December 30, 2025 • 36 mins
It's the annual goals episode! Sarah and Laura share what they hope to accomplish and achieve in 2026, in the following categories: Personal, Relationships, Family/Home, Work, and Fun!
In the Q&A, a listener wonders about the hosts' feelings on streaks!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing at the very end of December
twenty twenty five. We are going to be looking forward
to twenty twenty six. Yes, this is our annual Goals episode.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Sarah.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
We've been doing this for a while, haven't we. We
have been doing this for a while.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It's become somewhat of a tradition to record these episodes,
listen to them ourselves, and then comment on them a
year later. And in fact, I will just give my
traditional disclaimer that I've been given at least the past
couple of years, that I'm not entirely ready to commit
to my goals yet.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, there's a little bit of a timing issue in
that these episodes air over the holiday break, which, regardless
of whether Sarah and I are working over the holiday break,
the people who produce this podcast do not wish to
work over the holiday break, and so we need to
get in all our content at a time, And so
it is early December when we are recording this, and
(01:33):
so a lot of people do not necessarily set their
goals or resolutions in early December. We may be a
bit more oriented toward future planning getting into this sort
of thing than the average person. Even so I probably
would not be setting all my goals by early December.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I mean you might, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
No, I mean I'm not totally ready, and I just
consider this episode my goals as they exist right now,
and probably the final list will be similar. But as
an example, we did this episode a year ago and
I made no mention of in visil line, but I
did end up setting that as a twenty twenty five
goal that I ended up following through on, by the way, which.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
We didn't even talk about in the year and review episode.
By the way, but.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
It's because I had gotten my notes from our prior
episode and not from like actual real life.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
But that's an example of something.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
There may be little tweaks, little additions, reframes, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
And we're allowed to do that. But here are our goals.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
As they stand as of now in draft form.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, I don't know if I ever have a don
for it. I mean, because you can always abandon a goal.
So then I mean, is it like.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Totally like it's a working document. But I do consider
the done when I write them an ink somewhere on
a twenty twenty six volume of something, then they're just
then they're done.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Okay, Well, all right, here we go. I mean, what
categories do you generally use?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, I generally use personal, some kind of relationship or
family category, and sometimes there's like a home category. This
year I went with personal relationships, family, home, and work.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
What about you?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
So I do that in the opposite order. And this
is just because that's how I always say it. Like
when I'm speaking, when I'm have my set order of things,
I tell people to make your list of one hundred
dreams in the category of career relationships self, right, So,
and then when I talk in my you know about
making your priority list for the upcoming week. The order
I say it in is career relationship self, and so
(03:25):
hence when I am making goal lists, it is career
relationships self. And because I did the notes for our
year and review episode, we did it in the order
of career relationships self. But because Sarah did the notes
for this episode, we are going in a different order, right.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Sarah, Yes to me.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I rationalize it as, or envision it a sort of
widening circles, like your own self, and then the people
write around you, and then like the greater, larger world
and maybe your environment. Obviously, there's no one right way
to order your goals, and no one right way to
define your categories, so you can do categories that are
more specific than ours. Sometimes I've heard really whimsicals sound
(04:05):
in categories, and your choice of how to divide up
your goals is yours.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
But I do feel like having some.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Sort of categorization sometimes makes it easier to generate than
having one big, long, lumpy list.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, and certainly some people, yeah, have an I don't
know where I would put something like household goals. I mean,
I guess I might put it in relationships category unless
it was something for me personally financial goals. I tend
not to set those. But that might be either in career,
like if it was for my earning goals, or I
guess if it were household maybe that would be part
(04:37):
of relationship.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
For me, that would be in family and home.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Family and home, okay, yeah, but those are categories that
other people might certainly use. I mean I tend to
think of career, relationships and self as reasonably comprehensive because
you can kind of put everything in there, Like if
you have community goals, like that's sort of part of relationships,
or if it's maybe more of a hobby goal but
that's part of a community, that could be the personal self, you.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Know, yeah, or health goals and personal.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Health goals not personal. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I would say self is like your own personal mental, spiritual, physical,
emotional health as anything in that category.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
But lots of different stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So okay, we're going to start with personal then, because
Sarah made the notes.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Right, I did, all right, So for my personal goals,
the first one is going to be embrace hobbies. And
for examples of this, I want to learn all of
the Taylor Swift Life of a Showgirl songs confidently on
the piano. I want to try cross stitch by doing
at least one project. I want to play with fountain
pens and I might even dabble in some baking or something.
(05:40):
Just go all in on hobbies. So that's my number one,
and that's them part because I recognized that the loss
of running in my life has been a little bit
more of a loss of a hobby and social connection
than it has been a fitness which has been a
bit surprising to me. But yeah, I'm looking to find
some great hobbies to fill Tho, those.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Are all the hobbies. So how does that work with
that is still in the social hole.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It doesn't fill the social hole, it fills the something
to like. It wasn't just social. It was like, let
me look up all the shoes and listen to the
running podcasts and I don't know, like read running blogs
and things like that.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
So those all transition to the crafting world.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
It can be.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Actually, my sister has demonstrated it can be kind of social.
Although I don't really have plans to join like a
cross stitch circle or anything like that. But let's just
start with phase one.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Phase one to do one cross stitch project, enjoy, then
join the cross stitching story.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
They could actually see some day doing like School of
Rock with piano, so that could morph into a more
social goal. But I think step one for next year
is going to be like figuring out which one of
these I want to take a little bit deeper.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
All right, Then you have fitness goals too.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
I have to have a fitness goal, like I just
feel complete with a fitness goal. Obviously I can't have
a running one, but I would like to try to
get to level two at Club Pilate's, which should doable.
I think usually around one hundred classes is when you
can test into level two at my studio, and I'm
on track that by the end of the year I
should be past the one hundred class mark. There is
(07:11):
a level one point five as well, which is like
really level two. So the level two is kind of
more like level three, and I'm currently at that quote
level one point five, but interested in growing my pilate's practice.
Your karate belts, yeah, oh, they should have like some
kind of marker that would be cool, like you walked
in there with your purple headband or purple headband.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
I'm a purple headband, Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I would like to always have presentable nails now, This
does not mean I always need a professional manicure, because
that's not realistic. But I have sometimes done manicures and
then just left the nail polish on to an embarrassing
degree and it's just not cool. So just always want
to have my nails look reasonably presentable. My invisil line
cured me of biting my nails, like I have not
(07:56):
bit my nails since March or whenever I had put on,
So that's great, But one step further would be just
getting them a little bit nicer. I'm going to continue
my wardrobe goal from last year, which I made some
progress on, but I want to work on my accessories
and jewelry. I want some date night outfits. I still
(08:16):
want a speaking outfit, and I have a specific goal
to get a couple of dresses I have altered that
don't like quite work, and to get two more colors
of scrubs.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, while you're in Philadelphia, here, there's a Fig store here,
so you could come visit it in downtown.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
True, I know that from the Frugal Girl, So maybe
I'll make a little outing.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
That'll be fun, the pilgrimage to the Fig store. That
could be fun.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
All right, So my personal goals self goals for twenty
twenty six, I want to do regular library visits. Currently,
this fits in my life in that I can stop
by the big library in our community sort of on
the way to get Henry from choir.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Practice on Wednesdays.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
That's worked out well as a time to happen in
my schedule. I feel like I've gone through a lot
of the books that I might want to get at
our local branch that is a three minute drive for
my house, so I do need to go to the
bigger library in order to have this be an appealing
thing to do. But there's a ton of stuff I
haven't found there. It's about browsing and seeing, oh that
(09:16):
looks interesting, and you know, I'll just grab six books
and bring them back three weeks later, and some of
them I will have read and some of them I won't.
But it also is helpful for having coffee table type
books like I love looking at garden books or you know,
home decor books and things like that, and it would
be pointless to buy them because it would be clutter
and they're like fifty bucks apiece. But the library is
(09:37):
great for that so that I can page through it,
enjoy it, move on. I want to wear my jewelry,
so regardless of whether I want new joy or not,
I don't wear the stuff I have. And this currently is,
you know, working from home, like I don't necessarily get
all done up for anything. But when I do go
out in the world, I can put on my earrings.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
I can put on. An part of that is I
also will need to get my ring resized. I think
I need to just accept.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
That I have not worn my wedding ring in about
a year. And I don't know if it's that I
way more than when I got married at age twenty five,
or my knuckle got bigger. I don't really know, but
it doesn't comfortably fit, and so I would like to
wear it again. I am still happily married. Not that
your ring means anything for that, but you know, I
(10:29):
need to go get that taken care of. And it
just acknowledged that my knuckle is unlikely to go down
in size, even if five loose weight.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I think it's really common. Actually they get like joint
swelling over time. Yeah, without any other real change in
body sign Yah.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So exactly in terms of my listening project, I am
ninety percent sure I'm going to do Mozart. However, I
have not constructed this calendar yet because I was hoping,
I had this vague hope that somebody else would have
made a motz Art calendar that I could borrow, much
as I had done the Beethoven calendar. This past year,
(11:06):
I constructed my own Bock calendar and it was fine.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
It was just a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
So if it were a way to avoid that work
with Mozart, that would be exciting.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
But I have not yet found anything.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
This is a great AI use case, and I hate AI,
but well, I don't hate A. I have complex relationship
with AI. But this would be like one of those
where the first draft could possibly come from One of those.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Could come from Yeah, I mean, because it's a multi
part thing. It's both getting the complete catalog and putting
it in chunks of like thirty to forty minutes of
listening a day, which I think will cover it from
what I can sort of, because you have to figure
that out first, like how much music is there, and
then finding recordings of it, and then finding the best
(11:48):
recordings of it because nobody really wants to listen to
the middle school orchestra, the middle school orchestra doing the bait,
you know, the Mozart to whatever. I declined and they
wouldn't do that. But anyway, you want to choose good stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
So oh, we totally did that in my high school orchestra.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
So I don't want that recording. I want a different recording.
So yeah, it's a lot of work. So I guess
maybe I will have AI try to do the first.
But if somebody's listening to this and like, hey, I
found a Mozart project that you can borrow, let me know,
I would love it. In terms of reading, I had
thought about rereading Shakespeare's plays in their entirety, but then
I just had I don't want to read all of them,
Like I don't want to read whatever John the second
(12:30):
or like Henry the fourth part one, I don't want
to read those again.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Didn't you do this like a few years ago?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yes, but I feel like I didn't get all of it.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
So what I'm going to do is a Shakespeare's Greatest
Hits project where I'm going to reread about twelve plays,
so one a month, with commentary, and so then I
can go through even slower and make sure I'm getting
like all the word play and stuff, and having already
read all of them. It's at least a second reading,
and for these the greatest hits, it's more like a
(13:02):
third or fourth reading, so I know what.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Happened in the plot.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Now it's more about figuring out everything else that you
wouldn't necessarily see on earlier readings, and going through in
reading Shakespeare scholars on them as well.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Super cool.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
It's like getting a layer deeper.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I like that, Yeah, and then I have, yeah, just
two more. I'm going to do strengthen flexibility three times
a week. I'm going to up this to three, but
five ten minutes is fine. This is about frequency, not duration,
and I think I'm pretty much there already, so this
is just about holding myself accountable to it. I'm going
to eat produce for breakfast. That's a reup from last year.
(13:40):
But what I'm going to add to that is roasting
veggies once a week when not traveling, so that's going
to be about like forty times this year. I will
do a giant sheet pan of vegetables, so broccoli, cauliflower,
put them inn olive oil and salt, roast them for
twenty minutes. They're far more palatable that way. But that'll
just be a way to sort of increase produce consumption
(14:01):
in my life.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Do you have a certain day of the week you
think you'll do that.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I often wind up doing it on Sundays because then
we can eat it with Sunday dinner and then all
week and all week or at least to Monday and Tuesday,
and I usually get through the button. Yeah, all right,
Well we're going to take a quick ad break and
then we'll be back with the other categories of our goals.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
So we are back. This is our annual goal episode.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
These are our goals for twenty six with the disclaimer
that we were recording this in early December, meaning that
things could change in the next month. So this is
not carved in stone, more written in pencil, but this
is at least what we intend to do over the
course of the year. So, Sarah, your next category, relationships.
What do you have here?
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, so this is a repeat because I found like,
I feel like I only got my footing on it
at the very end of twenty two, which is to
continue planning in two date nights per month and plan
the main when I do my monthly planning at the
beginning of the month.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
The second one is kind of funny.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I would like to help my husband manage his work
schedule better by inserting myself directly into the loop with
his office manager and requesting time off. He has said
it's fine for me to do this. I wouldn't have
inserted myself without consulting him first, but we've just run
into issues too many times where he's like, wow, I
should have requested that day off and I'm like, well, yeah,
(15:32):
but you needed to do that a few months ago,
and it didn't happen. So instead of nagging him to
do it, I work at the same house system, so
I can just email the manager myself and see see
my husband and make sure that if there are days
our family wants to have off all together, to make
sure that is reserved in advance. Number three, I want
to wholeheartedly celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary, and we definitely
(15:56):
have this on the pipeline already. We have a weekend
away booked that I think it's going to be really
special and fun. And then we're also going to Hawaii
with the family, which is where we went on our honeymoon,
So go big or go home.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
We're going to do it.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
And I would like to complete the thirty six Questions activity,
which is thirty six questions to fall in love that
I learned about from Elizabeth who blogs it optimist amusings
It's New York Times activity, and I think it'd be
really fun to do on a little weekend get away.
I would like to see my parents and sister at
least three times, and to be honest, I've already planned
in I think four times that I will see them,
(16:28):
so that's hopefully.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Going to work out well.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
I would like to call my family members more, especially
my parents. I talk to them sometimes. I feel like
they get a lot of life updates via my blog,
but I don't love that because then I'm not hearing
what they have going on, and I just would rather
have more back and forth. So I'm going to try
to do that more in my commute home or while
on walks, et cetera. All right, that's relationships, what about you?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, So this one is a re up from the
year is to go to three pro sports events, plus
I want to add one concert, which we did last
year too. I mean we went to George Strait and
that was a lot of fun as a date night.
But to be on the lookout for concerts we might
go to. But it's just, you know, in general, makes
date nights more interesting. It's fine to go out to dinner,
but if you have tickets to a sporting event, you're
(17:19):
probably gonna wind up doing it because you have to
do that ahead of time. And a concert as well.
There's a lot of stuff that comes through Philadelphia. We've
got Lincoln Financial Field here where the Eagles play, and
so most of the major stadium tours do come through here,
so there'll be stuff to choose from, so planning on
doing that. We are doing some family travel over Christmas
(17:43):
and New Year, so that will be on the trip
when this airs. As with all my family trips, I
want to have several enjoyable moments, and I think we will.
But this is not necessarily a low stress trip. And
I'm sorry to be vague podcasting hair, but.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
You will definitely hear about it later.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
You will definitely hear about it later. But you know,
I want to go into it with a mindset of
adventure and enjoying ourselves and patients. For anything that does
not go entirely as planned. I am also having a
spring break trip with Sam, my sixteen year old that
I think will be a ton of fun just the
two of us, so I'm going to really enjoy that,
(18:24):
and then coming out of this, I also want to decide,
depending on how our Christmas trip goes, if we can
aim for a sort of really big family trip in
the summer of twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
That would need to start being planned probably in January
February of twenty twenty six, if we're going to do it.
So that's the travel one.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I'm going to my twenty fifth re union college that's
going to happen most likely. I haven't signed up for
it yet, but I live close enough so I will
most likely be going for at least a night or two.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
But I think it's actually going to be kind of
fun because I'm in a pretty good lifeespace.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Compared to where things could be twenty five years out
of college.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I think it's not bad, so that's always helpful.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And twenty five is a big one, like I feel
like a lot of people will attend that didn't necessarily
go to all the in between all the other ones.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, I want to continue doing one on one time
with my kids when I can and notice it. So
obviously I've got the spring break trip, but looking for
other opportunities. I do a lot of shopping with one
child and some other activities. People like to do different things,
so it'll be fun. And then this is just a phrase,
(19:34):
facilitate gathering. So think about when people are in the
house in various combinations and how I can encourage that
more and spending time together, and whether that's setting up
places that people are going to be together, or making
family dinners a bit longer somehow, or for instance, my
(19:57):
kids have to be in their rooms at a certain point,
but I have not policed if the ones who don't
have to go to bed have been in each other's
rooms sometimes talking to each other, and I think that's
kind of nice that they do that. So but think
about how we can facilitate gathering in this house.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Awesome, all right, I think we have time for one
more before our next break, so let's get to work goals.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, all right, what's your goal here, Sarah?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I would say this is a category I'm not like
entirely firm on yet, but I do want to launch
bestly plans Academy two point zero, which is going to
be similar but a improved version from the version I
taught several times before.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Now that I just feel like I have more experience
and I have not.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
It's like my book came from that, and now I
can make a better version of that based on the book,
if that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
But anyway, so that's a project.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
I do want to re up my goal about pitching podcasts,
to just get my name out there, my book out there,
et cetera. I think there's been a barrier, and then
I obviously don't like no one likes rejections, right, But
the truth is if you pitch thirdy or so really
big podcasts, even if you get one, yes, it can
be somewhat impactful. So I just need to just do it.
(21:08):
Another goal that is a little bit of an outcome goal,
and I don't know how total control, but I'm going
to try is I want to trade some of my
call weekends because it's just so much nicer for me
to take either the Friday, Saturday, Sunday or the Monday
through Thursday part of call and not do it all
at once. But not all of my coworkers agree with that,
so often it's waiting until someone needs coverage and then
(21:31):
snapping up, hey i'll trade, let's trade the weekend.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
So I'm going to try to really try hard to
do that.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
With as many of my colleagues as I can, so
again taking the same amount of call but breaking it up.
I want to figure out my next big writing project,
like will there be another book, or maybe more likely,
how to share some of the content I've created for
Planning by Season in a.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Physical way we'll see.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
I want to go to Pediatric Endocrine Society this year.
That's been a goal for the last few years, and
I didn't go the last couples, so this it's really
really time, and I think I am craving that focus
on the clinical side of things, and also just getting
to see farflowng colleagues.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
At that meeting.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
And then finally, I would like to separate my business
finances from our families' finances because right now it's kind
of all in. You need a budget and I know,
and some spreadsheets, but it's just like a bit of
a mess. And I also feel like, since I'm interested
in card hacking and stuff, this would be a great
(22:34):
opportunity to maybe open a couple of business cards, get
the bonuses, but also keep things a little bit more clear.
It's legal to keep things together as long as you
report everything the way it's structured. I mean to have
an accountant. I report every single earning. I do ten
ninety nine's, I do all that stuff. But it's just
like the information is not stored in an entirely clean,
separate system. So I'd like to work on that.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
All right, We're going to take one more quick ad
break and then I'll share my professional goals. We are
back talking our twenty twenty six goals. Sarah just shared
her professional goals both through her clinical work and her
(23:19):
creative work. So my professional goals this year. One is
launching big time, which is most likely going to happen
as so the train has left the station at this point.
But I want to be happy with what I have
done to promote it and get it out in the world.
And I'm trying to shape this as a process versus
an outcome goal because there's so much you can't control,
(23:41):
and so I don't know. Maybe I should set outcome
goals with it, like copies sold. That would be something
I possibly might do in terms of how many I
could move before it came out, for instance, like what
pre order numbers do I think I could reasonably shoot for.
But for now, I'm just going to say that I
want to be happy that I have crossed my teas,
(24:04):
dotted my eyes, all that good stuff. I also need
to do this, but it is a goal is to
write Golden Hours, which, as part of my two book contract,
is due on October first, so I want to write
it and be proud of it because that will be
out in the world then the next year, so I'll
be setting that was a twenty twenty seven goal. Launching
(24:25):
that one. I want to write fifty two sonnets, so
I am reupping this is that we're starting to get
a several reupped goals, as we've figured ones we enjoy
and want to stick with. But this is writing fifty
two sonnets over the course of a year, so two
lines a.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Day, one sonnet a week.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
But then to kind of tweak this one a bit,
I want to curate some sort of best of list,
because by the end of twenty twenty six, if I
continue with this, I should have theoretically something like two
hundred and eight or two hundred and nine two hundred
ten sonnets. So could I choose who is like twenty
five of those that I really like and then do
(25:03):
something with them?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Maybe?
Speaker 3 (25:04):
So I think you should send them to some like
esoteric literary magazine.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Maybe maybe we shall see.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, well, maybe they'll be excited because they could like
direct my other readers to their esoteric literary magazine, and
that would be exciting for all involved. Could happen, We'll see,
We'll see. And then I want to revise or library
on the novella I mentioned writing through Ney no Raimu
in November this past year, and I want to give
(25:33):
an intriguing speech, So something a little out of the ordinary,
whether that is in terms of location, the concept, or
the group or whatever else. Probably it's gonna be the
location that will be interesting to me, but I'm open
to other interpretations of that. But every year I wound
up giving at least nine ten speeches, so hopefully at
(25:56):
least one of them will be something that makes me go, oh, yeah,
that was really memorable in terms of it being different
for this reason.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So we'll figure out what that is.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Yay, Well, that's exciting, and maybe someone listening to this
will who knows be connected somewhere that will have a
great idea for that. All right, our last category here,
I don't know if you have any No you don't, well,
it's me alone.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Is family and home Actually second to last.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Sorry. We discussed on the last episode that decluttering is
a project. They may not have an end, which might
be part of the problem, because as I'm reflecting back,
I'm like, you know, actually a lot has been decluttered
in my house over the years. It's just that I
never get to a point where I can say everything's decluttered.
So I'm just gonna like table this for now. So
when I listen to this a year from now, I'll
have to have the redefined version of this goal and
(26:42):
talk about how I met that. However, I will say
one sub goal I have with the decluttering is to
hire a consultant of some kind, whether it's someone who
comes in my house or someone that works with me
one on one, because I need that accountability piece. So
even if that's the main deft part of the goal
right now, I'm going to get another party involved.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
I really do think, as we talked about in the
last episode, I mean, as you're thinking about structuring this
like actually listing twelve spots and then assigning one a month,
and I feel like that could happen, and then you'd
know if you've done it.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Yes, But then let's say you get back to January
and then, like the one you did last January is
like disaster again.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Didn't you have to do it again? Because like again,
it doesn't stay done. It doesn't stay done forever.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
That's the problem with this goal.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I know it needs help because my vision for what
the end looks like is probably not actually maybe not achievable.
But I'm not ready to come to terms with that yet.
I need to work.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Okay, So category.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I created one about fun just because I didn't feel
like I had too much fun embedded in my other goals.
I guess the travel is fun, but I want to
aim for one long form performance every month, so it
can be a movie on streaming TV. It does not
have to be anything elaborate, but maybe some months it'll
be a play or concert or something like that. I
have a lifelong well, I've decided I'd like to make
(28:02):
it a lifelong goal to see the leaves in the
fall once every year until I die.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
So yeah, and then I've.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Mentioned sidewise that I want to work on my points
and miles games, So I do want to work on
that because I want to have a banger travel year
in twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
So leave it at that, all right, need some points
in miles to make that happen. Yeah, I don't really
have anything in this. I just hope in general, to
enjoy myself. I hope to enjoy myself in twenty twenty six,
So I guess I could remind myself to enjoy myself
as I'm going through everything that is happening professionally and personally,
because many things can be stressful, but don't want to
(28:45):
only enjoy them in retrospect.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Do you choose a word of the year, Sarah? Are
you going to do that this year?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I haven't chosen my year. Well, funny that we're using
the word choose. So I have been toying with something
about choices or the word choose or something like that.
But I don't actually like the feel of the word
choice in my mouth, like it's too close to moist
or something like I.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
Can't I don't like it.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
So I'm toying with select because to select is to
choose but also select implies maybe a more elevated approach
to things, a more deliberate approach, and that you're choosing
things maybe higher up on the selection ladder.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
This is also a work in progress, but maybe something
along those lines, partially inspired by.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Your quote and Juliet School of Possibilities. By the way, Yes,
expectations are infinite. Time is finite. You are always choosing
choose well, but yeah, if you don't like the word choice,
sidn't we being about moist hopefully brownies and not like moist,
like shower or some floor.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I don't know. Anyway, many many things can get with that.
We have to like the word you choose, So I
don't really, I don't.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I'm not going to choose one, and I'm not doing
any twenty six for twenty six lists or are you
doing that? Nah?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
I'm I mean the decluttering thing twenty six categories of
decluttering thing I am toying with, Okay, And maybe that
would gamify things a little bit.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Ooh, I like it.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And if I make some of these categories kind of small,
it might deintimidate the project a little bit.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, like each one you could have three different drawers
and like the same thing be one of the twenty six.
I mean, I think you could totally make that work
and each one would seem so doable that.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Like socks socks socks is a kidd Yeah, I love it.
I think that's a good use of that.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
All right, So those are our goals for twenty twenty six.
We will be listening to this episode both in like
June when we're recording our midyear check in and November
when we are listening to it.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
So hello future Laura and Sarah.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yes, I hope everything has gone well. You've been enjoying
yourself and selecting well, only fun surprises in twenty twenty six,
only fun surprises, please please please? Okay, So question this
week's question, Sarah, what are your feelings on streaks? I
have mixed feelings on streaks. For myself, I would say
(31:09):
I'm generally not pro streak for whatever reason. I just
be like, I'll throw the baby out with the bathwater
and be like, oh, well, I mess the streak up,
so now I won't do it. Versus, if I give
myself the goal to mostly do something and I do
it ninety percent of the time, I can just feel like, oh,
I'm really achieving my aim and I win versus if
(31:29):
it was a streak that I failed.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
However, I do think in this.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Short term streaks can be kind of tantalizing and motivating.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
What about you, Yeah, you have a streak with a
regular streak freeze option that was kind of if you
do something ninety five percent of the time. I could
see how that could be a good mental model lingos
streak freeze concept.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Oh, I use plenty of those.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, So I.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Am totally fascinated by the idea of streaks. I love
to write about it different people doing various streaks. I
did a running streak myself well, eleven hundred days of
running at least a mile every day. My father has
read his thirty minutes of Hebrew pretty much every day
for decades. What I'm also finding myself fascinated though, by,
(32:14):
is the number of streaks that people have that are
not intentional at all. And I'm guessing most people listening
to this have at least a few of these.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
I mean, just so you think about, like.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
You've brushed your teeth probably every day at least once.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
And I've definitely worn my envisil line every day.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
For decades, you may have been brushing your teeth at
least once a day, and that's not something you think
about as like evidence of your ironclad discipline. But it
is true that you've done it. So why have you
done it? Why have you done it every single day?
I mean it's not automatic. You don't like roll out
of bed and your teeth magically get brushed. You have
chosen to do it on some level. It's just that
(32:50):
it's so easy. It doesn't take much time. It's built
into your life, like you plan for aberrations, right, you
travel with your toothbrush. It's pleasant, like the result, so
you have a nice, minty, fresh breath. I think it's
more negative reinforcements if you don't do it.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
I don't know that it's pleasant for me.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
But either way, I mean, it's a fine line one
way or the other. Either you're happy that you've done it,
or you're very unhappy if you have it. Yes, So
what else have people done? I mean, you know, those
of us who drink coffee, I've probably had coffee every
single day.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
My streak broke in the hospital, and let me tell
you how much I was begging those ice You doctors
to give me some coffee and you wouldn't and yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Didn't want to break that one.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
And that's another example of it has both positive reinforcement
and very powerful negative reinforcement.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
But think about this.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
If you are a coffee drinker, you have a streak
of drinking coffee, probably pretty much every day, again, maybe
for decades. And it's not that you set out to
have a streak. I mean, you can call it an
addiction if you want. There's a fine line between streaks
and addiction. But somehow you've managed to do that. So
the question is if you have a different streak that
(33:58):
you would like to do, like if you would write
to read a short passage in something I don't know,
a spiritual text, or if you want to write in
a journal every day, Like, how could you make the
incentives the same as that long term streak that you've
done sort of without really thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Super interesting as I am pondering this, I do think
having a powerful negative motivator of not doing this streak
is probably the stronger push for most people. It's my
hot take.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Hot take, all right, well, something to think about for
all of us. So, Sarah, what is your love of
the week this week.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
My kids sleeping in.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Ten years ago, if I could have envisioned getting to
start a lot of my weekend mornings in a nice, peaceful,
serene house with everyone asleep until maybe nine, I couldn't
have believed it. But we are here, and it's great.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Yeah, it happens. It does get there eventually. I love
that too. I love days when I don't have to
set an alarm, and there's so few of these, like
even on weekends because somebody's gonna have some sort of
athletic event or a contest or whatever. Like often there's something,
there's a reason I'm set in alarm, but there's occasional
days when I don't, and it's kind of fun to
have those. We were recording this shortly after the long
Thanksgiving weekend, and there were at least a few days
(35:11):
on that weekend where nobody had to be anywhere because
of the holiday, and so yeah, it was It's kind
of nice just see how the day starts, and especially
as the kids are sleeping in. Who knows how late
I could be sleeping in, Probably not as late as
I think. Well, the older Dune kills and thirty it
was longer, Yeah, exactly. All right, Well, this has been
(35:32):
best of both worlds. We've been discussing our twenty twenty
six goals. We will be back next week with more
on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us
next time for more on making work and life work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing at the very end of December
twenty twenty five. We are going to be looking forward
to twenty twenty six. Yes, this is our annual Goals episode.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Sarah.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
We've been doing this for a while, haven't we. We
have been doing this for a while.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
It's become somewhat of a tradition to record these episodes,
listen to them ourselves, and then comment on them a
year later. And in fact, I will just give my
traditional disclaimer that I've been given at least the past
couple of years, that I'm not entirely ready to commit
to my goals yet.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, there's a little bit of a timing issue in
that these episodes air over the holiday break, which, regardless
of whether Sarah and I are working over the holiday break,
the people who produce this podcast do not wish to
work over the holiday break, and so we need to
get in all our content at a time, And so
it is early December when we are recording this, and
(01:33):
so a lot of people do not necessarily set their
goals or resolutions in early December. We may be a
bit more oriented toward future planning getting into this sort
of thing than the average person. Even so I probably
would not be setting all my goals by early December.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I mean you might, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
No, I mean I'm not totally ready, and I just
consider this episode my goals as they exist right now,
and probably the final list will be similar. But as
an example, we did this episode a year ago and
I made no mention of in visil line, but I
did end up setting that as a twenty twenty five
goal that I ended up following through on, by the way, which.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
We didn't even talk about in the year and review episode.
By the way, but.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
It's because I had gotten my notes from our prior
episode and not from like actual real life.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
But that's an example of something.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
There may be little tweaks, little additions, reframes, et cetera.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
And we're allowed to do that. But here are our goals.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
As they stand as of now in draft form.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, I don't know if I ever have a don
for it. I mean, because you can always abandon a goal.
So then I mean, is it like.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Totally like it's a working document. But I do consider
the done when I write them an ink somewhere on
a twenty twenty six volume of something, then they're just
then they're done.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Okay, Well, all right, here we go. I mean, what
categories do you generally use?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, I generally use personal, some kind of relationship or
family category, and sometimes there's like a home category. This
year I went with personal relationships, family, home, and work.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
What about you?
Speaker 2 (03:02):
So I do that in the opposite order. And this
is just because that's how I always say it. Like
when I'm speaking, when I'm have my set order of things,
I tell people to make your list of one hundred
dreams in the category of career relationships self, right, So,
and then when I talk in my you know about
making your priority list for the upcoming week. The order
I say it in is career relationship self, and so
(03:25):
hence when I am making goal lists, it is career
relationships self. And because I did the notes for our
year and review episode, we did it in the order
of career relationships self. But because Sarah did the notes
for this episode, we are going in a different order, right.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Sarah, Yes to me.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I rationalize it as, or envision it a sort of
widening circles, like your own self, and then the people
write around you, and then like the greater, larger world
and maybe your environment. Obviously, there's no one right way
to order your goals, and no one right way to
define your categories, so you can do categories that are
more specific than ours. Sometimes I've heard really whimsicals sound
(04:05):
in categories, and your choice of how to divide up
your goals is yours.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
But I do feel like having some.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Sort of categorization sometimes makes it easier to generate than
having one big, long, lumpy list.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yeah, and certainly some people, yeah, have an I don't
know where I would put something like household goals. I mean,
I guess I might put it in relationships category unless
it was something for me personally financial goals. I tend
not to set those. But that might be either in career,
like if it was for my earning goals, or I
guess if it were household maybe that would be part
(04:37):
of relationship.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
For me, that would be in family and home.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Family and home, okay, yeah, but those are categories that
other people might certainly use. I mean I tend to
think of career, relationships and self as reasonably comprehensive because
you can kind of put everything in there, Like if
you have community goals, like that's sort of part of relationships,
or if it's maybe more of a hobby goal but
that's part of a community, that could be the personal self, you.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Know, yeah, or health goals and personal.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Health goals not personal. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
I would say self is like your own personal mental, spiritual, physical,
emotional health as anything in that category.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
But lots of different stuff.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
So okay, we're going to start with personal then, because
Sarah made the notes.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Right, I did, all right, So for my personal goals,
the first one is going to be embrace hobbies. And
for examples of this, I want to learn all of
the Taylor Swift Life of a Showgirl songs confidently on
the piano. I want to try cross stitch by doing
at least one project. I want to play with fountain
pens and I might even dabble in some baking or something.
(05:40):
Just go all in on hobbies. So that's my number one,
and that's them part because I recognized that the loss
of running in my life has been a little bit
more of a loss of a hobby and social connection
than it has been a fitness which has been a
bit surprising to me. But yeah, I'm looking to find
some great hobbies to fill Tho, those.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Are all the hobbies. So how does that work with
that is still in the social hole.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It doesn't fill the social hole, it fills the something
to like. It wasn't just social. It was like, let
me look up all the shoes and listen to the
running podcasts and I don't know, like read running blogs
and things like that.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
So those all transition to the crafting world.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
It can be.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Actually, my sister has demonstrated it can be kind of social.
Although I don't really have plans to join like a
cross stitch circle or anything like that. But let's just
start with phase one.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Phase one to do one cross stitch project, enjoy, then
join the cross stitching story.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
They could actually see some day doing like School of
Rock with piano, so that could morph into a more
social goal. But I think step one for next year
is going to be like figuring out which one of
these I want to take a little bit deeper.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
All right, Then you have fitness goals too.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
I have to have a fitness goal, like I just
feel complete with a fitness goal. Obviously I can't have
a running one, but I would like to try to
get to level two at Club Pilate's, which should doable.
I think usually around one hundred classes is when you
can test into level two at my studio, and I'm
on track that by the end of the year I
should be past the one hundred class mark. There is
(07:11):
a level one point five as well, which is like
really level two. So the level two is kind of
more like level three, and I'm currently at that quote
level one point five, but interested in growing my pilate's practice.
Your karate belts, yeah, oh, they should have like some
kind of marker that would be cool, like you walked
in there with your purple headband or purple headband.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
I'm a purple headband, Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
I would like to always have presentable nails now, This
does not mean I always need a professional manicure, because
that's not realistic. But I have sometimes done manicures and
then just left the nail polish on to an embarrassing
degree and it's just not cool. So just always want
to have my nails look reasonably presentable. My invisil line
cured me of biting my nails, like I have not
(07:56):
bit my nails since March or whenever I had put on,
So that's great, But one step further would be just
getting them a little bit nicer. I'm going to continue
my wardrobe goal from last year, which I made some
progress on, but I want to work on my accessories
and jewelry. I want some date night outfits. I still
(08:16):
want a speaking outfit, and I have a specific goal
to get a couple of dresses I have altered that
don't like quite work, and to get two more colors
of scrubs.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Excellent.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Well, while you're in Philadelphia, here, there's a Fig store here,
so you could come visit it in downtown.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
True, I know that from the Frugal Girl, So maybe
I'll make a little outing.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
That'll be fun, the pilgrimage to the Fig store. That
could be fun.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
All right, So my personal goals self goals for twenty
twenty six, I want to do regular library visits. Currently,
this fits in my life in that I can stop
by the big library in our community sort of on
the way to get Henry from choir.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Practice on Wednesdays.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
That's worked out well as a time to happen in
my schedule. I feel like I've gone through a lot
of the books that I might want to get at
our local branch that is a three minute drive for
my house, so I do need to go to the
bigger library in order to have this be an appealing
thing to do. But there's a ton of stuff I
haven't found there. It's about browsing and seeing, oh that
(09:16):
looks interesting, and you know, I'll just grab six books
and bring them back three weeks later, and some of
them I will have read and some of them I won't.
But it also is helpful for having coffee table type
books like I love looking at garden books or you know,
home decor books and things like that, and it would
be pointless to buy them because it would be clutter
and they're like fifty bucks apiece. But the library is
(09:37):
great for that so that I can page through it,
enjoy it, move on. I want to wear my jewelry,
so regardless of whether I want new joy or not,
I don't wear the stuff I have. And this currently is,
you know, working from home, like I don't necessarily get
all done up for anything. But when I do go
out in the world, I can put on my earrings.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
I can put on. An part of that is I
also will need to get my ring resized. I think
I need to just accept.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
That I have not worn my wedding ring in about
a year. And I don't know if it's that I
way more than when I got married at age twenty five,
or my knuckle got bigger. I don't really know, but
it doesn't comfortably fit, and so I would like to
wear it again. I am still happily married. Not that
your ring means anything for that, but you know, I
(10:29):
need to go get that taken care of. And it
just acknowledged that my knuckle is unlikely to go down
in size, even if five loose weight.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
I think it's really common. Actually they get like joint
swelling over time. Yeah, without any other real change in
body sign Yah.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
So exactly in terms of my listening project, I am
ninety percent sure I'm going to do Mozart. However, I
have not constructed this calendar yet because I was hoping,
I had this vague hope that somebody else would have
made a motz Art calendar that I could borrow, much
as I had done the Beethoven calendar. This past year,
(11:06):
I constructed my own Bock calendar and it was fine.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
It was just a lot of work.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
So if it were a way to avoid that work
with Mozart, that would be exciting.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
But I have not yet found anything.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
This is a great AI use case, and I hate AI,
but well, I don't hate A. I have complex relationship
with AI. But this would be like one of those
where the first draft could possibly come from One of those.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Could come from Yeah, I mean, because it's a multi
part thing. It's both getting the complete catalog and putting
it in chunks of like thirty to forty minutes of
listening a day, which I think will cover it from
what I can sort of, because you have to figure
that out first, like how much music is there, and
then finding recordings of it, and then finding the best
(11:48):
recordings of it because nobody really wants to listen to
the middle school orchestra, the middle school orchestra doing the bait,
you know, the Mozart to whatever. I declined and they
wouldn't do that. But anyway, you want to choose good stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
So oh, we totally did that in my high school orchestra.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
So there you go.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
So I don't want that recording. I want a different recording.
So yeah, it's a lot of work. So I guess
maybe I will have AI try to do the first.
But if somebody's listening to this and like, hey, I
found a Mozart project that you can borrow, let me know,
I would love it. In terms of reading, I had
thought about rereading Shakespeare's plays in their entirety, but then
I just had I don't want to read all of them,
Like I don't want to read whatever John the second
(12:30):
or like Henry the fourth part one, I don't want
to read those again.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Didn't you do this like a few years ago?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yes, but I feel like I didn't get all of it.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
So what I'm going to do is a Shakespeare's Greatest
Hits project where I'm going to reread about twelve plays,
so one a month, with commentary, and so then I
can go through even slower and make sure I'm getting
like all the word play and stuff, and having already
read all of them. It's at least a second reading,
and for these the greatest hits, it's more like a
(13:02):
third or fourth reading, so I know what.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Happened in the plot.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Now it's more about figuring out everything else that you
wouldn't necessarily see on earlier readings, and going through in
reading Shakespeare scholars on them as well.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Super cool.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
It's like getting a layer deeper.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
I like that, Yeah, and then I have, yeah, just
two more. I'm going to do strengthen flexibility three times
a week. I'm going to up this to three, but
five ten minutes is fine. This is about frequency, not duration,
and I think I'm pretty much there already, so this
is just about holding myself accountable to it. I'm going
to eat produce for breakfast. That's a reup from last year.
(13:40):
But what I'm going to add to that is roasting
veggies once a week when not traveling, so that's going
to be about like forty times this year. I will
do a giant sheet pan of vegetables, so broccoli, cauliflower,
put them inn olive oil and salt, roast them for
twenty minutes. They're far more palatable that way. But that'll
just be a way to sort of increase produce consumption
(14:01):
in my life.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
Do you have a certain day of the week you
think you'll do that.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
I often wind up doing it on Sundays because then
we can eat it with Sunday dinner and then all
week and all week or at least to Monday and Tuesday,
and I usually get through the button. Yeah, all right,
Well we're going to take a quick ad break and
then we'll be back with the other categories of our goals.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
So we are back. This is our annual goal episode.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
These are our goals for twenty six with the disclaimer
that we were recording this in early December, meaning that
things could change in the next month. So this is
not carved in stone, more written in pencil, but this
is at least what we intend to do over the
course of the year. So, Sarah, your next category, relationships.
What do you have here?
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, so this is a repeat because I found like,
I feel like I only got my footing on it
at the very end of twenty two, which is to
continue planning in two date nights per month and plan
the main when I do my monthly planning at the
beginning of the month.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
The second one is kind of funny.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I would like to help my husband manage his work
schedule better by inserting myself directly into the loop with
his office manager and requesting time off. He has said
it's fine for me to do this. I wouldn't have
inserted myself without consulting him first, but we've just run
into issues too many times where he's like, wow, I
should have requested that day off and I'm like, well, yeah,
(15:32):
but you needed to do that a few months ago,
and it didn't happen. So instead of nagging him to
do it, I work at the same house system, so
I can just email the manager myself and see see
my husband and make sure that if there are days
our family wants to have off all together, to make
sure that is reserved in advance. Number three, I want
to wholeheartedly celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary, and we definitely
(15:56):
have this on the pipeline already. We have a weekend
away booked that I think it's going to be really
special and fun. And then we're also going to Hawaii
with the family, which is where we went on our honeymoon,
So go big or go home.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
We're going to do it.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
And I would like to complete the thirty six Questions activity,
which is thirty six questions to fall in love that
I learned about from Elizabeth who blogs it optimist amusings
It's New York Times activity, and I think it'd be
really fun to do on a little weekend get away.
I would like to see my parents and sister at
least three times, and to be honest, I've already planned
in I think four times that I will see them,
(16:28):
so that's hopefully.
Speaker 4 (16:30):
Going to work out well.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
I would like to call my family members more, especially
my parents. I talk to them sometimes. I feel like
they get a lot of life updates via my blog,
but I don't love that because then I'm not hearing
what they have going on, and I just would rather
have more back and forth. So I'm going to try
to do that more in my commute home or while
on walks, et cetera. All right, that's relationships, what about you?
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, So this one is a re up from the
year is to go to three pro sports events, plus
I want to add one concert, which we did last
year too. I mean we went to George Strait and
that was a lot of fun as a date night.
But to be on the lookout for concerts we might
go to. But it's just, you know, in general, makes
date nights more interesting. It's fine to go out to dinner,
but if you have tickets to a sporting event, you're
(17:19):
probably gonna wind up doing it because you have to
do that ahead of time. And a concert as well.
There's a lot of stuff that comes through Philadelphia. We've
got Lincoln Financial Field here where the Eagles play, and
so most of the major stadium tours do come through here,
so there'll be stuff to choose from, so planning on
doing that. We are doing some family travel over Christmas
(17:43):
and New Year, so that will be on the trip
when this airs. As with all my family trips, I
want to have several enjoyable moments, and I think we will.
But this is not necessarily a low stress trip. And
I'm sorry to be vague podcasting hair, but.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
You will definitely hear about it later.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
You will definitely hear about it later. But you know,
I want to go into it with a mindset of
adventure and enjoying ourselves and patients. For anything that does
not go entirely as planned. I am also having a
spring break trip with Sam, my sixteen year old that
I think will be a ton of fun just the
two of us, so I'm going to really enjoy that,
(18:24):
and then coming out of this, I also want to decide,
depending on how our Christmas trip goes, if we can
aim for a sort of really big family trip in
the summer of twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
That would need to start being planned probably in January
February of twenty twenty six, if we're going to do it.
So that's the travel one.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I'm going to my twenty fifth re union college that's
going to happen most likely. I haven't signed up for
it yet, but I live close enough so I will
most likely be going for at least a night or two.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
But I think it's actually going to be kind of
fun because I'm in a pretty good lifeespace.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Compared to where things could be twenty five years out
of college.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
I think it's not bad, so that's always helpful.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And twenty five is a big one, like I feel
like a lot of people will attend that didn't necessarily
go to all the in between all the other ones.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, I want to continue doing one on one time
with my kids when I can and notice it. So
obviously I've got the spring break trip, but looking for
other opportunities. I do a lot of shopping with one
child and some other activities. People like to do different things,
so it'll be fun. And then this is just a phrase,
(19:34):
facilitate gathering. So think about when people are in the
house in various combinations and how I can encourage that
more and spending time together, and whether that's setting up
places that people are going to be together, or making
family dinners a bit longer somehow, or for instance, my
(19:57):
kids have to be in their rooms at a certain point,
but I have not policed if the ones who don't
have to go to bed have been in each other's
rooms sometimes talking to each other, and I think that's
kind of nice that they do that. So but think
about how we can facilitate gathering in this house.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Awesome, all right, I think we have time for one
more before our next break, so let's get to work goals.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, all right, what's your goal here, Sarah?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
I would say this is a category I'm not like
entirely firm on yet, but I do want to launch
bestly plans Academy two point zero, which is going to
be similar but a improved version from the version I
taught several times before.
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Now that I just feel like I have more experience
and I have not.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
It's like my book came from that, and now I
can make a better version of that based on the book,
if that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
But anyway, so that's a project.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
I do want to re up my goal about pitching podcasts,
to just get my name out there, my book out there,
et cetera. I think there's been a barrier, and then
I obviously don't like no one likes rejections, right, But
the truth is if you pitch thirdy or so really
big podcasts, even if you get one, yes, it can
be somewhat impactful. So I just need to just do it.
(21:08):
Another goal that is a little bit of an outcome goal,
and I don't know how total control, but I'm going
to try is I want to trade some of my
call weekends because it's just so much nicer for me
to take either the Friday, Saturday, Sunday or the Monday
through Thursday part of call and not do it all
at once. But not all of my coworkers agree with that,
so often it's waiting until someone needs coverage and then
(21:31):
snapping up, hey i'll trade, let's trade the weekend.
Speaker 4 (21:34):
So I'm going to try to really try hard to
do that.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
With as many of my colleagues as I can, so
again taking the same amount of call but breaking it up.
I want to figure out my next big writing project,
like will there be another book, or maybe more likely,
how to share some of the content I've created for
Planning by Season in a.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
Physical way we'll see.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
I want to go to Pediatric Endocrine Society this year.
That's been a goal for the last few years, and
I didn't go the last couples, so this it's really
really time, and I think I am craving that focus
on the clinical side of things, and also just getting
to see farflowng colleagues.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
At that meeting.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
And then finally, I would like to separate my business
finances from our families' finances because right now it's kind
of all in. You need a budget and I know,
and some spreadsheets, but it's just like a bit of
a mess. And I also feel like, since I'm interested
in card hacking and stuff, this would be a great
(22:34):
opportunity to maybe open a couple of business cards, get
the bonuses, but also keep things a little bit more clear.
It's legal to keep things together as long as you
report everything the way it's structured. I mean to have
an accountant. I report every single earning. I do ten
ninety nine's, I do all that stuff. But it's just
like the information is not stored in an entirely clean,
separate system. So I'd like to work on that.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, sounds good.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
All right, We're going to take one more quick ad
break and then I'll share my professional goals. We are
back talking our twenty twenty six goals. Sarah just shared
her professional goals both through her clinical work and her
(23:19):
creative work. So my professional goals this year. One is
launching big time, which is most likely going to happen
as so the train has left the station at this point.
But I want to be happy with what I have
done to promote it and get it out in the world.
And I'm trying to shape this as a process versus
an outcome goal because there's so much you can't control,
(23:41):
and so I don't know. Maybe I should set outcome
goals with it, like copies sold. That would be something
I possibly might do in terms of how many I
could move before it came out, for instance, like what
pre order numbers do I think I could reasonably shoot for.
But for now, I'm just going to say that I
want to be happy that I have crossed my teas,
(24:04):
dotted my eyes, all that good stuff. I also need
to do this, but it is a goal is to
write Golden Hours, which, as part of my two book contract,
is due on October first, so I want to write
it and be proud of it because that will be
out in the world then the next year, so I'll
be setting that was a twenty twenty seven goal. Launching
(24:25):
that one. I want to write fifty two sonnets, so
I am reupping this is that we're starting to get
a several reupped goals, as we've figured ones we enjoy
and want to stick with. But this is writing fifty
two sonnets over the course of a year, so two
lines a.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Day, one sonnet a week.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
But then to kind of tweak this one a bit,
I want to curate some sort of best of list,
because by the end of twenty twenty six, if I
continue with this, I should have theoretically something like two
hundred and eight or two hundred and nine two hundred
ten sonnets. So could I choose who is like twenty
five of those that I really like and then do
(25:03):
something with them?
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Maybe?
Speaker 3 (25:04):
So I think you should send them to some like
esoteric literary magazine.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Maybe maybe we shall see.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, well, maybe they'll be excited because they could like
direct my other readers to their esoteric literary magazine, and
that would be exciting for all involved. Could happen, We'll see,
We'll see. And then I want to revise or library
on the novella I mentioned writing through Ney no Raimu
in November this past year, and I want to give
(25:33):
an intriguing speech, So something a little out of the ordinary,
whether that is in terms of location, the concept, or
the group or whatever else. Probably it's gonna be the
location that will be interesting to me, but I'm open
to other interpretations of that. But every year I wound
up giving at least nine ten speeches, so hopefully at
(25:56):
least one of them will be something that makes me go, oh, yeah,
that was really memorable in terms of it being different
for this reason.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So we'll figure out what that is.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Yay, Well, that's exciting, and maybe someone listening to this
will who knows be connected somewhere that will have a
great idea for that. All right, our last category here,
I don't know if you have any No you don't, well,
it's me alone.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Is family and home Actually second to last.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Sorry. We discussed on the last episode that decluttering is
a project. They may not have an end, which might
be part of the problem, because as I'm reflecting back,
I'm like, you know, actually a lot has been decluttered
in my house over the years. It's just that I
never get to a point where I can say everything's decluttered.
So I'm just gonna like table this for now. So
when I listen to this a year from now, I'll
have to have the redefined version of this goal and
(26:42):
talk about how I met that. However, I will say
one sub goal I have with the decluttering is to
hire a consultant of some kind, whether it's someone who
comes in my house or someone that works with me
one on one, because I need that accountability piece. So
even if that's the main deft part of the goal
right now, I'm going to get another party involved.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
I really do think, as we talked about in the
last episode, I mean, as you're thinking about structuring this
like actually listing twelve spots and then assigning one a month,
and I feel like that could happen, and then you'd
know if you've done it.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Yes, But then let's say you get back to January
and then, like the one you did last January is
like disaster again.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Didn't you have to do it again? Because like again,
it doesn't stay done. It doesn't stay done forever.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
That's the problem with this goal.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
I know it needs help because my vision for what
the end looks like is probably not actually maybe not achievable.
But I'm not ready to come to terms with that yet.
I need to work.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Okay, So category.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
I created one about fun just because I didn't feel
like I had too much fun embedded in my other goals.
I guess the travel is fun, but I want to
aim for one long form performance every month, so it
can be a movie on streaming TV. It does not
have to be anything elaborate, but maybe some months it'll
be a play or concert or something like that. I
have a lifelong well, I've decided I'd like to make
(28:02):
it a lifelong goal to see the leaves in the
fall once every year until I die.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
So yeah, and then I've.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
Mentioned sidewise that I want to work on my points
and miles games, So I do want to work on
that because I want to have a banger travel year
in twenty twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
So leave it at that, all right, need some points
in miles to make that happen. Yeah, I don't really
have anything in this. I just hope in general, to
enjoy myself. I hope to enjoy myself in twenty twenty six,
So I guess I could remind myself to enjoy myself
as I'm going through everything that is happening professionally and personally,
because many things can be stressful, but don't want to
(28:45):
only enjoy them in retrospect.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
Do you choose a word of the year, Sarah? Are
you going to do that this year?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
I haven't chosen my year. Well, funny that we're using
the word choose. So I have been toying with something
about choices or the word choose or something like that.
But I don't actually like the feel of the word
choice in my mouth, like it's too close to moist
or something like I.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
Can't I don't like it.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
So I'm toying with select because to select is to
choose but also select implies maybe a more elevated approach
to things, a more deliberate approach, and that you're choosing
things maybe higher up on the selection ladder.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
This is also a work in progress, but maybe something
along those lines, partially inspired by.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Your quote and Juliet School of Possibilities. By the way, Yes,
expectations are infinite. Time is finite. You are always choosing
choose well, but yeah, if you don't like the word choice,
sidn't we being about moist hopefully brownies and not like moist,
like shower or some floor.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I don't know. Anyway, many many things can get with that.
We have to like the word you choose, So I
don't really, I don't.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
I'm not going to choose one, and I'm not doing
any twenty six for twenty six lists or are you
doing that? Nah?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
I'm I mean the decluttering thing twenty six categories of
decluttering thing I am toying with, Okay, And maybe that
would gamify things a little bit.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Ooh, I like it.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And if I make some of these categories kind of small,
it might deintimidate the project a little bit.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, like each one you could have three different drawers
and like the same thing be one of the twenty six.
I mean, I think you could totally make that work
and each one would seem so doable that.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Like socks socks socks is a kidd Yeah, I love it.
I think that's a good use of that.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
All right, So those are our goals for twenty twenty six.
We will be listening to this episode both in like
June when we're recording our midyear check in and November
when we are listening to it.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
So hello future Laura and Sarah.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yes, I hope everything has gone well. You've been enjoying
yourself and selecting well, only fun surprises in twenty twenty six,
only fun surprises, please please please? Okay, So question this
week's question, Sarah, what are your feelings on streaks? I
have mixed feelings on streaks. For myself, I would say
(31:09):
I'm generally not pro streak for whatever reason. I just
be like, I'll throw the baby out with the bathwater
and be like, oh, well, I mess the streak up,
so now I won't do it. Versus, if I give
myself the goal to mostly do something and I do
it ninety percent of the time, I can just feel like, oh,
I'm really achieving my aim and I win versus if
(31:29):
it was a streak that I failed.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
However, I do think in this.
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Short term streaks can be kind of tantalizing and motivating.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
What about you, Yeah, you have a streak with a
regular streak freeze option that was kind of if you
do something ninety five percent of the time. I could
see how that could be a good mental model lingos
streak freeze concept.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Oh, I use plenty of those.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, So I.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Am totally fascinated by the idea of streaks. I love
to write about it different people doing various streaks. I
did a running streak myself well, eleven hundred days of
running at least a mile every day. My father has
read his thirty minutes of Hebrew pretty much every day
for decades. What I'm also finding myself fascinated though, by,
(32:14):
is the number of streaks that people have that are
not intentional at all. And I'm guessing most people listening
to this have at least a few of these.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
I mean, just so you think about, like.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
You've brushed your teeth probably every day at least once.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
And I've definitely worn my envisil line every day.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
For decades, you may have been brushing your teeth at
least once a day, and that's not something you think
about as like evidence of your ironclad discipline. But it
is true that you've done it. So why have you
done it? Why have you done it every single day?
I mean it's not automatic. You don't like roll out
of bed and your teeth magically get brushed. You have
chosen to do it on some level. It's just that
(32:50):
it's so easy. It doesn't take much time. It's built
into your life, like you plan for aberrations, right, you
travel with your toothbrush. It's pleasant, like the result, so
you have a nice, minty, fresh breath. I think it's
more negative reinforcements if you don't do it.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
I don't know that it's pleasant for me.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
But either way, I mean, it's a fine line one
way or the other. Either you're happy that you've done it,
or you're very unhappy if you have it. Yes, So
what else have people done? I mean, you know, those
of us who drink coffee, I've probably had coffee every
single day.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
My streak broke in the hospital, and let me tell
you how much I was begging those ice You doctors
to give me some coffee and you wouldn't and yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Didn't want to break that one.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
And that's another example of it has both positive reinforcement
and very powerful negative reinforcement.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
But think about this.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
If you are a coffee drinker, you have a streak
of drinking coffee, probably pretty much every day, again, maybe
for decades. And it's not that you set out to
have a streak. I mean, you can call it an
addiction if you want. There's a fine line between streaks
and addiction. But somehow you've managed to do that. So
the question is if you have a different streak that
(33:58):
you would like to do, like if you would write
to read a short passage in something I don't know,
a spiritual text, or if you want to write in
a journal every day, Like, how could you make the
incentives the same as that long term streak that you've
done sort of without really thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Super interesting as I am pondering this, I do think
having a powerful negative motivator of not doing this streak
is probably the stronger push for most people. It's my
hot take.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Hot take, all right, well, something to think about for
all of us. So, Sarah, what is your love of
the week this week.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
My kids sleeping in.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Ten years ago, if I could have envisioned getting to
start a lot of my weekend mornings in a nice, peaceful,
serene house with everyone asleep until maybe nine, I couldn't
have believed it. But we are here, and it's great.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Yeah, it happens. It does get there eventually. I love
that too. I love days when I don't have to
set an alarm, and there's so few of these, like
even on weekends because somebody's gonna have some sort of
athletic event or a contest or whatever. Like often there's something,
there's a reason I'm set in alarm, but there's occasional
days when I don't, and it's kind of fun to
have those. We were recording this shortly after the long
Thanksgiving weekend, and there were at least a few days
(35:11):
on that weekend where nobody had to be anywhere because
of the holiday, and so yeah, it was It's kind
of nice just see how the day starts, and especially
as the kids are sleeping in. Who knows how late
I could be sleeping in, Probably not as late as
I think. Well, the older Dune kills and thirty it
was longer, Yeah, exactly. All right, Well, this has been
(35:32):
best of both worlds. We've been discussing our twenty twenty
six goals. We will be back next week with more
on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us
next time for more on making work and life work together.
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