I've been a person to make New Year's Resolutions but not get particularly tied to them. Some — like learning to stop biting my nails — were successful, where others have not been.
This year I still wrote a few resolutions for myself because I think it's a fun thing to look back on at the end of the year. Unlike previous years on my blog, though, I thought it would be fun to talk more about the vision board I made. I was inspired by my wonderful friend, Madison Hadler, to build a vision board.
Hobbies & Travel
Something I was so excited for in my post-grad life was the opportunity to travel more. Obviously COVID put a stop to that quickly as I only had 2 1/2 months in the "normal" corporate world before COVID. While COVID is very much still real and active, I am hoping that we will safely be able to go on a few trips this year. I'm traveling for work to Boston in February. David and I are hoping to get up to Milwaukee in the fall to explore all of the breweries and eat all of the cheese curds. We have a few other travel plans that didn't make it on the vision board but that I'm equally excited about.
I'm also looking forward to running a half marathon in March (I'm fundraising during my training for Girls on the Run of KC, if you feel called to donate you can do so here). After the half marathon I'm hoping to get back into strength training and really work on building up my muscle again.
At the beginning of the year I set a goal of reading 40 books but I've cruised through a few early on so I adjusted my Goodreads Challenge to 45.
Personal Goals
Some of these are more aspirational and futuristic than others. While this is labeled a "2022 Vision Board," I think that throwing in long-term items is a great way to keep them at the front of your mind. One of the biggest personal goals I have is to go to grad school sometime soon. I don't need it for my career (necessarily) and I wanted to take a break from school after I graduated, but I'm now at the point where I miss it. To see how much I could handle while still working full time I enrolled in a certificate course through the University of Illinois and I'm really loving it. I don't 100% know when I'll apply or where I'll apply to, but I look forward to being in school again. I also keep a running list of marketing/communication themed thesis ideas so the possibility of bringing one of them to life excites me.
This wasn't included outright on the board but something I home to continue this year is my blog and YouTube channel. Because my job is content marketing it can be hard to find the motivation to write more content or film content when that's my job 40 hours a week, however, I did Vlogmas at Christmas and liked vlogging a lot more than I remembered. I think that if/when I go to graduate school, I will be more inspired to blog/vlog about my experience navigating and balancing grad school with a full time job.
The more long-term goals are captured by the bottom two images. I'd love to live on land with David, our future children, and lots of dogs (and goats!?). David's mom grows so many different things in her garden, but I especially love that she grows pumpkins. One day when we live on acreage, I hope to grow pumpkins, too!
Professional Goals
My work has a whole new platform they've introduced to help us track and measure our goals. While I won't be going into the nitty-gritty of my workplace goals on here, I thought I'd share some more general professional goals. I hope to continue growing in my career and eventually reach a content manager position or other digital marketing position (again, long-term). I hope to continue to learn more about the educational technology industry and figure out how to effectively reach and impact our target audiences. My manager and I are trying to read a different professional development-style book together every few months and I'm excited to continue to learn how to refine the content creation process through those learning opportunities. I will also be bringing my certificate coursework knowledge and potential master's degree knowledge into my role, too.
A lot of my areas are interconnected which I think is a good thing. It's probably a bit easier to reach my vision if they all work together toward who I hope to be in the future. I don't think we're ever "done" with trying to figure out who we are or what we hope to accomplish in life, but I think this vision board is a great depiction of where I'm hoping to go right now.
Until next time,
Taylor xx
Taylor xx
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