Goal updates

In the interest of full disclosure and accountability, I'm going to try and update goals once a week-ish. Hopefully, that will make me blog more, and then my blog will take off and it will be more of like a "lifestyle website" with recipes and upcycling and crafts and clothes and stuff. Kind of like Blake Lively's Preserve or Lauren Conrad's site. You know, I could be more of a lifestyle brand.
Because I'm the same as them.
Just without the looks, money, or purpose.

Yet.

Back to the business at hand. Goals.

1. I weigh a lot

So, I didn't weigh myself before I set my weight loss goal. I weighed myself last week. I was a little saddened by the number that looking back at me. I'm not happy, but OK with it for now. If my career in health assessment has taught me anything, it's that you need baseline to set a goal because you need to know what you have to improve on. I have a lot of room for growth (or loss, as it were). 

I'm trying to work on this. I've been very consistent with my 3:00 work break workouts. The problem is they only last about 5 minutes. Nobody's losing weight on 5 minutes of activity a day. So I'm trying to add more in. Today, I took the opportunity to walk to work in the freezing cold and I used my lunch break to do a 20 minute workout. Little tip for you new moms out there - jumping jacks are tough when you have pelvic floor dysfunction. If you want to start this program at your office, I recommend a change of clothes. ALL of them. And I'll still do our workout at 3.

My office workout for today. The title of the picture is " WANT THIS BODY?"
Why yes, yes I do. 

I made myself promise that I would drink more water. And I have - I'm down to a can of diet coke a day (you might have heard of their stock crashing recently because they lost their biggest buyer). I'm probably getting 80-90 ounces of water a day in. 

I'm pretending the elevator is out of service. Even if I really want to take it. 

I can't quit the candy. I just can't. Maybe if I master the workouts and the water and the elevators, maybe then. But I need something. 

So, all in all, I'm satisfied with my efforts. My next weigh in should let me know if I should be, or if I'm sitting on a throne of lies. 

2. My wallet does not weigh a lot

I've done the worst with this resolution. 1 week in and I'm already a failure. I have excuses, most of them sound something like "I packed my lunch but didn't have time to eat breakfast so I ate my lunch for breakfast and now it's 9am and I'm starving so I have to go buy lunch and 45 snacks since I'm doing these 5 minute workouts so I have to refuel." This week has been better than last. Next week will be better than this week. 

On a positive money note, the tenants in our NC house let us know that the roof was leaking and we thought there was an issue with the furnace at our new place, one of which was free to fix and the other was less than $20, so I'd like to get credit for thousands of dollars saved on home repairs if I could. 

Terrance did find out that he's getting a bonus at work, which we'll hopefully use to pay down some stuff and do some improvements on the house that we need. That will be nice. 

Overall, I'd give myself a C on this one. 

3. Purposely purposeful 

This one is going pretty great. On a lark, I applied for a job at Harvard.  They called me for an interview. NBD. Harvard University. The one in Cambridge, MA. John Kennedy's HARVARD. So maybe someday, someone somewhere will utter the phrase, "oh, you know Kelly? The one from Harvard?" Or I'll be hanging out with my new friends on The Cape and we'll be all like "I know the 18 foot sailboat is the better choice, but I really like that yacht" or something. In reality, I did some digging and the salary would make it tough to accept if they offer me the bottom of the range, I'll need to negotiate quite a bit. I kind of have to decide if taking a hit on goal 2 is worth achieving goal 3. And that's if I get an offer. I fully understand that there is not a large enough font for the weight of that if. But for a little bit, things are better. In the words of Joseph Addison, "three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for." 

I have the something to love, and now I have the something to hope for in my goal of something to do. 

So there we have it. Not so bad for the first of the year, especially since winter finally arrived. (See below)

so. cold. 

My walk to work this morning. 

GOAL 3: What do I want to be when I grow up?

The third and final stop on the Kelly Bragg #2015newyearnewyou express is to figure out what I'm doing with my life. In the past year, the following phrases have come out of my mouth:

- I think I'm going to go back to school for an MPP
- I think I'm going to go back to school for a PhD
- I want to be a health policy analyst for a non profit or an NGO
- I want to be a Real Housewife
- I'm going to look into the DO program at OU
- The MCATs seem hard
- The CDC is hiring ebola workers, that sounds fun
- I thought about law school for when Logan goes to school, but maybe I'll try hair school instead
- I really bombed that LSAT practice test
- Hair school is $30,000 for 13 months
- Kris Jenner is brilliant.
- Maybe I should try art school.
- Or event planning.
- Or interior design.
- Or industrial design.
- But Terrance, public health does make me happy.

That last one came as part of a conversation that Terrance and I were having about me looking for other jobs and he very earnestly, without a hint of irony, said "have you ever considered doing something that makes you happy?" I assured him that I like public health. He quickly replied that I've never seemed like it. THat I seemed most happy planning parties and showers. These things have always been hobbies for me. Hobbies I enjoy and that I'm good at. But as a career? I really do like public health/health education. I believe in the public health system and what it does. I think it's unbelievably valuable to society. Which is, perhaps, why I get so disgruntled. I don't feel like what I do impacts anyone.

Because the purpose of this is to discuss the future, not the past, I won't elaborate on where I've been. Just believe me that I've been underutilized.

So what is the resolution here? To get a new job? Maybe. To switch careers if I need to to be happy? Possibly. I think it's more to figure out which one of those makes the most sense for me. How am I going to go about that? Here's the loophole for this one - the resolution is actually to figure out what I'm doing, not actually do it. So I have some time, but I have some ideas. To be successful with this resolution, I'm going to:
- continue applying for new jobs. I'm going to try for 1 a week. My rule for new jobs is that I have to apply for jobs that I never would have before. As long as I feel like i could do a good job, I'm applying, regardless of if I meet every requirement. I also need the job to pay a set amount, based on where it is.
-explore other career options. How do I become an event planner? Look into courses on interior design. Sign up for the LSATs. Something, once a month that gives me the opportunity to explore the world beyond my comfort zone

Hopefully, if I do these things, by 2016 I'll be either ridiculously happy, ridiculously wealthy, or both. I'm hoping for that third one.


So there you have it: lose weight, lose debt, and gain purpose. Those are my goals for 2015. They are all challenging in their own way. I don't realistically think that I'll achieve all 3... but wouldn't it be a trip if I did?