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I want to wish all of a merry Christmas! Enjoy the holidays, spending time with your loved ones, the good food, & the presents. I hope you get to enjoy the break from busy everyday life, take a deep breath, and let go for a moment.
Hi, I’m Valerie from vQh! Karen and I are participating in the 20 Something Bloggers blog swap, check out my blog for Karen’s post!!
Action. What will you do next year that you’ve been putting off for too long?
There is one thing I’ve been putting off FAR too long and it’s time to get in gear and do something about it! Before the end of 2010, I’ll be registering my business name and starting to work for myself. I have been working as a small business marketer on a freelance basis and it’s time to make strides to doing this on full time. I currently hold a full time job but would like to start working where my passion is.
I have a passion for seeing small businesses thrive! I would like to work more directly with small business owners to obtain their dreams.
I’ve started a plan of action to get up and running and it’s time to make the move!
What have you been putting off?
This post is part of the online initiative Reverb10. You can find all of my Reverb10 posts here.
December 11 – 11 Things. What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?
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Self-doubt
I have become much more secure of myself but I still doubt myself too much. Especially being that I am about to start my first full-time job, I want to eradicate self-doubt from my life. It makes me second-guess my decisions, my work, and what others say. It’s very counterproductive and I think that if I want my supervisor to believe I am doing a good job, I need to be believe it myself first.
Lethargy
Whenever I have too much time on my hands, instead of easily getting everything done, I become lethargic and frequently don’t get anything done or take forever to get things done. I think that having a job will take care of having too much time on my hands. I have found that being productive makes me feel much better than not doing anything.
Procrastination
I love putting things off till the last minute. While that worked okay when I was a college student, I think it won’t work so well now that I’ll be working. I want to eliminate procrastination not just from my professional life but also from my private life. I will have much less free time and need to use that time well, so I can get everything done that needs to be done and still have time for fun things.
Drama
I really cannot stand having drama in my life. Some people seem to thrive on it, but for me it just steals so much energy. I have done pretty well with avoiding drama in the past couple of years and want to keep it that way. Especially as work brings a whole new potential for drama.
Dependence
I know it is only natural to depend on others but what I do not what for 2011 is the kind of dependence I had on my parents up until now. I need the distance and I need for them to see that I am an adult. I am hoping that will change how they treat me.
Inactivity
I am a pretty lazy person. It’s hard to motivate myself to exercise. In the past few months I have been doing really well with a workout routine but moving will change a lot of things, e.g., I will no longer be able to take Zumba classes. But I am planning to find new things to do. I want to keep going swimming once a week and will start running again when the weather permits. I am also going to try to find exercise classes in the small town I’ll be living in, though I won’t be able to be very picky. And I want to order the Zumba DVDs and do Zumba at home once a week or so.
Overweight
Very closely related with the previous point, I want to eliminate being overweight from my life in 2011. I have already lost roughly 25lbs since August and I am planning to get to a healthy weight range within the next few months. But really, while losing weight is not easy, keeping the weight off is a lot harder than losing it, so I will have to work extra hard when I have reached my goal weight, especially as I will be sitting at a desk for most of the day.
Worrying
Typically I worry especially about things beyond my control. Which is particularly pointless as I have no influence over it in that case and worrying won’t change a thing except cost me time and energy that would better be used on something else.
Nailbiting
I have been biting my nails ever since I was a kid. I have tried to stop several times. I never last very long. I don’t have a lot of vices but this is definitely one of them and I really don’t like it. To me it’s just not a very grown-up thing to do. I want to stop biting my nails and finally have nice-looking nails.
Late bedtimes
I’m a night owl and for the longest time have gone to bed late and gotten up late unless I had to get up early. Once I start working in a month, I will have to get up early every day, so I will hopefully get used to going to bed early because otherwise I’d be permanently sleep-deprived. I am hoping that I will simply slip into this new routine. So far it was hard to do that as I had no real reason (except my nagging parents) to make it a habit to get up early.
I know I am only at ten things in my list but in an attempt to work on #10 I am going to end it here. It is 1.30am already and tomorrow will be a busy day so I want to be up early.
This post is part of the online initiative Reverb10. You can find all of my Reverb10 posts here.
December 10 – Wisdom. What was the wisest decision you made this year, and how did it play out?
The first thing that came to my mind was deciding to apply for the job I I ended up being offered despite all my doubts about it, and going through the interview process. I have not actually started the job yet, so hypothetically it could suck, but I do have a very good feeling about it. But as I don’t want to reiterate this post, I will write about something different.
Though technically not a decision I made in 2010, it impacted me mostly this year. I think one of the wisest decisions I made was picking the two professors I did for my final exams. Literally everything depended on these two persons, as they are the ones determining all the grades that made up my GPA. I chose two professors who specialized in topic areas I had an affinity for, and I liked them as persons which is so important in all relationships, whether they be personal, academic or professional. My grades were not perfect (though I am happy with the overall result), I got asked some mean questions, one exam went pretty horribly, but I don’t harbor any feelings of animosity toward them. Both were friendly and supportive, while also having their own little quirks.
Personal sympathy is really what can make or break a project. I find it invaluable to be on the same wavelength as a person you’re dealing with, especially in situations where you cannot choose not to deal with them. Maybe some people are good at dealing with people regardless of how they feel about them, but it is so much easier when you don’t have to pretend you like a person when really, you don’t. And this was a situation where two individuals had a lot of power over my professional future in terms of my grades. Of course studying was up to me but I do believe that personal sympathy influences both professors and students in how benevolent they are. There is some leeway in grading and that personal sympathy can make all the difference.
I am hoping that as I am about to start a new job in just a month, I will find a friendly and benevolent environment. I have had a professional experience when this was not the case and it was something that impacted me very much and for a long time. And that was just an internship, where my days where counted. But this? Is a permanent position. I want to enjoy being at work. I want to love what I’m doing. I want to get along with my co-workers.