Mid Year Review

This January I created a set of personal SMART goals. What with the layoff and all the re-prioritization my life had undergone, it seemed a sensible time to put all the advice from the free networking meetings into practice.  I was focused and thoughtful, and put the time and research into crafting realistic goals with stepwise objectives.

At one such networking meeting, the presenter (whose name I've forgotten) spoke about dividing your life/priorities/goals into buckets and then thinking about how you fill those buckets. For example, I have ROMANCE, CAREER, FRIENDS & FAMILY, FITNESS/HEALTH, FINANCE and SELF buckets. I pay a little into each of those buckets just in the natural course of my day-to-day. I'll walk before work (FITNESS/HEALTH), go out to lunch with co-workers (FRIENDS & FAMILY, CAREER), and then close the laptop early to canoodle with My Beloved (ROMANCE). Other times, my bucket payment is more specific, such as our week-long trip to Oregon for Christmas (FRIENDS & FAMILY), or the time I went to Oregon by myself and didn't call on any family (SELF), or my sojourn to the FDA sans Beloved (CAREER).

Well, it's now that time of year for mid-year evaluations.  My rating? I'm a Low Performer, as far as my own SMART goals are concerned.  My "payments" have increasingly been into one bucket: CAREER.  My finances have rubber-banded from lay-off mode (meaning I'm spending even more now than I did pre-downsizing), I've forsaken my fitness routine for the new job, my circle of friends has tightened and even those special few I don't see enough.  The last SELF payment was for a pedicure after a particularly brutal week at work and a treat for doing very well at a client presentation.  However, a pedicure is something I traditionally save for when I'm with The Girls and it was a wholly unhappy experience without them.

Do you know what happens when only one or only a few buckets are full?  It can be dangerous if that bucket springs a leak, Dear Liza.


(My favorite part is at 3:24 when she loses it!)

That's the point of these mid-year reviews, however.  Not that I didn't know this was happening, but having this review time on my calendar forces me to reassess and make the necessary changes.

You, Dear Readers, will be happy to know that this means you should see more of me around here. One of my metrics for 2010 was to write more blog posts!

Of course, in the real world this means I'll not be getting any mid-year merit increase, but there's still time to turn it around for a huge EOY bonus!!