I don’t like waiting until January 1st to try to form a new habit or to start working on goals. The last 2 years, I listed out some goals for the new year in November or early December and began working towards them so that I had already formed the habit or made some progress by January 1st. It felt good on New Years Day knowing that I wasn’t starting from square one on my goals.
Last year, I had a couple important career goals for 2022- namely matching into residency (hopefully ending up at a program in Manhattan) and taking USMLE Step 3. Because of that, I knew I wouldn’t prioritize certain other areas of my life such as fitness. Now that those goals have been accomplished, I am so grateful to finally be able to focus on the other areas of my life. I feel a little self conscious sharing my 2023 goals publicly, but I’ve done so on my blog in the past and I feel like it’s held me accountable, so..here goes.
Fitness – I know it’s become taboo to talk about dieting and whatnot nowadays, but I want to lose a few pounds and build back a lot of muscle tone that I lost over the last couple years. Mostly I just want to fit back into my clothes the way I did in early 2020. I get my 10k steps daily and won’t be focusing on cardio as much, but I want to make sure I do 2 upper body and 2 lower body strength training days per week. 4 days of strength training per week – that’s the goal. I’ve already been doing it for the last 4-5 weeks and plan to continue through the new year.
Spanish – I want to get to a point where I can do basic communication with my Spanish speaking patients by the end of the year. I won’t be ready to take the certification exam for medical Spanish, but as long as I don’t need a translator for pre-rounding and basic logistical discussions, I’ll be happy. I’m using Duolingo and am at a 40 day streak right now. Luckily, I still remember so much Spanish from high school that I feel like I’m 50% to my goal, but I think that with some intentionality, I can get to where I want to be in a 6-12 months. My goal is to continue my Duolingo streak until the end of 2023 and make it to a 400 day streak. I think Duolingo really rewards consistency and I love that about it.
Budgeting – Goal for this year is to be more mindful of frivolous/fun spending. I have been doing all of my manicures, pedicures, brow and lash lifts, and pretty much all self maintenance things at home/myself for the last couple months and I will continue with that.
Continuing Education – I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t have one goal that included studying. This won’t mean much to most of you reading, but I want to get through the 2020, 2021, and 2022 PREP questions (study questions for the pediatrics boards) by the end of the year. It’s about 750 questions total and comes out to just a couple questions per day, but I would feel like I was in a good place in terms of medical knowledge if I could accomplish this.
So those are my goals and I hope you feel inspired to start thinking about your own 2023 goals and how you can use the last 40 days of 2022 to get a head start!
