Tag: Goal-Setting

Step 4 – Persevere

I’ve started Step 4 of the 90-day action plan. This is the Persevere step.

For going on four months I was forced indoors because of the COVID-19 outbreak in New York City.

New York State went from having the highest number of cases to having the lowest infection rate as of today.

My goal had been to use my paycheck to buy food. Which I was able to do for the duration of Step 3 Perspire.

Living indoors I wasn’t tempted to buy things impulsively that I didn’t need.

Today and in the coming four weeks this is when I’m supposed to use tactics to persevere in maintaining this goal.

After I publish Working Assets my goal is to publish a personal finance book for peers.

To feel like you have control over the direction of your life is imperative. To have control over what you choose to spend money on is the first step in gaining economic freedom.

A shift in behavior can create a corresponding mental shift. And two goals can co-exist at once. Like my goal of cooking my own dinners 5x per week and creating on Sunday a routine for the coming week.

By relaying in this blog my progress with my own goals I strive to empower readers to tackle their own objectives.

To create lasting change you and I need to be able to maintain the new behavior for the long-term.

I will talk in the next blog entry about the number-one benefit of establishing a routine in a time like this pandemic and beyond.

My 90-Day Goal

In coming weeks I will return to talking about careers.

For now I want to use this time to explore topics and themes that can serve as the gateway to career success.

Living through the pandemic a lot of us have had to put our big goals on hold.

I would say that to feel productive in a time like this you can engage in a garden-variety self-improvement project.

This is what I’m doing using the Changeology 90-Day Action Plan. To recap each step:

Step 1: Psych

Step; 2: Prep

Step 3: Perspire

Step 4: Persevere

Step 5: Persist.

The goal you set should be S.M.A.R.T: Specific Measurable Attainable Relevant and Time-Specific.

From my own experience I’ve seen it’s better to set goals in a stair-step progression from easier to achieve to harder to obtain.

I’m in Step 3 of my goal. Step 3 lasts at least 6 weeks according to the Changeology book.

I started to execute the new behavior on June 1, 2020 of this month. For the last two weeks I’ve been successful. I will continue with Step 3 through July 2020 of this year.

My plan of publishing the Working Assets book will take longer to come to fruition.

For now I will use this blog as the medium for giving readers information culled from my work as a career services librarian.

In this blog I will show readers what I’ve done to empower you to take action in your own life.

Take what’s helpful and change and modify what I talk about to suit your own needs.

Everything I write has been road-tested by me. There’s nothing controversial about what I’m writing.

The difference is I’m catering to a target market that no one else sees as being a target market to begin with.

I’m giving readers competitive information.

If you ask me engaging in goal-seeking behavior can give your life meaning and purpose during a time like the pandemic.

It’s a great way to feel better about yourself and to feel productive.

Just remember: a big goal might have to be put on hold.

Yet any kind of self-improvement project can benefit a person at any time in their life.

Taking a Detour

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic I want to talk about taking a detour.

My life didn’t get better until I turned 35 and started my library job.

Shunted into the mental health system early in my recovery I was forced to take a detour.

Let me tell you a detour is not a dead-end. It’s a pit stop along the way to a different path.

Maybe you’re not supposed to get what you want quickly and painlessly.

That is the goal as I see it–to embrace the struggle for what it is– a learning of something you need to know in order to get what you want.

I care a lot that in this pandemic everything seems to have been put on hold. A sunny day can be harder to envision.

Sometimes where you start out isn’t where you should remain.

That is the ultimate purpose of a detour: to cement in your mind the one true path you must go down to be happy and fulfilled.

You don’t often figure out until you experience firsthand a setback the truth about who you are and where you should be going in life.

Again–I think of these things during the pandemic we’re living through. Of how it can seem like this is the end of everything–the end of your hopes and dreams for whatever you had hoped to achieve.

I say: use this time to engage in active reflection.  Get out a notebook and sketch out what your goals will be when the pandemic is over.

Shore up your good feelings while you shelter in place.

Remember that after things get better there’s so much life for all of us to live.