University in Southampton in 2015 so I thought for our last year before the wedding it would be nice to make a trip. We can’t go for our anniversary weekend but we’re tying it in with the release of a film we’re really excited about and we’re going to go to all our favourite old spots including Sprinkles Gelato for waffles, Forbidden Planet for nerd merch and maybe even wonder on down to the docks.

We’ve not been able to do any of the travelling we wanted to do this year, so I’m really looking forward to this weekend!

Starting a new job which involves two 45+ minute drives every day is exhausting – and don’t get me wrong, I am exhausted – but I’m working so much harder on planning my time and prioritising what’s important to me. I save admin tasks like wedding stuff and finance tracking for days my partner is away with work so we can play video games and watch ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ when he is home. Sometimes I delete things off my to do list in favour of having a quiet night watching ‘House’ and doing some cross stitch because there’s no point spending three hours doing a task that will take one when I’m in the right mindset.

I’m always getting to know myself better (as we all are, I think!) and learning to adjust and work with myself rather than berating myself and burning out.

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

March mini goals

2021, goals

Hello!

Setting mini goals has been a way for me to keep myself focused and making progress for at least three years now, but in the last few months I’ve been really making sure that my monthly goals allow for consistent development from my yearly goals and already I’m seeing progress and it’s so motivating! Seeing a whole month of goals that I know I’ve solidly worked on makes me feel so good and so motivated to carry on!

To have 100% completed 3 tasks and half completed 2 tasks of my February mini goals, I know I made solid progress! I think, in part, vaguely planning my monthly goals for the year has made this easier because I can make sure I’m allotting enough time for each goal I want to achieve, but I know for a fact that I’m working really hard to make as much progress as I can too!

This is a combination of clever goal setting (knowing that I really want to achieve these goals, rather than feeling obliged to) and having the yearly/monthly/weekly goals and to do lists in place to hold myself accountable. I’m feeling so motivated right now and I can’t wait to jump right in to my March mini goals!

1. Start writing a book adaptation screenplay

I got a taste of screenplay writing for my dissertation last year and I very quickly discovered how much I enjoyed and how much more there was to learn about the art of the writing style. One of my potential dissertation topics was about book adaptations and my final dissertation was all about storytelling, so I thought writing an adaptation would be a good place to start to learn about the style without having to consider my own story as well.

This is just for personal use – I’m not claiming to be an experienced screenwriter and I’m definitely not writing any movie scripts to sell anytime soon. But this is a project I want to finish over the course of the year, so this is just the beginning.

2. Start my first cosplay costume

I’ve been banging on about cosplay for years, but this year I’m going to do it! Another goal that I want to achieve over the year rather than in just one month, but I want to spend this month planning it all – what I want to make, what I want to buy and how I can bring it all together.

I’m creating a Team Yell costume from Pokemon Sun and Moon (to go with my sister’s Marnie cosplay). I’m hoping this will really help me develop my sewing and learn about so many different kinds of crafting outside of clothes to make all the accessories. I think I’ll document some of the process on my TikTok if you’re interested!

3. March wedding tasks!

I said in my ‘how I planned my wedding planning’ post that I’d broken everything down and assigned tasks to each month and so far, it’s working relatively well!

My task for this month is to figure out what wedding insurance is and whether we need it, which I imagine will only take an afternoon really! I also need to finalise booking a photographer and videographer because I did a lot of research about it in February but it was all very overwhelming (and much more expensive than I thought it would be!) so hopefully I’ll be able to get that decision made this month.

4. Develop my 5 year plan

I don’t really like calling it a ‘plan’ because it’s definitely not certain enough to be a plan, but I have a spread in my bullet journal listing the next five years and goals and ideas for what I’d like to achieve in each of them. I’ve not looked at my 5 year plan since I last updated in 2020 (2020-2024) and I really need to start my 2021-2025 one, but that’s what this goal is for!

Rather than sticking with my 2019-2023 plan that I started in my 2019 journal, I like moving my 5 year plan through journals with me because I think it’s a much more realistic way of looking ahead for the next 5 years. In 2019 I never would have been able to predict that I would be where I am at the beginning of 2021 and it would have got really messy with crossing out and changing things, so I prefer the rolling approach.

5. Find somewhere new to live!

Although we have a lovely landlord on our one bed house, we’re ready to find something bigger and move somewhere more relevant to my work (if I ever get to work anywhere other than home). We are on a rolling contract in our current house, so we don’t have a deadline to find a new house by, but the time is right for us!

And to be clear; we’re still renting. We don’t have the savings for buying and we’re only 24 and 25 – I know people who are buying houses, but I don’t know a single one who’s saved every penny themselves and not had a rather large savings account from parents or grandparents. No shade, not judging anyone, just kind of fed up of being asked about it as someone who’s literally only just started their first career job – I have not got the income to have tens of thousands of pounds in savings!

And then my rolling monthly goals are:

  • Read 2 books
  • Put a certain amount of money in my savings account
  • Have a date night with le fiancé

I’ve had a good old ramble this month haven’t I? So I’ll keep the ending short and sweet – I love goal setting! Should I write a post about how I planned all of my monthly goals for the year?

Thank you for reading,

Sophie xx

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ACHIEVING your goals for the year ✨

2020, career, goals, organisation

Hello!

I love setting goals and one thing I’ve learnt in the three or so years I’ve been consistently goal setting, is finding more ways to make those goals achievable (rather than writing them down and wondering why they’re not happening).

Sometimes I think it sounds stupid – like, if you’re setting goals then just keep tabs on them and actually do stuff then you will achieve them. But sometimes a list of ‘end goals’ on a page can feel a bit intimidating, so having the steps breakdown and working on it bit by bit works really well for me.

These are my top three tips for making any goals you’ve set for the year achievable. If you want to see how I set goals and what I want to achieve in 2020 then you can read my blog post about it here!

1 – put your goals into categories!

Clearly labelling your goals and knowing why you set them can be a huge factor in making them feel more achievable. For example, if a goal is in a ‘career’ category then you know you may be able to take steps in your work environment rather than in your personal time, if a goal is in a ‘fitness’ category then you know you need to set time aside to work on that.

2 – allow yourself the flexibility to adapt your goals

Checking in with why you want to achieve your goals and whether they’re still important to you is so much better than investing your time in things you’re not interested in anymore. In my 2019 goals I initially wanted to build a freelance career because I had some freelance work, but that fell through very quickly and I drew the conclusion that freelancing isn’t suited to what I want for my career so I didn’t spend any more time working on that goal.

Let yourself change and develop your goals as you yourself change and develop.

3 – set monthly mini goals

If you’ve been following my blog for a while you’ll know that I set monthly goals and post about them every single month. I find this makes my goals less big and more achievable! It’s so rewarding seeing progress on something you’ve been ‘working on’ for a really long time. I stick to five goals and they’re not all related to my yearly goals because that would be a lot.

An example of breaking down one of my goals over the year is that by the end of the year I want to be working full time, whether that’s in a ‘career’ job or something more temporary and I know that I’m not going to be able to apply and just start work when I finish my dissertation in September. So I’ve been having meetings with the careers team at my university, looking back over the notes from my Professional Development Planning course I did last year to learn from that and speaking with my lecturers for advice on how to get a step up in a specific industry I might want to work in. Hopefully these steps this month and in the coming months will help me step more easily into full time work in the last quarter of the year.

Setting my mini goals is the most exciting part of the beginning of the month for me – being able to reflect on what worked, what didn’t, what I didn’t achieve and what I can celebrate every month really motivates me to carry on developing myself professionally and personally.

I understand that not everyone is a goal orientated person and they way they develop themselves is more organic and less structured but I’m someone who really benefits from seeing progress and planning how I can maintain it. So I hope this helps in one way or another!

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx

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