 |
| Walking into 2020 with determination |
We all know when December hits, we start hearing people speak on all the accomplishments, failures, and incomplete goals they had for themselves or had took place in their lives within the year; while at the same time they be saying that next year will be bigger and better than last year without any really concrete plans taking place before the year starts. In this article, I am going to explain why it's best to start creating hard concrete plans for 2020 before 2019 ends through my own experience that took place not too long ago.
During this time of the year, a lot of people have it in their minds that when the ball drops (a reference to the New York City New Year's tradition) and January 1st appears that a new energy emerges within them that tells them to become a better person that they were last year and focus on creating the lifestyle they want, but it don't exactly works that way. Usually once January 1st appears, a lot of people try to put all their energy into accomplishing their yearly goals during the first few months then everything starts falling down hill because they start feeling burned out. These individuals usually go back to their old ways they were doing the pervious year(s) and don't make any real impact in the new year. With these repeated yearly patterns, it's about time we make some changes on our strategies to accomplish our yearly goals advocate in preparing for the new year goals at least one month in advance.
Two years ago, I decided to plan my yearly goals months because I wanted to make sure I made no mistakes with my degree choices while I still had time to make some changes to my career path. During that time, I was not sure whether or not I should make both English and Psychology my majors instead of making one a minor. I thought the required level of math needed to graduate would help me decide. Well it didn't help because both degrees required me to take another math course. After a week of this realization, I looked at all the classes I've taken so far while at UMBC and realized that I've been taking so many classes for both subjects that it just made sense to major in both. Within that time I also decided to add a concentration to my studies because when I was looking at all the programs UMBC had to offer, I thought Developmental Psychology program was a major; but it wasn't. It was a concentration certificate program. One of the psychology advisors told me that the only way I could graduate with the concentration was by majoring in a psychology degree as well.
By the start of my third year, I finalized my degree choices and it was time for me to focus on what I wanted to take place in my life as a post Undergraduate. All I knew was that I didn't want to go back to school for a Masters degree and end up in debt or waste more time in my youth staying up late studying, completing assignments, and continuing my unhealthy diet. I wanted to start living my dream life before I turned thirty and if I did decide to go back to school, it will be my personal choice and would not be an requirement for a specific career or job. That's when I started looking on job search engines such as, Indeed.com and my college career center's website to look at possible jobs that fit my degrees and sparked my interests. That's when I gained an invitation to apply online as an online English teacher and I learned that this could possibly be the perfect job for me. The reason why I felt as though this could be a possible dream job for me is because the work hours were very early in the morning and I would be finished for the day by 2:00pm or earlier. With these hours I could focus on my writing and getting everything ready for my book release, flexibility to travel within the U.S.A, and down the road it would be reasonable hours to work and raise children. At the end, I did not end up getting the job because of complications I was having with my interview.
While I didn't get that job, I started getting more invitations to apply to similar jobs. I even started seeing international teaching jobs where I could teach English as a second language in different countries. When I started seeing all the possible teaching jobs I could be a part of, it really excited me because I have always had goals to be able to not only travel to all 50 states in the United States, but also to travel around the world while having the ability to write and motivate others at the same time. Ever since the beginning of my junior year in August 2017, this has been a goal of mines as a career.
In November of 2018, I started preparing for the new year by looking at jobs and internships on the career center website that related to my career interests. That is when I learned about the Spain internship that I mentioned in my last article. The internship position was for October 2019 until June 2020. I immediately applied within that week and got scheduled a Skype interview within a week. During the interview, it started off rocky because I couldn't find any good internet connection at the job I was working at during that time until the interviewer suggested that we use Facebook Messenger instead. Through using Facebook Messenger, I had just enough bars to stay online long enough to do the interview, but I had to hold my phone in an awkward position the whole time or I would have lost the connection. Once the interview was over, I thought that my spot for the internship was a given and I would hear back from them in June to learn whether or not I was one often people to be selected.
In June of this year, I learned that all the spots were taken but the interviewer loved my passion and interest of being a part of the internship. Since the interviewer thought I would be a great fit for the program, she told me that I should add my application to the next selection of possible interns that would be selected in October for the six-month internship. I was very much blown that I wasn't select for the 10-month program, but I dropped my pride low enough to add my name to the six-month program.
For months, I would constantly email the company to see if they started selecting people for the internship. I would always get a response from them stating that they would let me know when they receive more information in October. I waited and waited until it became mid-October and a voice in my head told me to email the company to see if they had any available spots. It was a very good thing I emailed them when I did because I received the email I've been hoping for since June. I was told that they had a spot for me and this wouldn't have been a reality for me if I didn't start planning for the year 2019 in the late months of 2018.
From this article, you learned multiple reasons why you should start your new year's goals during the months of the year before. The first reason is the fact that when you wait until the first of the year to do anything towards your goals, you either lose all the ambitious energy you once had for that goal once January 1st appears or you burn the energy out during the first few months and go back to your old routines. The second reason is because you have now realized the many steps it takes to complete certain goals; which can take more than twelve months to get from the starting point to the wanted result point. This is especially true when you want to see that goal accomplished in a certain time period. This advice goes for any type of goal you have in mind. And the last reason why you should start your New Year's goals at least a month in advance is because you never know what opportunities will be passing you by if you just wait for them to appear. As I mentioned about my search for my dream career in 2017, I wouldn't have known about the possibility of being an online English teacher for another country. Without learning about this career field, I wouldn't have known about the Spain internship or the other job openings looking for people to travel around the world to teach English. Now that you have finished reading this article, you will now plan next year's goals accordingly.
I want to give out a big shout out to you, the #AphroKingdom, for supporting me thus far and I hope to see you in the new year as I spread more advice, encouragement, and reveal new possibilities.
