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!

2 Years and 98 Days and the baby EF

Continuing yesterday's theme of talking about the goals I've set in the different areas of life. In the financial area, I want to get our baby emergency fund built back up. It is at 0 right now which is a very disturbing feeling. With Tom being back at 40 hours a week and having the chance at overtime after he gets off light duty (when he goes back to work he'll have a few weeks of light duty), that should help things considerably. Besides the Christmas holidays (when they got paid for both Friday holidays), Tom got his first full paycheck in 15 months last week. It was amazing! I am very grateful for him to be back to full-time hours and even more grateful that he is willing to work some Saturdays for the overtime pay. We plan to put every bit of that into the emergency fund. I'd like to come up with some other ways to earn extra $'s and plan to brainstorm on that today.

The census people have called several times wanting me to come work for them, but all of their trainings are during the daytime. When I applied, I was given the impression that the trainings would be available on evenings and weekends for people with daytime jobs. However, I have decided that it was not in God's plan for right now so I am looking for guidance and ideas for other ways to raise money. As always, your prayers in this area are appreciated.

Finally, for those of you who have prayed for Tom & I during the last 15 months while his hours were cut back, we are very thankful to you. Please continue your prayers as we continue our journey to being debt-free.

2 Years and 97 Days and GO ME!

I have been reading this book that I borrowed from the church library: 48 Days to the Work you Love. I first heard about it during our Financial Peace University class and had wanted to read it. I was super excited when I found out our church had it. The book has you set goals in 7 different areas of your life:
Financial
Spiritual
Social
Family
Career
Personal Development
Physical

You start with 5 year goals and work your way back. I've set 5 year goals, 1 year goals, and 1 month goals. My goal is to make at least one small improvement in each area of my life every month. In the area of physical, for 6 of the last 7 days, I've got up and done some sort of exercise (walked or my Yoga for the Rest of Us dvd). I figure my asthma is bothering me most of the time anyway, I might as well be exercising a little bit. Over the next few days, I'll share about my goals in some of the other areas.

2 years and days 88-96 and Tom is doing well

An update on Tom: He is recovering well from his surgery. He got his staples out last week and is now able to use his arm well enough to shift the car into gear so he can drive. He's quite excited about that! So am I! LOL. He goes back to the Dr. on Monday to see when he can go back to work. He'll be on light duty for a while when he does go back.