Goals, Go-getting and Gearing Up

It's been about five months since I wrote last. Keeping busy has kept me from being down in the dumps. I think that's the cure honestly. Sitting around moping does nothing for your ego.

I've tried to make this a combination of job searching advice, commiserating and personal stories. But I think that it's easy to lose focus. Here's what I've been up to in the last few months:

1. I was promoted at my retail job to a senior position! Woot! Meaning I get about $0.75 more than I already make and the expect me to be more responsible at work. I'll take it
2. I started a goal group where my friends and I meet monthly to discuss goals we want to accomplish and how to go about doing it. I got this idea from my mother who's always been smart about making a plan. If you haven't tried this, I highly suggest it. Get a group of friends/colleagues (it could be one, it could be ten- you pick!) and write out a list of goals you want to accomplish for the month. Be careful about being overambitious because if you make too many, you might get overwhelmed. You will also probably only accomplish about half of them. Make sure you're very specific about your goals. For example, instead of saying, "Get a job by next month", pick a specific day. Putting a deadline on it will focus you and keep you working. Hopefully. At the next meeting, talk about your goals, what you accomplished, what you didn't and how you could do better. I have to say that last month, I wrote I wanted to get a new job (any job) by March 13th and I did! Sure, it was another part-time retail job, but a job is a job.
3. I started a Facebook page for my father's wig business towards the beginning of April and have been running it. My father is not the most computer literate person but I'm really proud of him for trying to keep up with the times and make his business more successful. It can be hard trying to take his ideas and create a blog post about it, but it's great experience. I know that I'm not interested in going into the wig industry but having social media experience on my resume looks really solid when applying to jobs.
4. I did freelance marketing work for my friends company. I have a couple of friends who, in addition to both having full time jobs, run a business that teaches workshops on canning and preserving. It's called preZerve. If you don't know about it and live in the Baltimore area, check it out at: http://www.learntoprezerve.org. Not only are they successful, amazing women but they graciously gave me some freelance work to do. Now, it wasn't paid monetarily, but in jams/jellies and dinners, which was awesome. I wrote several press releases for them and submitted their events to media calendars. At first it was more for my benefit. Writing press releases really strengthened my writing skills. But then, in February, one of my press releases was used for a short story on Baltimore Fishbowl about preZerve's anniversary event. Even though I wasn't credited, I was pretty proud of myself.
5. I've been pretty terrible about blogging but for National Poetry Month in April, I've been writing a poem every single day. Poets all over the world try this challenge every year. I tried this challenge last year and only did about three days before I failed. This year, I was determined to do it. I held myself accountable by picking four people to email my poem every day. I told them to email me if they didn't hear from me by the end of the day. And minus a couple of days, I've been doing it.

I've fallen off the job hunting path a bit, I know. But I've been accomplishing small goals. I need to get back to it though. Here's hoping next month brings more blog posts and finding a position/internship that gives me writing/social media experience.