Happy New Year! How did we reach 2023? I can barely remember what life was like at the start of the year, so re-reading my 2022 Goal Setting blog brought a lot of surprises. I was in the early drafting stages of what is now my fourth discussion chapter, hoping to submit by the end of the year, and aiming to develop some chapters into journal articles… Spoiler: you’ll see a lot of these goals reappear in this blog post. But, despite some delays, there have been a lot of surprises and successes this year. So, let’s dive into reviewing 2022 and goal setting 2023!
Reviewing 2022
2022 Successes
HEA is done! It doesn’t have to be carried over to Goal Setting 2023! I am officially a HEA Fellow which, for those not in Higher Education, it basically evidences my ability to teach. Given that teaching is my passion, I’m glad to have this one under my belt. It will help with job searching! But, more than that, it helped me reflect on who I am as a teacher, what I care about, and see how this manifests in my interactions with students. I’ve also had good feedback from students across this year, despite not actually doing all that much teaching beyond Peer Writing and getting my dissertation students from last year through. It’s nice going for a coffee with a friend and meeting a former student who says they loved your class!
In the last couple of months, I’ve also been working more on my creative writing. This is partially an ambition thing — a lot of the jobs I’m interested in would like me to have a more developed portfolio of publications, both academic and creative — but it’s also been good just for me. I’ve missed writing. I love a good short story. And I’m excited for some of the bigger projects I have planned! Shifting Sands 2 will come as soon as I can manage it this year, alongside work on a fun (potentially queer) chicklit and somewhat tragic epic fantasy. I might even play with screenwriting again. Variety, you know?
2022 Partial Successes
PhD is most of the way there! As I said above, I was surprised to realise that I had only just started working on what is now my fourth discussion chapter (then titled 2.2) at the beginning of last year. This means that my output for this year has been that chapter, what is now the fifth discussion chapter, completely overhauled my intro/lit review, reworked my methodology, and completely overhauled what was formerly section 1 to become discussion chapters one and two. Given the time I’ve lost due to health issues — thank you Covid/destructive immune system — that’s probably around 1.5 MRes dissertations in 6-9 months. And, while I wish I’d achieved my goal of finishing on time, my writing is better for the work I’m putting in to it.
SHARP is also going into the partial success category. I attended virtually this year due to health and finances. The hope was that it was going to be a hybrid conference but I do think I might have got more out of it if I had attended in person. Technical issues and a lack of online social opportunities limited my ability to meet new people and bounce around ideas, but those I did meet were wonderful! The colleagues I shared a panel with were amazing and I’ve met up with both virtually since. I even gave a guest lecture in South Africa via Microsoft Teams as a result of our panel — definitely one of my biggest highlights this year! And I met some more wonderful people in an online chat hosted by (I think?) SHARP News. One day I’ll remember to make it to a Friday session, I swear.
Goal Setting 2023
I set up my goals page a bit differently than previous years for 2023. In 2022, I had my 5 years+ goals, 2-5 years, hopes for the year, and health goals on the left page and academic and personal goal setting on the right. My longer term goals haven’t changed — particularly the points about financial instability, given this lovely cost of living crisis we’re in — but I have a lot of things to pack into this year. As such, I’ve went for a page of objectives for each quarter and then goals and challenges on the other side. I’ve also purposefully left some sections rather blank. I have no idea where I’ll be in the second half of this year, so it makes sense to be ready for more goals. But, let’s look at some of the biggies in goal setting 2023!
Professional Goals
The obvious, finish PhD. I’m almost there. The last three discussion chapters need some expansion or added sections but, compared to the complete overhauls I have been doing, I’m hoping to manage all three this month. My poor supervisor! Then I’ll blast out the conclusion, sort my citations, and do a full edit and format. Given the fact that one of my big health issues is memory problems, I’m not looking forward to finding out how many times I’ve repeated similar points! But I’m almost there. And I’ve been making notes of possible article ideas from the chapters as I’ve been going. Publish or perish, you know?
But I’m really determined to do more creative writing this year. It has basically stood at a standstill since I finished Shifting Sands because I struggled to juggle the intensity of PhD, three jobs (now only one!), and the health stuff. But PhD is almost over, I’m not running between multiple part-time jobs, and I’m (hopefully) more stable health-wise than I was. I can have fun with writing again! My plan is to basically use the month or so between submission and my Viva examination as a pseudo-Nanowrimo. Have to stop myself obsessing over the dissertation! Anyone want to join?
Life Goals
2022 was essentially a year of survival. I pushed with PhD in the gaps between energy crashes, scraped through on finances (with the help of dear Father), and probably had too much convenience food versus too little exercise. Having moved home as I round off PhD and medication just about right, I’ve got more of an opportunity to work on the parts of life that I neglected all last year. While other people partied through midnight last night, I was creating a finance tracker on Google Sheets. Is it because I’m a giant nerd? Yes. Will I also maybe do this for health and fitness? Maybe. Either way, a lot of my personal goals are about getting myself in a better place financially and physically. Tips are welcome!
I also really want to read more, particularly pushing myself out of the (mostly YA) fantasy bubble. Believe me, I’ve gotten some comments from my supervisor about the fact that most of my examples are fantasy authors… It’s getting to be a problem. I still want to read more classics but I also need to be more up-to-date with my reading. Like, does anyone want to be part of the most casual book club ever?
Goal Setting 2023… We’ve got this!
The past couple of years have been… interesting. I’m planning for this year to be about more than survival — I want success, I want to write, and I want to find a job I love. What are your goals for the year 2023?
