Hi.

I'm Laura Vanderkamp.

I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer, and course creator.

We are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

Welcome to best of both worlds.

Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.

Term career goals.

We want you to get the most out of life.

Welcome to best of both worlds.

This is Laura.

This episode is airing at the very end of December twenty twenty five.

We are going to be looking forward to twenty twenty six.

Yes, this is our annual Goals episode.

Sarah.

We've been doing this for a while, haven't we.

We have been doing this for a while.

It's become somewhat of a tradition to record these episodes, listen to them ourselves, and then comment on them a year later.

And in fact, I will just give my traditional disclaimer that I've been given at least the past couple of years, that I'm not entirely ready to commit to my goals yet.

Yeah, there's a little bit of a timing issue in that these episodes air over the holiday break, which, regardless of whether Sarah and I are working over the holiday break, the people who produce this podcast do not wish to work over the holiday break, and so we need to get in all our content at a time, And so it is early December when we are recording this, and so a lot of people do not necessarily set their goals or resolutions in early December.

We may be a bit more oriented toward future planning getting into this sort of thing than the average person.

Even so I probably would not be setting all my goals by early December.

I mean you might, Sarah.

No, I mean I'm not totally ready, and I just consider this episode my goals as they exist right now, and probably the final list will be similar.

But as an example, we did this episode a year ago and I made no mention of in visil line, but I did end up setting that as a twenty twenty five goal that I ended up following through on, by the way, which.

We didn't even talk about in the year and review episode.

By the way, but.

It's because I had gotten my notes from our prior episode and not from like actual real life.

But that's an example of something.

There may be little tweaks, little additions, reframes, et cetera.

And we're allowed to do that.

But here are our goals.

As they stand as of now in draft form.

Yeah, I don't know if I ever have a don for it.

I mean, because you can always abandon a goal.

So then I mean, is it like.

Totally like it's a working document.

But I do consider the done when I write them an ink somewhere on a twenty twenty six volume of something, then they're just then they're done.

Okay, Well, all right, here we go.

I mean, what categories do you generally use?

Yeah, I generally use personal, some kind of relationship or family category, and sometimes there's like a home category.

This year I went with personal relationships, family, home, and work.

What about you?

So I do that in the opposite order.

And this is just because that's how I always say it.

Like when I'm speaking, when I'm have my set order of things, I tell people to make your list of one hundred dreams in the category of career relationships self, right, So, and then when I talk in my you know about making your priority list for the upcoming week.

The order I say it in is career relationship self, and so hence when I am making goal lists, it is career relationships self.

And because I did the notes for our year and review episode, we did it in the order of career relationships self.

But because Sarah did the notes for this episode, we are going in a different order, right.

Sarah, Yes to me.

I rationalize it as, or envision it a sort of widening circles, like your own self, and then the people write around you, and then like the greater, larger world and maybe your environment.

Obviously, there's no one right way to order your goals, and no one right way to define your categories, so you can do categories that are more specific than ours.

Sometimes I've heard really whimsicals sound in categories, and your choice of how to divide up your goals is yours.

But I do feel like having some.

Sort of categorization sometimes makes it easier to generate than having one big, long, lumpy list.

Yeah, and certainly some people, yeah, have an I don't know where I would put something like household goals.

I mean, I guess I might put it in relationships category unless it was something for me personally financial goals.

I tend not to set those.

But that might be either in career, like if it was for my earning goals, or I guess if it were household maybe that would be part of relationship.

I don't know.

For me, that would be in family and home.

Family and home, okay, yeah, but those are categories that other people might certainly use.

I mean I tend to think of career, relationships and self as reasonably comprehensive because you can kind of put everything in there, Like if you have community goals, like that's sort of part of relationships, or if it's maybe more of a hobby goal but that's part of a community, that could be the personal self, you.

Know, yeah, or health goals and personal.

Health goals not personal.

Yeah.

I would say self is like your own personal mental, spiritual, physical, emotional health as anything in that category.

But lots of different stuff.

So okay, we're going to start with personal then, because Sarah made the notes.

Right, I did, all right, So for my personal goals, the first one is going to be embrace hobbies.

And for examples of this, I want to learn all of the Taylor Swift Life of a Showgirl songs confidently on the piano.

I want to try cross stitch by doing at least one project.

I want to play with fountain pens and I might even dabble in some baking or something.

Just go all in on hobbies.

So that's my number one, and that's them part because I recognized that the loss of running in my life has been a little bit more of a loss of a hobby and social connection than it has been a fitness which has been a bit surprising to me.

But yeah, I'm looking to find some great hobbies to fill Tho, those.

Are all the hobbies.

So how does that work with that is still in the social hole.

It doesn't fill the social hole, it fills the something to like.

It wasn't just social.

It was like, let me look up all the shoes and listen to the running podcasts and I don't know, like read running blogs and things like that.

So those all transition to the crafting world.

It can be.

Actually, my sister has demonstrated it can be kind of social.

Although I don't really have plans to join like a cross stitch circle or anything like that.

But let's just start with phase one.

Phase one to do one cross stitch project, enjoy, then join the cross stitching story.

They could actually see some day doing like School of Rock with piano, so that could morph into a more social goal.

But I think step one for next year is going to be like figuring out which one of these I want to take a little bit deeper.

All right, Then you have fitness goals too.

I have to have a fitness goal, like I just feel complete with a fitness goal.

Obviously I can't have a running one, but I would like to try to get to level two at Club Pilate's, which should doable.

I think usually around one hundred classes is when you can test into level two at my studio, and I'm on track that by the end of the year I should be past the one hundred class mark.

There is a level one point five as well, which is like really level two.

So the level two is kind of more like level three, and I'm currently at that quote level one point five, but interested in growing my pilate's practice.

Your karate belts, yeah, oh, they should have like some kind of marker that would be cool, like you walked in there with your purple headband or purple headband.

I'm a purple headband, Okay.

I would like to always have presentable nails now, This does not mean I always need a professional manicure, because that's not realistic.

But I have sometimes done manicures and then just left the nail polish on to an embarrassing degree and it's just not cool.

So just always want to have my nails look reasonably presentable.

My invisil line cured me of biting my nails, like I have not bit my nails since March or whenever I had put on, So that's great, But one step further would be just getting them a little bit nicer.

I'm going to continue my wardrobe goal from last year, which I made some progress on, but I want to work on my accessories and jewelry.

I want some date night outfits.

I still want a speaking outfit, and I have a specific goal to get a couple of dresses I have altered that don't like quite work, and to get two more colors of scrubs.

Excellent.

Well, while you're in Philadelphia, here, there's a Fig store here, so you could come visit it in downtown.

True, I know that from the Frugal Girl, So maybe I'll make a little outing.

That'll be fun, the pilgrimage to the Fig store.

That could be fun.

All right, So my personal goals self goals for twenty twenty six, I want to do regular library visits.

Currently, this fits in my life in that I can stop by the big library in our community sort of on the way to get Henry from choir.

Practice on Wednesdays.

That's worked out well as a time to happen in my schedule.

I feel like I've gone through a lot of the books that I might want to get at our local branch that is a three minute drive for my house, so I do need to go to the bigger library in order to have this be an appealing thing to do.

But there's a ton of stuff I haven't found there.

It's about browsing and seeing, oh that looks interesting, and you know, I'll just grab six books and bring them back three weeks later, and some of them I will have read and some of them I won't.

But it also is helpful for having coffee table type books like I love looking at garden books or you know, home decor books and things like that, and it would be pointless to buy them because it would be clutter and they're like fifty bucks apiece.

But the library is great for that so that I can page through it, enjoy it, move on.

I want to wear my jewelry, so regardless of whether I want new joy or not, I don't wear the stuff I have.

And this currently is, you know, working from home, like I don't necessarily get all done up for anything.

But when I do go out in the world, I can put on my earrings.

I can put on.

An part of that is I also will need to get my ring resized.

I think I need to just accept.

That I have not worn my wedding ring in about a year.

And I don't know if it's that I way more than when I got married at age twenty five, or my knuckle got bigger.

I don't really know, but it doesn't comfortably fit, and so I would like to wear it again.

I am still happily married.

Not that your ring means anything for that, but you know, I need to go get that taken care of.

And it just acknowledged that my knuckle is unlikely to go down in size, even if five loose weight.

I think it's really common.

Actually they get like joint swelling over time.

Yeah, without any other real change in body sign Yah.

So exactly in terms of my listening project, I am ninety percent sure I'm going to do Mozart.

However, I have not constructed this calendar yet because I was hoping, I had this vague hope that somebody else would have made a motz Art calendar that I could borrow, much as I had done the Beethoven calendar.

This past year, I constructed my own Bock calendar and it was fine.

It was just a lot of work.

So if it were a way to avoid that work with Mozart, that would be exciting.

But I have not yet found anything.

This is a great AI use case, and I hate AI, but well, I don't hate A.

I have complex relationship with AI.

But this would be like one of those where the first draft could possibly come from One of those.

Could come from Yeah, I mean, because it's a multi part thing.

It's both getting the complete catalog and putting it in chunks of like thirty to forty minutes of listening a day, which I think will cover it from what I can sort of, because you have to figure that out first, like how much music is there, and then finding recordings of it, and then finding the best recordings of it because nobody really wants to listen to the middle school orchestra, the middle school orchestra doing the bait, you know, the Mozart to whatever.

I declined and they wouldn't do that.

But anyway, you want to choose good stuff.

So oh, we totally did that in my high school orchestra.

So there you go.

So I don't want that recording.

I want a different recording.

So yeah, it's a lot of work.

So I guess maybe I will have AI try to do the first.

But if somebody's listening to this and like, hey, I found a Mozart project that you can borrow, let me know, I would love it.

In terms of reading, I had thought about rereading Shakespeare's plays in their entirety, but then I just had I don't want to read all of them, Like I don't want to read whatever John the second or like Henry the fourth part one, I don't want to read those again.

Didn't you do this like a few years ago?

Yes, but I feel like I didn't get all of it.

So what I'm going to do is a Shakespeare's Greatest Hits project where I'm going to reread about twelve plays, so one a month, with commentary, and so then I can go through even slower and make sure I'm getting like all the word play and stuff, and having already read all of them.

It's at least a second reading, and for these the greatest hits, it's more like a third or fourth reading, so I know what.

Happened in the plot.

Now it's more about figuring out everything else that you wouldn't necessarily see on earlier readings, and going through in reading Shakespeare scholars on them as well.

Super cool.

It's like getting a layer deeper.

I like that, Yeah, and then I have, yeah, just two more.

I'm going to do strengthen flexibility three times a week.

I'm going to up this to three, but five ten minutes is fine.

This is about frequency, not duration, and I think I'm pretty much there already, so this is just about holding myself accountable to it.

I'm going to eat produce for breakfast.

That's a reup from last year.

But what I'm going to add to that is roasting veggies once a week when not traveling, so that's going to be about like forty times this year.

I will do a giant sheet pan of vegetables, so broccoli, cauliflower, put them inn olive oil and salt, roast them for twenty minutes.

They're far more palatable that way.

But that'll just be a way to sort of increase produce consumption in my life.

Do you have a certain day of the week you think you'll do that.

I often wind up doing it on Sundays because then we can eat it with Sunday dinner and then all week and all week or at least to Monday and Tuesday, and I usually get through the button.

Yeah, all right, Well we're going to take a quick ad break and then we'll be back with the other categories of our goals.

So we are back.

This is our annual goal episode.

These are our goals for twenty six with the disclaimer that we were recording this in early December, meaning that things could change in the next month.

So this is not carved in stone, more written in pencil, but this is at least what we intend to do over the course of the year.

So, Sarah, your next category, relationships.

What do you have here?

Yeah, so this is a repeat because I found like, I feel like I only got my footing on it at the very end of twenty two, which is to continue planning in two date nights per month and plan the main when I do my monthly planning at the beginning of the month.

The second one is kind of funny.

I would like to help my husband manage his work schedule better by inserting myself directly into the loop with his office manager and requesting time off.

He has said it's fine for me to do this.

I wouldn't have inserted myself without consulting him first, but we've just run into issues too many times where he's like, wow, I should have requested that day off and I'm like, well, yeah, but you needed to do that a few months ago, and it didn't happen.

So instead of nagging him to do it, I work at the same house system, so I can just email the manager myself and see see my husband and make sure that if there are days our family wants to have off all together, to make sure that is reserved in advance.

Number three, I want to wholeheartedly celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary, and we definitely have this on the pipeline already.

We have a weekend away booked that I think it's going to be really special and fun.

And then we're also going to Hawaii with the family, which is where we went on our honeymoon, So go big or go home.

We're going to do it.

And I would like to complete the thirty six Questions activity, which is thirty six questions to fall in love that I learned about from Elizabeth who blogs it optimist amusings It's New York Times activity, and I think it'd be really fun to do on a little weekend get away.

I would like to see my parents and sister at least three times, and to be honest, I've already planned in I think four times that I will see them, so that's hopefully.

Going to work out well.

I would like to call my family members more, especially my parents.

I talk to them sometimes.

I feel like they get a lot of life updates via my blog, but I don't love that because then I'm not hearing what they have going on, and I just would rather have more back and forth.

So I'm going to try to do that more in my commute home or while on walks, et cetera.

All right, that's relationships, what about you?

Yeah, So this one is a re up from the year is to go to three pro sports events, plus I want to add one concert, which we did last year too.

I mean we went to George Strait and that was a lot of fun as a date night.

But to be on the lookout for concerts we might go to.

But it's just, you know, in general, makes date nights more interesting.

It's fine to go out to dinner, but if you have tickets to a sporting event, you're probably gonna wind up doing it because you have to do that ahead of time.

And a concert as well.

There's a lot of stuff that comes through Philadelphia.

We've got Lincoln Financial Field here where the Eagles play, and so most of the major stadium tours do come through here, so there'll be stuff to choose from, so planning on doing that.

We are doing some family travel over Christmas and New Year, so that will be on the trip when this airs.

As with all my family trips, I want to have several enjoyable moments, and I think we will.

But this is not necessarily a low stress trip.

And I'm sorry to be vague podcasting hair, but.

You will definitely hear about it later.

You will definitely hear about it later.

But you know, I want to go into it with a mindset of adventure and enjoying ourselves and patients.

For anything that does not go entirely as planned.

I am also having a spring break trip with Sam, my sixteen year old that I think will be a ton of fun just the two of us, so I'm going to really enjoy that, and then coming out of this, I also want to decide, depending on how our Christmas trip goes, if we can aim for a sort of really big family trip in the summer of twenty twenty seven.

That would need to start being planned probably in January February of twenty twenty six, if we're going to do it.

So that's the travel one.

I'm going to my twenty fifth re union college that's going to happen most likely.

I haven't signed up for it yet, but I live close enough so I will most likely be going for at least a night or two.

But I think it's actually going to be kind of fun because I'm in a pretty good lifeespace.

Compared to where things could be twenty five years out of college.

I think it's not bad, so that's always helpful.

And twenty five is a big one, like I feel like a lot of people will attend that didn't necessarily go to all the in between all the other ones.

Yeah, I want to continue doing one on one time with my kids when I can and notice it.

So obviously I've got the spring break trip, but looking for other opportunities.

I do a lot of shopping with one child and some other activities.

People like to do different things, so it'll be fun.

And then this is just a phrase, facilitate gathering.

So think about when people are in the house in various combinations and how I can encourage that more and spending time together, and whether that's setting up places that people are going to be together, or making family dinners a bit longer somehow, or for instance, my kids have to be in their rooms at a certain point, but I have not policed if the ones who don't have to go to bed have been in each other's rooms sometimes talking to each other, and I think that's kind of nice that they do that.

So but think about how we can facilitate gathering in this house.

Awesome, all right, I think we have time for one more before our next break, so let's get to work goals.

Yeah, all right, what's your goal here, Sarah?

I would say this is a category I'm not like entirely firm on yet, but I do want to launch bestly plans Academy two point zero, which is going to be similar but a improved version from the version I taught several times before.

Now that I just feel like I have more experience and I have not.

It's like my book came from that, and now I can make a better version of that based on the book, if that makes sense.

But anyway, so that's a project.

I do want to re up my goal about pitching podcasts, to just get my name out there, my book out there, et cetera.

I think there's been a barrier, and then I obviously don't like no one likes rejections, right, But the truth is if you pitch thirdy or so really big podcasts, even if you get one, yes, it can be somewhat impactful.

So I just need to just do it.

Another goal that is a little bit of an outcome goal, and I don't know how total control, but I'm going to try is I want to trade some of my call weekends because it's just so much nicer for me to take either the Friday, Saturday, Sunday or the Monday through Thursday part of call and not do it all at once.

But not all of my coworkers agree with that, so often it's waiting until someone needs coverage and then snapping up, hey i'll trade, let's trade the weekend.

So I'm going to try to really try hard to do that.

With as many of my colleagues as I can, so again taking the same amount of call but breaking it up.

I want to figure out my next big writing project, like will there be another book, or maybe more likely, how to share some of the content I've created for Planning by Season in a.

Physical way we'll see.

I want to go to Pediatric Endocrine Society this year.

That's been a goal for the last few years, and I didn't go the last couples, so this it's really really time, and I think I am craving that focus on the clinical side of things, and also just getting to see farflowng colleagues.

At that meeting.

And then finally, I would like to separate my business finances from our families' finances because right now it's kind of all in.

You need a budget and I know, and some spreadsheets, but it's just like a bit of a mess.

And I also feel like, since I'm interested in card hacking and stuff, this would be a great opportunity to maybe open a couple of business cards, get the bonuses, but also keep things a little bit more clear.

It's legal to keep things together as long as you report everything the way it's structured.

I mean to have an accountant.

I report every single earning.

I do ten ninety nine's, I do all that stuff.

But it's just like the information is not stored in an entirely clean, separate system.

So I'd like to work on that.

Yeah, sounds good.

All right, We're going to take one more quick ad break and then I'll share my professional goals.

We are back talking our twenty twenty six goals.

Sarah just shared her professional goals both through her clinical work and her creative work.

So my professional goals this year.

One is launching big time, which is most likely going to happen as so the train has left the station at this point.

But I want to be happy with what I have done to promote it and get it out in the world.

And I'm trying to shape this as a process versus an outcome goal because there's so much you can't control, and so I don't know.

Maybe I should set outcome goals with it, like copies sold.

That would be something I possibly might do in terms of how many I could move before it came out, for instance, like what pre order numbers do I think I could reasonably shoot for.

But for now, I'm just going to say that I want to be happy that I have crossed my teas, dotted my eyes, all that good stuff.

I also need to do this, but it is a goal is to write Golden Hours, which, as part of my two book contract, is due on October first, so I want to write it and be proud of it because that will be out in the world then the next year, so I'll be setting that was a twenty twenty seven goal.

Launching that one.

I want to write fifty two sonnets, so I am reupping this is that we're starting to get a several reupped goals, as we've figured ones we enjoy and want to stick with.

But this is writing fifty two sonnets over the course of a year, so two lines a.

Day, one sonnet a week.

But then to kind of tweak this one a bit, I want to curate some sort of best of list, because by the end of twenty twenty six, if I continue with this, I should have theoretically something like two hundred and eight or two hundred and nine two hundred ten sonnets.

So could I choose who is like twenty five of those that I really like and then do something with them?

Maybe?

So I think you should send them to some like esoteric literary magazine.

Maybe maybe we shall see.

Yeah, well, maybe they'll be excited because they could like direct my other readers to their esoteric literary magazine, and that would be exciting for all involved.

Could happen, We'll see, We'll see.

And then I want to revise or library on the novella I mentioned writing through Ney no Raimu in November this past year, and I want to give an intriguing speech, So something a little out of the ordinary, whether that is in terms of location, the concept, or the group or whatever else.

Probably it's gonna be the location that will be interesting to me, but I'm open to other interpretations of that.

But every year I wound up giving at least nine ten speeches, so hopefully at least one of them will be something that makes me go, oh, yeah, that was really memorable in terms of it being different for this reason.

So we'll figure out what that is.

Yay, Well, that's exciting, and maybe someone listening to this will who knows be connected somewhere that will have a great idea for that.

All right, our last category here, I don't know if you have any No you don't, well, it's me alone.

Is family and home Actually second to last.

Sorry.

We discussed on the last episode that decluttering is a project.

They may not have an end, which might be part of the problem, because as I'm reflecting back, I'm like, you know, actually a lot has been decluttered in my house over the years.

It's just that I never get to a point where I can say everything's decluttered.

So I'm just gonna like table this for now.

So when I listen to this a year from now, I'll have to have the redefined version of this goal and talk about how I met that.

However, I will say one sub goal I have with the decluttering is to hire a consultant of some kind, whether it's someone who comes in my house or someone that works with me one on one, because I need that accountability piece.

So even if that's the main deft part of the goal right now, I'm going to get another party involved.

I really do think, as we talked about in the last episode, I mean, as you're thinking about structuring this like actually listing twelve spots and then assigning one a month, and I feel like that could happen, and then you'd know if you've done it.

Yes, But then let's say you get back to January and then, like the one you did last January is like disaster again.

Didn't you have to do it again?

Because like again, it doesn't stay done.

It doesn't stay done forever.

That's the problem with this goal.

I know it needs help because my vision for what the end looks like is probably not actually maybe not achievable.

But I'm not ready to come to terms with that yet.

I need to work.

Okay, So category.

I created one about fun just because I didn't feel like I had too much fun embedded in my other goals.

I guess the travel is fun, but I want to aim for one long form performance every month, so it can be a movie on streaming TV.

It does not have to be anything elaborate, but maybe some months it'll be a play or concert or something like that.

I have a lifelong well, I've decided I'd like to make it a lifelong goal to see the leaves in the fall once every year until I die.

So yeah, and then I've.

Mentioned sidewise that I want to work on my points and miles games, So I do want to work on that because I want to have a banger travel year in twenty twenty seven.

So leave it at that, all right, need some points in miles to make that happen.

Yeah, I don't really have anything in this.

I just hope in general, to enjoy myself.

I hope to enjoy myself in twenty twenty six, So I guess I could remind myself to enjoy myself as I'm going through everything that is happening professionally and personally, because many things can be stressful, but don't want to only enjoy them in retrospect.

Do you choose a word of the year, Sarah?

Are you going to do that this year?

I haven't chosen my year.

Well, funny that we're using the word choose.

So I have been toying with something about choices or the word choose or something like that.

But I don't actually like the feel of the word choice in my mouth, like it's too close to moist or something like I.

Can't I don't like it.

So I'm toying with select because to select is to choose but also select implies maybe a more elevated approach to things, a more deliberate approach, and that you're choosing things maybe higher up on the selection ladder.

I don't know.

This is also a work in progress, but maybe something along those lines, partially inspired by.

Your quote and Juliet School of Possibilities.

By the way, Yes, expectations are infinite.

Time is finite.

You are always choosing choose well, but yeah, if you don't like the word choice, sidn't we being about moist hopefully brownies and not like moist, like shower or some floor.

I don't know.

Anyway, many many things can get with that.

We have to like the word you choose, So I don't really, I don't.

I'm not going to choose one, and I'm not doing any twenty six for twenty six lists or are you doing that?

Nah?

I'm I mean the decluttering thing twenty six categories of decluttering thing I am toying with, Okay, And maybe that would gamify things a little bit.

Ooh, I like it.

And if I make some of these categories kind of small, it might deintimidate the project a little bit.

Yeah, like each one you could have three different drawers and like the same thing be one of the twenty six.

I mean, I think you could totally make that work and each one would seem so doable that.

Like socks socks socks is a kidd Yeah, I love it.

I think that's a good use of that.

All right, So those are our goals for twenty twenty six.

We will be listening to this episode both in like June when we're recording our midyear check in and November when we are listening to it.

So hello future Laura and Sarah.

Yes, I hope everything has gone well.

You've been enjoying yourself and selecting well, only fun surprises in twenty twenty six, only fun surprises, please please please?

Okay, So question this week's question, Sarah, what are your feelings on streaks?

I have mixed feelings on streaks.

For myself, I would say I'm generally not pro streak for whatever reason.

I just be like, I'll throw the baby out with the bathwater and be like, oh, well, I mess the streak up, so now I won't do it.

Versus, if I give myself the goal to mostly do something and I do it ninety percent of the time, I can just feel like, oh, I'm really achieving my aim and I win versus if it was a streak that I failed.

However, I do think in this.

Short term streaks can be kind of tantalizing and motivating.

What about you, Yeah, you have a streak with a regular streak freeze option that was kind of if you do something ninety five percent of the time.

I could see how that could be a good mental model lingos streak freeze concept.

Oh, I use plenty of those.

Yeah, So I.

Am totally fascinated by the idea of streaks.

I love to write about it different people doing various streaks.

I did a running streak myself well, eleven hundred days of running at least a mile every day.

My father has read his thirty minutes of Hebrew pretty much every day for decades.

What I'm also finding myself fascinated though, by, is the number of streaks that people have that are not intentional at all.

And I'm guessing most people listening to this have at least a few of these.

I mean, just so you think about, like.

You've brushed your teeth probably every day at least once.

And I've definitely worn my envisil line every day.

For decades, you may have been brushing your teeth at least once a day, and that's not something you think about as like evidence of your ironclad discipline.

But it is true that you've done it.

So why have you done it?

Why have you done it every single day?

I mean it's not automatic.

You don't like roll out of bed and your teeth magically get brushed.

You have chosen to do it on some level.

It's just that it's so easy.

It doesn't take much time.

It's built into your life, like you plan for aberrations, right, you travel with your toothbrush.

It's pleasant, like the result, so you have a nice, minty, fresh breath.

I think it's more negative reinforcements if you don't do it.

I don't know that it's pleasant for me.

But either way, I mean, it's a fine line one way or the other.

Either you're happy that you've done it, or you're very unhappy if you have it.

Yes, So what else have people done?

I mean, you know, those of us who drink coffee, I've probably had coffee every single day.

My streak broke in the hospital, and let me tell you how much I was begging those ice You doctors to give me some coffee and you wouldn't and yeah, yeah, yeah, I.

Didn't want to break that one.

And that's another example of it has both positive reinforcement and very powerful negative reinforcement.

But think about this.

If you are a coffee drinker, you have a streak of drinking coffee, probably pretty much every day, again, maybe for decades.

And it's not that you set out to have a streak.

I mean, you can call it an addiction if you want.

There's a fine line between streaks and addiction.

But somehow you've managed to do that.

So the question is if you have a different streak that you would like to do, like if you would write to read a short passage in something I don't know, a spiritual text, or if you want to write in a journal every day, Like, how could you make the incentives the same as that long term streak that you've done sort of without really thinking about it.

Super interesting as I am pondering this, I do think having a powerful negative motivator of not doing this streak is probably the stronger push for most people.

It's my hot take.

Hot take, all right, well, something to think about for all of us.

So, Sarah, what is your love of the week this week.

My kids sleeping in.

Ten years ago, if I could have envisioned getting to start a lot of my weekend mornings in a nice, peaceful, serene house with everyone asleep until maybe nine, I couldn't have believed it.

But we are here, and it's great.

Yeah, it happens.

It does get there eventually.

I love that too.

I love days when I don't have to set an alarm, and there's so few of these, like even on weekends because somebody's gonna have some sort of athletic event or a contest or whatever.

Like often there's something, there's a reason I'm set in alarm, but there's occasional days when I don't, and it's kind of fun to have those.

We were recording this shortly after the long Thanksgiving weekend, and there were at least a few days on that weekend where nobody had to be anywhere because of the holiday, and so yeah, it was It's kind of nice just see how the day starts, and especially as the kids are sleeping in.

Who knows how late I could be sleeping in, Probably not as late as I think.

Well, the older Dune kills and thirty it was longer, Yeah, exactly.

All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds.

We've been discussing our twenty twenty six goals.

We will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.

Thanks for listening.

You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can.

Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

This has been the best of both worlds podcasts.

Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.