As you can see, it’s been almost two months since my last status report (and my last post, for that matter). It has not been for lack of things to say (I’ve got lists all over my house of books I’d like to mention, sites I’d like to recommend, and topics I’d like to discuss), but rather because I have not devoted specific time to sit down and write. So when one of my friends and fellow blogger suggested that we make a regular habit of sitting down together and carving out time to write, I jumped at the chance. It’s a little funny for me (a seriously social being) to sit across from someone in silence, but at least it’s got us writing.
And with that, on to this month’s Status Report.
Physical/Mental Health
I’m giving myself a green light on this one. I’ve been pretty good about getting in my daily 10k steps (or close to it), but that’s not the real determining factor. I’ve started playing squash again, and that’s got me really active a few times a week. Back in high school, I was nationally ranked (#11 in the under-17 division), and I played on the varsity team at Williams College. But since college, I haven’t really stuck with it. I go in spurts of loving it and then getting frustrated with myself that I’m not playing as well as I think I should be. This time around, however, I seem to be coming at it with a different mindset. My coaches would be proud – I’m typically focusing on the long points and trying to win through good consistent play, not by taking risky winning shots. I still get frustrated with myself from time to time, but overall, I think I’m really just enjoying it.
Outside of playing squash 2-3 times every week, I continue to do other workouts (cardio, weight-lifting, etc.). As part of this 90-day challenge I joined at my gym, I’ve got four personal training sessions coming up (purchased at a discount), and I’ll be given another assessment on my heart rates to see if I’ve improved my cardio vascular stamina since the last assessment a few months ago. I got a new toy (yes, I like gadgets), a Garmin heart-rate watch, into which I can program all 5 heart rates and really be targeted about when I want to burn fat or when I just want to really go anaerobic. I’m quite excited about using it. And I wear it when during squash, I see that I burn 800-1200 calories when I play a couple hours of squash.
Community Involvement
This one gets a greenish-yellow light. Throughout the month of July, I served as the registrar at AGE Computer Lab while the regular registrar was out of town. I spent about 30-40 hours in July working on creating attendance sheets, registering students in our database, and tracking and processing payments for classes. I made a run toCostCo at one point and bought a massive supply of creamers and sweeteners for their coffee (they have a coffee break in all their classes) as another donation to their efforts. still volunteer with AGE a couple hours each week, but it’s not much. But aside from that, I really haven’t done much volunteering. I plan on getting back to that in the fall.
Love of Learning
I’m giving myself a greenish-yellow light on this one as well. I am still reading Mindset by Carol Dweck, and because there were so many passages that I wanted to take note of, I finally just went ahead and bought my own copy so I could highlight it as needed. I’ve also recently learned about Simon Sinek and his “Start with Why” book and talks. His Start with Why website shows how you progress from defining your “why,” devising the “how” and “what” that follow, how that model works inside of an organization, and then what to do when you’re struggling to make a decision (hint: go back to your why and determine which action supports that). It’s an interesting model and reminds me a lot of the Human Performance Institute’s Corporate Athlete program that I participated in a couple times. I loved the notion of determining your ultimate purpose is and then ensuring that everything you do drives to your purpose. Not surprisingly, it’s easier said than done, but it’s good to take that time to reflect on what it is you really want out of your life. The Corporate Athlete also addresses things in a very holistic manner through body, heart, mind, and spirit. I would love to be a certified instructor of that one day and travel around taking people through that meaningful and potentially life-changing process. I think it’s really expensive to become certified, but that might just be something that leads me to my ultimate purpose.
Job Search
Good news – I’m employed! Green light! Since this last post, I received two job offers. They were both contract roles, which meant no health insurance and in some cases limited access to some systems, but they were job offers. And interesting ones at that. One job, in Houston, sounded like work in line with my passion for Learning and Development. I’d be working on this companies very well-developed (compared to what I’ve known) catalog of development programs helping to conduct quantifiable assessments of their programs in addition to potentially helping redesign some programs. And it paid more ($6/hr more), but the problem was, it was in Houston. They would require me to be in Houston three days per week for the first couple months and then re-evaluate the situation at that point. They were extremely generous (offering housing, gas reimbursement, etc.) and the work sounded interesting, but I just couldn’t really wrap my head around driving to Houston and back every week and, more importantly, being away from my husband that much. We are, after all, newlyweds.
The job I accepted really focuses on my project management experience and does make a nod to my training background, but more in a development of training frameworks rather than my actually delivering the training. The team is hilarious, hard-working, and welcoming, and most of us are dispersed throughout the country, so all of our work is done either over the phone or through an online meeting platform. My commute is walking from the bedroom to the dining room (where I’ve set up shop temporarily as we clean out our Office, which has become a glorified storage room). It took a couple weeks for me to get my computer, but I’m getting into the swing of things now. That said, it is a contract position, and while I would love to be converted to a full-time employee, I realize that the ebbs and flows of business often dictate a change of course, so conversion might not be possible in the near term. So I’m keeping my eyes peeled, while giving this job all that I have.
CraftFerguson 