The Life You Actually Want

Call me crazy, but I think I know the secret (or at least one of the secrets) to end up living the life you actually want to live.

Why do so many people fall short of their potential? Why do so many people waste years of their lives on jobs they hate and devote their precious hours to meaningless entertainment? What are they waiting for? Why aren't they going anywhere?

There are two big ideas I want to talk about her: vision, and goals.

Originally I just wanted to write about goal-setting, but it occurred to me that it's really hard to set goals if you don't have a vision of where you want to go. In short, vision is the destination and goals are the path you take to get there. Having a vision means knowing what you want and when you want it. It means being able to picture yourself happy and healthy, doing what you love and genuinely liking your life.

You might not know exactly what you want right now, and that's okay. Maybe asking you "where do you see yourself in 5 years?" is too much. Start with what you do know. Do you want to be debt-free? Do you want to have a family of your own? Do you want to travel? Do you want to graduate from college or university? Do you want to start your own business and be your own boss? Do you want to run a marathon or swim across the English Channel?

It doesn't matter how big or how small your vision is right now. Whether you have a detailed picture in your mind about exactly who you'll be twenty years from now or you can only grasp one aspect of your life you want to improve, it doesn't matter. Start small if you have too. Dream big if you can. But make sure you have some kind of vision, or you run the risk of never going anywhere.

Take a minute. Think about it. Do you have a vision of the life you actually want?

Great! Let's move on to how you can go about getting there.

You've probably heard of the acronym SMART when it comes to goal-setting, but just in case you haven't, here's a crash course:

Specific - Don't be vague. Make sure you know exactly what you're asking of yourself.
Measurable - Try making a checklist or graph to chart your progress.
Attainable - If you can barely run two minutes, don't expect to run your first marathon next month.
Relevant - Your goals should make sense to you and be appropriate for where you're at right now.
Timely - Give yourself a deadline.

I'll add another tip: write your goals down! It's a good way to keep yourself accountable. If it's written down then you can't pretend it doesn't exist. I set some goals for myself at the beginning of January this year. I wrote them down and broke each one down into bite-sized chunks that I can cross off as I go, then taped them up above my dresser so that I see them every day. Each time I look at that paper, I'm reminded of how much I've accomplished already and also of how much I still have to do.

Goals are the stepping stones to achieving your vision. That being said, things don't always go according to plan, even if you're doing everything in your power to make things happen.

One time, I set the goal of going back to school and getting a bachelor's degree in music. I had previously taken classes at a university in Calgary, but I hadn't been going to school there for over a year and had since moved back to my home province. I discovered that I was still technically a registered student there. I studied for months for a high-level music theory exam to meet the entrance requirements, and passed with honours. I made an appointment to meet with a school advisor to change my major from Psychology to Music the next time I was in Calgary.  I talked to my husband about moving there so I could go back to school and he agreed.

But when I actually met with the school advisor, I found out that despite my months of preparation, I had inadvertently missed the deadline to change my major for the upcoming school year, and would have to wait another full calendar year to make the change. (Here's another lesson for you: there are deadlines for changing your major!) This news felt like a punch in the gut! Music is a pretty specialized program, as you can imagine, and the vast majority of music classes are reserved for music students. In my heart, that included me. On paper, it didn't.

So my husband and I took a step back and reassessed. When we took other factors into account, we agreed that it didn't make sense to drop everything and move to a different province just so I could take a smattering of electives that Fall in the hopes of starting my degree for real the following year.

I'm a very goal-oriented person. Not achieving that goal after all that planning kind of kills me. Or, it did at the time. I also believe that things happen for a reason, and in the end I'm really glad we didn't move away that summer because we would have missed out on all kinds of experiences and opportunities that we've had here.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's healthy to move forward. Pick a direction and go for it! Get a vision, set some goals, and do everything in your power to make that vision a reality! But there's also beauty in learning to accept the things you cannot change and choosing to bloom where you're planted.

What are some of your goals?

School for Grown-Ups

   One of the very first things you have to do as an adult is to pick and start a career path, and most of the options out there require some level of post-secondary education. Be it a university degree, a certification course from your college or elsewhere, or trade school; buckle up because you're not done getting educated yet! But don't worry, grown-up schools like these don't come with the problems of high school because you're not a pubescent angsty teen being sardined into classes with twenty-nine other pubescent angsty teens every day. But don't worry, there are some things about post-secondary education that might have you pulling your hair out all the same.

   I want to be a doctor, and to be a doctor you have to go to university. So since that's all I know about that's what I'm going to talk about (sorry to anyone going into trades, but I can't really tell you what trade school is like).

   Now, university is actually pretty sweet, in a lot of ways. But it also sucks in a lot of ways, too. I'll try to cover all the things from beginning to end; from applying to graduating.


Applying to Universities:

   My only advice that really matters here is: apply to several schools. Don't just apply to one and hope for the best. Find several schools that you think you'd like, whether there's three or thirteen, and apply to all of them. Okay, maybe don't apply to thirteen; that will be expensive and if you had reasonably good grades you shouldn't need to apply to that many to get into one. Anyway, university applications for bachelor/undergraduate degrees are actually pretty straightforward, and aren't that hard to find on university websites (unlike most things, as you'll find out; university websites universally suck at being easy to navigate).

   Yes, university applications cost money. It's a bit of a drag, but I guess it makes sense. The good news is that application fee usually gets taken off your first round of tuition... which is a whole new financial nightmare. But not nearly as bad as living expenses!


Being a Student:

   Once you receive acceptance offers, you'll have to send an acceptance letter to the offer. Now you're a university student! Congratulations (you're going to be poor for the next four years, but it will be worth it in the end)! Now here's the first thing you need to do:

   Plan all your classes for the next four years. Seriously. You'll thank me later.

   One thing that nobody told me that would have saved me so much trouble over the course of my degree was exactly this. Every degree (and every major and minor within a degree) has a list of requirements that you have to check off in order to graduate, Now, in my BHK degree, I didn't have to worry about picking a major or minor. Instead, I got to pick one of two paths for my last two years, each with a different set of required classes. Required classes are pretty much planned out for you in any degree, but depending on the degree you might get some flexibility in what those required courses are.

   But the thing you have to watch out for are the electives. In my degree (and in other degrees) you have to take a certain number of "upper-level" electives. For those who don't know, most universities use a number code to organize classes: first-year courses are given a number between 100 and 199, second-year courses 200 and 299, and third- and fourth-year courses (which are the "upper-level") are in the 300's and 400's respectively. You might also run into 500's at some point, but I don't think it's very common, and most of those are probably for people getting a master degree.

   Back to what I was saying: The thing about upper-level courses is that they almost always have prerequisites in the 100 and 200 level that you have to take first. And this is why having a plan right from the beginning is so important: if you get to your third year and you don't have the prerequisites you need, you're either going to be in university longer than you thought or you're going to end up taking classes that you probably don't care about. I've met students who are in their fifth year just because they have to finish their elective requirements. They were not happy people. Don't be like those people.

   The good news is that universities tell you exactly what you need to do to graduate so you can plan accordingly (if you can find it on the website). And every university has academic advisers that can help you understand what you need to do and help you plan. That's literally their job. They're super helpful and you should visit them at least once.

 
   There's a lot more to being a university student, like living arrangements, succeeding in classes, working with professors, dealing with a bad class, and planning for after your degree. These deserve their own posts, so they'll come in the future.

   To any current university students out there: what's one thing you wish you had known before starting university?

Ice Cream and Introductions

The first thing you should know about me is that I love ice cream.

I don't mean that in a once-in-a-while-it's-pretty-good kind of way. I mean it in a my-husband-proposed-to-me-with-ice-cream-and-we-served-it-at-our-wedding-instead-of-cake kind of way. For years growing up I asked for ice cream cake for my birthday every year (which is in the dead of Canadian winter, by the way). I will travel for good ice cream, and I usually find the best places to get it wherever I live. Bonus points if the ice cream is dipped in chocolate.

I could go on, but I think you get the point. By way of introduction, you should also know that I'm 23, married to the man of my dreams, Canadian, and soon to be a certified Educational Assistant (also known as a Teacher's Aide or Paraprofessional).

Anyway, how does my love of ice cream relate to this brand new blog? Wes and I started this blog with the intention of helping people figure out what adulthood is all about and how to navigate the ups and downs and heaps of paperwork you didn't know you had to do until months after you were supposed to have done it. This blog should be a place where you can come to feel amused, uplifted, and maybe even enlightened as we share our experiences.

 One thing that I've learned in my few years of adulthood is that it isn't all about ice cream. It isn't all about freedom and reckless fun - though that is certainly part of it. It's also about managing responsibilities and taking care of yourself and others.

On the one hand, freedom is great. I don't know about you, but when I turned eighteen and graduated from high school, I felt exhilarated just knowing that I could do anything, go anywhere, and be anyone I wanted to! Life was a symphony of possibilities, and I was the concert master. And that was true, and still is. However, as we learned from watching Spiderman, "with great power comes great responsibility." Succeeding at adulthood is like mastering an art. It takes practice to figure out how to balance the exhilarating with the mundane. Some people go a little crazy and forget about the important things like maintaining relationships with people you care about, renewing your car insurance, and saving for retirement. Others get so bogged down with all the things they have to do that they forget that life is for living.

 It's like this: When you're an adult, you can do whatever you want. You can walk into the grocery store and buy every flavour of ice cream on the shelves. You can do it, but you choose not to.

Why? Because a) it'll make you sick, b) it won't all fit in the tiny freezer in your itty bitty apartment, c) it says something about you that you don't want your roommates/significant other to think about, d) you'll feel guilty about it later, and e) maxing out your credit card on five tons of ice cream of all things will not only hurt your credit score, but you'll be paying it off with interest for the next three years.

My goal in writing this blog is to help you find the balance. When I say that, I don't mean to say that I have it all figured out - believe you me, I make just as many mistakes as the next person. Maybe more. But my hope is that by sharing some of my experiences (good and bad), I can help you figure out how you want to lead your life. Hopefully you can avoid some of the pitfalls that I've experienced by reading my stories, and who knows? Maybe something I write will inspire you.

Beginnings are Hard.

   Starting things is always something I've struggled with. Beginnings are just hard. You’re making an investment of your time, and maybe some other stuff too, but you might not really know what you’re getting into even if you think you do. That makes beginnings kind of scary, and that’s probably at least part of the reason people can get apprehensive about beginning a new relationship, or a new degree, or career. But they're also rewarding. Every worthwhile thing has to start, right?

   That’s kind of dramatic for starting a blog, though. Pfft. A blog can’t be as intimidating as picking what you’ll do for money for the rest of your life, right? I don’t know, I just didn’t want to kick off my first post with: “Hi. My name is Wes. I’m twenty-five, married, and an impending holder of a bachelor’s degree in human kinetics.... My toothbrush is, uh, blue... I think. Oh, and I live in an RV."

   But speaking of beginnings, adulthood is full of 'em. Ask any adult. They'll probably think it's a strange question, but if they take the time to think about it and answer you, they'll agree. You begin living away from your parents; you begin your education or professional training (maybe more than once); you'll likely begin a relationship with someone special (maybe more than once); you'll begin a career (maybe more than once). The list goes on. And on. And on. And on... It goes on for a long time.

   My point is, it's overwhelming. Anyone that tells you they were totally prepared for adulthood is lying and they're actually shriveling up inside from stress. Or they just haven't stumbled into the thing they weren't prepared for yet. Or their parents "prepared" for them (I wouldn't envy that person). I mean, I guess it's possible that there's someone, somewhere, who was actually prepared for adulthood. I imagine finding a person like that akin to finding a unicorn flying in a jet plane.

   When my sister and I decided to start this blog, I think our main idea was to make it "educational" for people who are trying to learn more about what being a grown-butt adult is all about and the skills that you might need to be successful. That we would make a Khan Academy, but for adulting instead of math and science and stuff... and with blog posts instead of videos.

   But here's the problem: I don't know what I'm doing! I've been an "adult" for six years and I only feel like I know a little more than I did when I first moved out. And I suck at most of the things that I do know. You don't want to learn how to adult from me! I doubt anyone is really qualified to teach that, unless maybe they're a professional and that's literally all they do for a living. I mean, I could spend time to learn things on the internet and then relay what I've learned here, but any of you can do that (right?). Plus, information that's applicable to me probably won't be applicable to everyone reading this, be it because of differences in where we are, or who we are or what we believe in. In beginning this blog, I had to think hard about what kind of content I'd put up that would be relevant to an audience of people trying to figure out this thing we call adulting.

   I think that one thing that helped me most in becoming an adult was hearing stories from other people's adulting journeys; their opinions of what works best, their plans, and their experiences. I learned from those stories some things to try, and some things to definitely NOT try, and some things to watch out for and avoid, or prioritize above all else. Those things are the kind of stuff that you just can't find in a how-to guide on the internet. So that's what (at least my posts) are going to be like, and hopefully they'll be informative in the sense that you'll be able to learn from my mistakes. Maybe my successes, too, but let's be honest; mistakes are more interesting (and I've made a lot more mistakes than I've had successes, so there's more of those to tell).

   This isn't to say that I'm not going to do any research or fact-checking. There's too much false information out there without me being lazy. Michelle and I have also talked about having guest writers that will (hopefully) be experts in a given topic, like budgeting, or maybe buying a house. We'll figure it out as we go.

   So welcome to this little adventure of ours, and thanks for being a part of it. Between me and Michelle, and the very different experiences (but also some similar) experiences we've had so far in our time as adults, it's bound to be a fun time. There's lots of ground to cover, and as life goes on, there will be no shortage of stories to tell. And hopefully it will be at least a little helpful for someone.