Friday, April 23, 2010

2 Years and 99 Days and Career Goals

While you might think that a book called 48 Days to the Work You Love is all about changing careers or jobs, it is about so much more than that. It's about finding what you are meant to do and finding a balance in life so that all of your self-worth does not come from your career. Before I went back to college online through OU, I had a very tough year in my business. I was feeling discouraged and burned out and not sure if I could or should stay in child care. Most of my feelings of self-worth had been tied up in child care for years. Every training I did, every class I took, and my associate's degree were all related to child care. So stepping out and going for a degree that had nothing to do with child care really freed me. It helped me to feel better about myself to be successful at something that was totally unrelated to child care. It also helped me to have a goal to work towards. That's why setting these goals while reading this book really struck home with me. Goals keep you focused. Even if you do not end up accomplishing everything you want to, just working towards it really helps. So that being said, today I want to talk about my goals for my career.

As I was getting ready to graduate from OU, I had several people (especially child care parents) asking me if I was going to move on to a different career. Since working for the degree helped alleviate my burn out, I felt good about staying in child care. But of course, business has been up and down the last year or so and I've felt discouraged. Looking back however, I can see God's hand in it. For example, it would have been hard to take care of Tom after his surgery with a whole house full of kids here. But I was starting to feel discouraged and burned out again, hence the reason I was reading this book (well that and the fact I had wanted to read it since I heard about it at Financial Peace University). I was wondering if it was time to make a change. As I read about setting goals in the different areas of life, I had a light bulb moment. I go to a lot of child care trainings and read a lot of child care books and I am always finding good ideas that I want to try out (and I do try many of them). But I also have a tendency to want to change/do everything at once and then I get overwhelmed and end up doing very little. So I set a goal for myself to work on one area of change each month in my business. This month I'm working on deep-cleaning and organizing the play room area. Next I will make some changes outside. It feels good to have a plan. I am also working on and brainstorming ideas of ways to market my business in ways beyond the typical flyers around town.

Tonight I am going out of town for a child care class tomorrow. I will probably get back too late to post tomorrow but I will try to post on Sunday. Oh and I have an interview for a drop-in scheduled on Tuesday evening and would appreciate prayers for that!

3 comments:

Di said...

Now you are beginning to sound like the Tracy that I know and love! I hope you know how I mean that, because I mean it in the best possible way! I guess I have always admired your optimistic outlook and how driven you were to always improve yourself. I haven't seen much of that side of you for awhile now. I always have to push myself to be optimistic and "cup half full" , I guess because I have too much of my mom in me. Anyway, I am glad to see you being positive.

Mandy said...

I am glad to see you writing again. I always enjoy reading it. I am too much Grandma and cup half empty but I am gettinb better :-)

KiddoKare1 said...

Di, I totally get what you are saying. I truly cannot even remember the last time that I felt like myself. It's been like I was going through the motions of doing what I knew I had to do, but not enjoying any of it.
Mandy, thanks. It feels good to want to write again.