The winners for the Big Blog Exchange were announced on Tuesday and unfortunately I didn’t make the list this year. Thanks for all your support and encouragement over the past few months. It’s been a fun experience, I learned a lot, and I plan on entering again next year!
I’d love to keep seeing you around here on The Goal List, which will continue with 2-3 posts/week with stories, inspiration, and resources for achieving your goals and reaching your dreams.
I’ve entered a blogging competition and I need your help to win (click here to find the vote for me button). The winning bloggers get to trade places with a blogger in another country for 10 days. My hope for this is to learn more about people, cultures, and what we value by talking with people around the world about their dreams for their lives, and by meeting people living out their dreams and inspiring others to do the same.
Of course, each person has things they value that are unique to them, but there are also more general things that are valued by societies and larger groups of people.
Learning more about our values will help me be a better health care/wellness provider. I will be able to present more appealing reasons for following recommendations, gain practice asking people about their goals and hopes for their lives, and learning what they need to get to the point where they can reach those goals.
Winning a trip like this would also make me a better blogger. One of the requirements is that you document your trip regularly on the blog (of the other blogger). Writing regularly is something that I do on an irregular basis. ;P The trip will also help me better understand what information people want (based on their goals), so that I can share information that help the most people possible.
Based on these reasons, I hope that you will support me in my goal to be a Big Blog Exchange finalist (support me by voting for me). To be a finalist, I need to be in the top 25 in my region (North, Central, and South Americas) by Sept 3. (You can vote once for each blogger competing, so a vote for me doesn’t prevent you from voting for someone from your own country.)
Part of the results printout after taking the test
Yesterday I took my registration exam for dietetics and passed! Thank you for all your support, prayers, and encouragement over the past few years. This has been a long process. Here are some of the posts that I wrote along the way:
I’m looking for jobs, especially in worksite wellness and health writing, and am editing my thesis to try to submit for publication to a peer-reviewed journal.
Photo modified from original by Idea go (FreeDigitalPhotos.net)
EDIT: I have a full blog for my bucket list now, but I’m keeping the page on this site up for now, until the other blog is more filled in. If you want current info, want to read the list, or would like resources to help with your own list, please visit the new blog at http://TheGoalList.com.
Many people who know me ask about my Goal List (my version of the bucket list). I’ve started a page on this site to share some of my Goal List (only completed and in-progress goals).
In this post, I’m going to answer some FAQs I get when I tell people about my Goal List.
What’s a Goal List?
My bucket list is called a Goal List because I started it in eighth grade, before I’d heard of the term “bucket list.” Once I started calling it my Goal List, calling it something else seemed as weird as renaming a pet.
Why won’t you tell me everything on it?
Have you ever had something so close to you it felt strange to share it? I feel like my list is a collection of dreams. I’m an introvert so sharing everything in my head isn’t something that is comfortable to me (Ironic, since a lot of my goals are in the list to challenge me to do things not in my comfort zone, but I think this is different). I am willing to tell each person some of the things on the list, but not everything. Once I finish a goal, however, then I don’t care who knows. Completing a goal allows me to let it go, and because it’s not as close to me, I can share it.
How did you come up with these/Why did you include…/Why don’t you include…?
Some of the weirdest conversations I’ve had regarding my Goal List are when people tell me what I should include. I do like suggestions of how to accomplish things I’ve already decided to do, but my Goal List is for things I REALLY want to make every effort to do in my lifetime, for whatever reason. There are things that I think it would be nice to do, but I don’t feel strongly enough about them to include them…yet (several things have moved from “it would be nice to…” to official list items). When I meet someone who has interesting things on their list, sometimes I copy some of their goals to my list, but I have to really like the goal, not just the person. So if I don’t add your favorite goal to my list, please don’t take it as a rejection of our friendship.
How many things do you have on the list?
Right now, I have 100 things on the list, including 21 completed and 13 in progress. In the past, I’ve added 2-10 new goals each year, but it seems to be slowing down a bit now.
How do you remember all those?
I don’t. I have a journal (now two journals) that I use to keep the list. Two goals go on each page, one on the top and one halfway down. The space after each goal is to write about the experience I had when I accomplished that goal.
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Click here for a list of my completed and in-progress goal list items, here for longer updates and resources to help you with your list, and here for the SMART goal technique to start your list.
Shelly Najjar, MPH, RDN 