Why You Need Specific Goals and How to Set Them

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Photo of bright afternoon sun shining over a ridge

A reader recently asked me to do a post on goal setting, and it’s a topic that’s been on my list for a while, so I’m happy to oblige!


Looking back at stages in my life when I felt like I was underperforming or not living up to my potential, they were pretty much all times when I lacked a vision for where I wanted to go and specific goals I wanted to meet. Goal-setting in school was fairly easy because the structure of formal schooling involves a lot of clear steps and numeric measures. There are external expectations that you can strive toward: get an A on the next test, achieve a certain score on the SAT, rank high in your class, get into college or graduate school, secure an internship, etc. I was a people-pleaser when I was younger, and I was motivated to check those boxes, get the associated praise, and feel like I was in control and doing well.


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A New Season, Another Capsule Wardrobe!

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Clothes hanging in a closet - a selection from the author’s fall 2019 capsule wardrobe

After about a six-month break, I’m ready to return to a capsule wardrobe for this fall. I’ve enjoyed some added variety in my outfits, but I feel like I’m spending too much time thinking about my clothes again, and I’ve also bought more things than I’d like over the past several months. So I’m returning to the Project 333 concept, but I’m modifying it a little this time.

When I did this last fall, I found that my wardrobe didn’t fully account for extremes in temperatures, which ranged from the low 20s to the high 80s here during my September-to-December capsule wardrobe challenge. At the beginning, I wished I’d had shorts and a pair of sandals, and by the end, I could have used some gloves and a coat that was more substantial than a trench coat or wool blazer. I also missed having a few items available to me, like a necklace.

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The Best Career (and Life) Advice I’ve Read in a While

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Relief statue of a human face in the woods

I opened up Jean Chatzky’s weekly HerMoney newsletter yesterday to see an article called “6 Things You’re Unintentionally Doing (Or Saying) In the Workplace That Could be Holding You Back in Your Career.” Career advice articles abound on the internet, and when I clicked on the article, I figured it would probably contain the same kind of trite advice I’ve read over and over again. To my surprise, though, the first tip really resonated with me, and it’s not one I recall seeing in a workplace advice piece before: Read more

What Messages Do You Need to Hear Right Now?

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A cliff along the ocean in Northern Ireland

“You are never alone or helpless. The force that guides the the stars guides you too.”  –Shrii Shrii Anandamurt, quoted in You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero

I had a small epiphany recently. For months, my son had been saying something that sounded like “dapadee.” I had no idea what it meant. I felt certain he wasn’t just babbling nonsense syllables, though, because he would say it over and over again. Dapadee! Dapadee! Dapadee dapadeeeeee… What the heck is dapadee? I thought. My husband speculated that maybe he was trying to say “patootie,” which we sometimes call him. We went with that theory for a while because we had no other ideas. For probably three months or so, along with the many other words he was learning, he kept repeating, Dapadee!

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Work Wardrobes: Follow-up & Further Reading / Listening

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Photo of the author standing in her office

I write about many different topics on this site, but you all must be particularly interested fashion, because my recent piece about dressing professionally quickly became my most-viewed post ever. I certainly don’t consider myself a fashionista, but I do frequently think about what I wear, how I present myself, and what I buy. For me, these topics are not just about image but also touch on issues of feminism, sustainability, and ethics, and they raise questions about my priorities for my time, money, and mental energy. Read more