OPEN THREAD: A Q1 check-in.
A win, a challenge, some tangible progress? Choose-your-own-checkin-adventure.
I think in calendar quarters, despite no longer being in a position that requires quarterly reporting. Quarters align with the changes in season, though, so I’ve decided they are a perfectly reasonable milestone to track and plan against.
I hate to break it to you, but the end of this coming week also represents the end of the first calendar quarter of the year. What even is time?
Let’s do a check-in. How was your first quarter? Did you have a win, so we can celebrate it? Did you experience a challenge, so we can support you? Did you make tangible progress, so we can high five for progress?
Happy to start:
Tangible progress: I have had a book idea in mind for YEARS. It was the book I thought I was going to work on back in 2017, but instead I ended up co-authoring my actual book. Yet in the six years since that book was published this first book idea has stayed in my mind. I made a stretch goal to finally finish the book proposal in Q1. I have a week to go, and I don’t know if I will actually finish the whole damn thing, BUT I finally have created the entire skeleton. I’ve written several sections, and gathered the info and outlined other sections. I would say I’m about two-thirds there. I don’t think I have the bandwidth to finish it for real this week, I know I will finish it before April ends. Making that kind of progress, even when the goal is still in progress, counts! Both as something to celebrate and to continue to hold myself accountable for.
Your turn!
In other news:
CAN’T-MISS MEMBER WEBINAR THIS THURSDAY, 12PM PT
Optionality is presenting a new member webinar this Thursday afternoon on Caregiving: The Silent Energy Drain. Featuring expert speakers who can talk resources, policy, and employer recommendations, but who also have lived experience with the caregiving squeeze. Join Karen Chong, Kim Moy, Liz O’Donnell, and Optionality’s Elisa Camahort Page this Thursday at 12PM PT/3PM ET.
I'll bite ;) So Optionality was my concept lurking in my head that I was afraid to put out until it was totally baked, which you and I both know Elisa, is ridiculous. So while I'm navigating ups and downs of launching while living life, I do think this quarter was huge for me in terms of putting a stake in the ground of passion-projects-turned-real.
I have been spinning through all of Q1 after unexpectedly losing my job (no layoff; company was shut down by the government (((long story))), instantly putting 800 of us out of work), and I have been through, I think, 4 of the 7 stages of hell that that kind of chaos introduces. Particularly during a cash crunch because just paid college tuition in December. SO! My achievements: applied to 20 or so jobs (I think 25); have been doing the important mental work of not giving in to fear; and slowwwwllllly clarifying what it is I really want to do next versus ohmygodineedajobnomatterwhatthejobis (which is hard with the bank clock ticking). So that's a dose of Real Serious Real Life, but that's where I'm at! AND I turned a big corner in my mind on Friday last week about that "What I Really Want to Do" piece. Felt like a win.