1. Follow a weekly exercise routine
The resolution I make year after year, but I'm feeling good about following through this time. Will be finding people to keep my accountable (I actually never tell my parents about the times I do exercise because I don't want to get their hopes up and increase their nagging e_e ), blocking time out, and reminding myself with Done.
2. Establish a hair care routine & learn styling techniques
With hormonal acne mostly under control thanks to IUD, my next (and hopefully last) dissatisfaction with my appearance is my haphazard hair. It's relatively healthy (never dyed and only permed years ago) so I've been lazy and just leaving it be. Somedays it naturally looks good, most days not so much. I've already done most of my research on this, so now it remains to just try a bunch of products and practice curling my hair.
3. Improve quality of relationship with friends & family
My internal anguish as a severe introvert is simultaneously not wanting to socialize but wanting close relationships regardless. I do feel happy after hanging out with friends / fam, so really just gotta suck it up and get over my initial dread. I'm setting a monthly target of:
- Meeting up with 1 in-town friend
- Calling 1 out-of-town friend
- Calling a family member every week
4. Increase professional credibility (aka the string of letters after my name on a business card)
This again breaks down into 3 sub-targets:
- LEED AP certification by July
- WELL certification by December
- P.Eng by 2021
For the first two, some actions are to download study guides, block out one afternoon every weekend to study (and also daily quick revisions morning / night), and book the exams. For P.Eng, it's mostly recording my experiences so I can quickly fill out the forms. I'm putting off the ethics test until 2020, as well as actively trying to work on a Passivhaus project to keep my certificate.
5. Build a diverse professional network
I haven't figured out a good way to maintain professional relationships, or how to follow up with interesting people that I meet at events. Actions for this goal are a) going out to events, focusing on engineering young professional and sustainable building; b) preparing questions / conversation points so to minimize awkward small talk; and c) reaching out to experienced friends on how to nourish existing connections
6. Can cough up a downpayment in 5 years
Here's hoping for a miraculously timed housing bubble crash & quick recovery right after.
But actually this is just going to be a long grind. First action is set up budget, but am waiting until I'm back in Toronto to start on this. Actually, action zero is negotiate a good offer for when I am back.
7. Lead a low-waste lifestyle
Currently I don't foresee myself ever hitting pretty-much-zero-waste, as it's just not a priority. But there are definitely low-hanging fruit lifestyle changes that I can implement to significantly reduce the amount of waste (the 20 effort / 80 results part). This is trendy in the lifestyle blogging world right now, so I will dedicate an afternoon to research & brainstorming ideas, and then implement 1 new idea per month. Will report back monthly on progress.
...
Using the GCI framework, the above is module 1&2 of goal setting & planning, which frankly is the easy and exciting part for me. The remaining modules 3&4 of executing and reflecting needs a lot more work. One thing I realized through the workshop is that because I consider myself naturally reflective & self aware, I've avoided implementing a formal system to track and review my goals. It's like I'm at a B+ level and never had the desire to get to A+.
So with my abundant free time until I'm off to Atlanta, I will craft A System to use for the year. Some initial scribbles:
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