Blog Post #5: The Vital Importance of Grocery Lists

I am going to switch things up this week because I was struggling to find something I really wanted to write about. So this is going to be a hybrid post that is going to be personal but at the same time maybe lay down a kind of mission statement for the readers of this blog. As a college junior, I have been thinking about my future a lot lately. I have been thinking about internships next summer, finishing up college next spring, and my (hopefully) professional career afterwards. What I would like to do with this post is to talk a little about my goals as of this moment. I want to address some goals for this blog (essentially a type of mission statement), for this year, and for the far away future.

BUT WAIT. Before you go back to Facebook or Twitter because you do not want to hear about this random guy-you-don’t-know’s goals, read this at least. I want to get a point in here beforehand. This post is not only to personally help myself, but also to help all of those reading this, and here’s why. Recording your goals in some sort of permanent form can help immensely, and I could not recommend it enough. Recording your goals (especially by handwriting them) makes them concrete, it makes them very real and seemingly that much more attainable. It reminds you about what you are trying to accomplish and motivates you.

Think about grocery shopping for a second: if you make a grocery list, doesn’t it feel pretty good to cross things off of your list once you get them? Doesn’t it feel good to have everything crossed off at the end? I know this is something small, but it could be said that grocery shopping is made up of tiny goals. How many times do you go grocery shopping without a list only to realize hours later that you forgot to get the milk that you have needed for the past four days? Writing down the short-term goals to achieve the down-the-road goals helps you in the end because it allows you to process the steps it will take to achieve a larger goal. It is very possible that you could stall the achievement of that larger goal because you saw it as one big goal and not a bunch of little ones. The point isn’t that you have to write down every single goal at once and look at them multiple times every day, but it is that you can have something to refer back to and see how you are doing because we all lose sight of the bigger picture sometimes.

What am I forgetting this time?

So without further ado, here is a list of short-term goals I have for this blog:

• ·      Maintain an informal but informative blog that people enjoy to read.
• ·      Enhance the marketing knowledge of anyone who wants to listen, and even the knowledge of those who thought they did not want to listen.
• ·      Write material that keeps people interested.
• ·      Work on creating more interactive posts with things like videos, games, links, and pictures.
• ·      Get 1,000 page views by the end of April.
• ·      Get at least 10 subscribers by the end of April

And a list of some more personal goals:

• ·      Contact companies about internships for this summer.
• ·      Apply and interview for internships.
• ·      Get hired for a paid internship that I am passionate about.
• *I was checking out an internship with Unum the other day, it seemed pretty sweet*
• ·      Dress more professionally/not like I’m still in high school.
• ·      Get a gym membership over the summer.
• ·      Graduate undergrad with honors and a GPA over 3.7.
• ·      Attend a reputable grad school for either law or business.
• ·      Do something that I love for a living.

I’ll wrap it up there. As a side note before I close this post out: quantifying goals can make them even more real to you, and it can be a fun challenge. You can even set different thresholds, too (this month I am going to lose 5 pounds, next month I am going to lose 10, etc.). Hopefully this post helped some of you because I know it was certainly helpful to me. I know you never know which way life is going to take you, but having a plan based on a passion certainly does not hurt.