(This post is completely inspired by Jordan Ferney, one of my favorite people on the internet, and her post here.)
I wish I could remember the exact timing of the whole thing and wish even more that I still had this journal, but I have the most vivid recollection of being in my early twenties, sitting on the seventy year old wood floor of my Brentwood apartment, and jotting notes into a journal. I was thinking about my future career and while I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do I wrote these things:
- ability to work from anywhere
- travel a lot
- write!
It's not lost on me that my current career situation checks all of those boxes. Knowing is half the battle. That's what they say isn't it? Sometimes accomplishing the task isn't as hard as knowing what it is that you want to accomplish. You think you know what you want, but if you actually had to write three things down on a piece of paper (or a paint sample!), could you do it? For someone who regularly thinks about the future and goal setting, I still found it challenging to really narrow down all of the ideas that have ever crossed my mind, all of the options that exist out there, all of the career trajectories to just three things.
When I think about the three things I wrote on the card, it's quickly obvious that this wasn't the first time those things had popped into my head. They have all been in mind for YEARS. But there's something about choosing them among all of the other things, about writing them down and pinning them on the wall to see every single day that makes them feel like real attainable things. I also thought it was interesting that we typically associate goal setting with our careers, but that of everything I could have chosen, only one thing had anything to do with career.
I was curious what other people would say, so I began texting friends and their answers are below...
Here's the other magic in this. You are admitting to yourself that you want these things. As moms I think it's easy to put everyone else's needs before your own, but there's something freeing in knowing what it is that you want and saying it to the people you live with, to your friends and your family.
The best part? This is all you need:
What's on your list? Do share!
Photography by Katie Jameson
Jennifer says
1. Find a new job that I love
2. Travel
3. Move to a different State
Jennifer
Effortlessly Sophisticated