Happy New Year!
I wanted to quickly share my plans for 2010 with the blogging community. The theme for my 2010 is scaling back and focusing on doing just a few things with all my heart. I’ve gotten my list down to three goals:
We’re moving and I’m (hopefully) getting a new job
I’ve been in Chicago since graduating from undergrad 4 years ago, and my husband and I are ready for a change. As much as we love the city life and our friends here, the decision to leave Chicago in 2010 came easily for us. We have both had it at the back of our minds for awhile now, and barely needed discussion to know what we both wanted.
As we finish up our studies at our respective programs (I am done and he has 5 more months), we are more aware of how little time we’ve had to relax since getting married 3 years ago. Between school and networking and yuppie jobs and bars and parties and friends and family, we literally haven’t stopped running for the last 4 years. While we are happy we “made it” in Chicago, we’re ready to move on to a place just slightly more relaxing.
So where to exactly? That is yet to be decided. There is an amazing job in Atlanta, Georgia that I am in the final round of interviews for, and I’d be perfectly happy to move there. I’ve been consulting for over a year and I feel like it’s time to make a change and take my career to the next level, because I have found it hard to really make a difference in the marketing profession at my age as a consultant.
If the job doesn’t pan out, we’ll almost certainly be moving somewhere else and looking at other job opportunities south of the Chicago area. Either way, we are selling our 2 bedroom condo in Logan Square, so if you know anyone in the market – let us know!
I’m finishing my fiction novel.
Two Christmases ago I started writing a novel about angels and demons. I made it to about 100 pages and then stopped for whatever reason – I’m not even sure why now. Well, every night I still think about the story. The story is written out in my head with two sequels in outline – and I’m determined to make 2010 the year that I finish this novel already.
Bradley Will’s new site Unstrapp’d recently featured Social Pollination as one of the top 30 entrepreneurship blogs for young people. I love the post mostly because I received feedback I didn’t know about myself: I can be a good storyteller. I don’t tell many stories on my blog because I have a penchant for embellishing them to make them sound more interesting. It doesn’t bode well for a non-fiction blog, but I’m looking forward to building my storytelling skills with this novel.
I’m launching a fun website called Untemplater with friends.
Every time I think about my career it makes me think of Untemplater, a new website my friends and I are launching on January 5th. I have not had a normal career – for example, very few people work at startups or spend a year as a consultant of digital media. Almost no one graduates from a top 5 business school at 25 years old, or publishes a how-to/reference book. I’ve done a lot of interesting and unconventional things in my career, but that’s not what the untemplated life is really about.
A lot of people think my career is perfect or that the so-called untemplated life of ditching Corporate America is the only career change that will save your soul. But really, what is soul-saving is the things you do that make you happy – and you can be passionate about a job in Corporate America just as easily as you can be passionate about quitting your job and moving to Thailand Tim Ferriss style. That’s what Untemplater is about – helping people find happiness through sharing our stories. That’s why I’m part of this project, to show people that you can weave the career that works for you. I look forward to sharing more about it with you in the next week!
It’s been a crazy last few years for me, and I’m looking forward to a passionate life in 2010. With a new location, potential new job, and a few fun hobbies to focus on, I think I’m in for some actual free time to hang out with my husband, travel, and play with my dog.
Chris Brogan recently asked each of us to think of three words we wanted to use when describing 2010 next December. My three words are simple, playful, and passionate. I plan to focus my time on just a few things – a passionate career, writing what I want when I want to, and my family. I want to play a little this year.
What are your three words?
Monica O'Brien is the Director of Digital at Fizz and author of the book Social Pollination, which helps businesses leverage social media for crazy growth!
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Monica: great post. I recently discovered your work through Joseph Yi who I connected with on Brazen Careerist. You laid out three very important goals for yourself that I can identify with (1) home/job, (2) creating, and (3) ways to challenge the status quo. Here's my take:
(1) Home/job:sounds like you and your husband are ready for a change. My wife and I made a huge leap in 2009, moving our family from New Jersey to Jerusalem, Israel. It has been a lifelong dream for her and a recent obsession of mine to move here. The ideal of raising our children in the Holy Land and connecting with our spiritual roots still persists despite the difficulty of uprooting your entire life across an ocean to an alien culture. We've taken our knocks and are adjusting. For 2010 I'm resolved to view Israel like the Wild West. Businesses here are just starting to integrate some of the more established online behaviors we are used to in the US and I'm seeing more opportunities here for an English speaking lawyer who works in this space (I am the lead community manager for a network of 25K lawyers and growing – another thing to do in 2010 is find a better term for “community manager” … I've been thinking either “janitor” or “party host” not sure though ; D). As for home, we have a lease in the city for 2 years which gives us time to find a neighborhood and buy a house. By the end of this year we want a neighborhood picked out.
(2) Creating – awesome to see you are writing fiction. I wrote a novel 4 years ago, think if Harry Potter did kung fu, but quickly grew to hate it over the years. My creative project for 2010 is to write my blog to book called Lurkers Anonymous: Strategies for Dealing with Invisibility on the Web. My first post went up today so I guess I am already started (http://lurking101.com)!
(3) Ways to Challenge the Status Quo – this is an interesting one. I wish you luck on the job search (your blog is proof enough that you would kick a**), and have found that being a “purple cow” in the corporate creameries is a fun way to love what you do. I work for a major corporation in the legal world (if we were in the beverage industry think Coke v. Pepsi) and LOVE my work. Just this year I moved into Web Strategy and find I can make a real difference by challenging the company to do things a bit differently. Pursuing disruptive strategies like getting to know our detractors better and finding out why they hate us, giving away lots more for free, and starting a revolution in the way we communicate are just a few of the general categories of things I am hoping to do. On the concrete side of things, I am starting a series on You Tube called Tech Talks where I interview different people in the tech, social media, and legal worlds to get unique perspectives on a host of topics. We do everything via Skype video and I just did my first piece with Chris Boudreaux from SocialMediaGovernance.com. It should be posting in the next week, and I already have some more calls planned.
Thanks for the great topic, and I'm looking forward to reading more from you in 2010. Happy New Year!
Hey Monica,
Great post. I'm really looking forward to Untemplater – I can't believe that it's taken people this long to realize that we can be just as passionate about a Tim Ferriss-type lifestyle versus the corporate lifestyle that is so often attacked in lifestyle design circles. After all, why should we avoid doing something we're passionate about? It makes no sense, and sometimes lifestyle design is just over-reactionary.
Good luck Monica. I had no idea you were thinking about/considering a move. I'm sure whatever you do will be great. Cheers to you and your husband in 2010!
Hi Mike,
Awesome awesome comment! (And also cool that you reposted it to your own blog.)
It's really interesting to me that you moved to Israel. I am dying to visit there, so hopefully someday I'll be able to see the lands of the bible.
You make a good point about creative projects – I feel like everyone should have at least one big creative project planned per year. HR professionals often say that many people don't feel freedom to be creative in their 9 to 5; yet if people just did a creative project outside of work, they might not have that craving.
I really hope “purple cow” is an asset in the workplace! I think I need new perspective because just graduated with my MBA from a super conservative school that does everything by the book. For example, in consulting, they say they value unique backgrounds, yet people rehearse for interviews for up to 50 hours, planning out even stupid things like how to greet the interviewer properly. It was a ridiculous dance of memorization IMO.
Happy new year, and thank you for the comment!
Brett,
I think lifestyle design can be an over-reaction for some people too. It does amazing things for some people – allowing them to experience the world, allowing them to pay off debt quickly or start a new business – but it doesn't necessarily make people happier.
What I love about Tim Ferriss though is that he's completely cognizant of that. I think his point about lifestyle design is partially just that you can do things differently than the status quo you are taught.
Nice set of goals, Monica. I can relate to the theme of scaling back and it shows in my own “goal” for this year: to stop letting excuses get in the way. That is my alternative to setting these specific goals and unending projects that get completely out of hand by February.
Sounds like this year will be full of opportunities and for you and your husband as well. I also look forward to the release of Untemplater… you guys have gotten me all worked up about it!
Nice set of goals, Monica. I can relate to the theme of scaling back and it shows in my own “goal” for this year: to stop letting excuses get in the way. That is my alternative to setting these specific goals and unending projects that get completely out of hand by February.
Sounds like this year will be full of opportunities and for you and your husband as well. I also look forward to the release of Untemplater… you guys have gotten me all worked up about it!