What's Holding You Back?

Let's be honest. It's really easy to set goals and declare grand dreams. But actually following through with it? Now that's another story.

I was recently contacted by a representative from Kabbage (a company that helps entrepreneurs succeed in achieving their goals by providing upfront, working capital) to write a post exploring some of my personal and professional goals. I do this quite a bit on the blog already, so I thought this was a perfect opportunity to focus in on some of the items on my newly created Life List. I created this list on a whim, and as soon as I posted it I worried it would get lost and be forgotten. But really, what's holding me back? There is no reason I can't start working on some of my goals TODAY!

Learn another language OR improve one I already know
I've always been intrigued by languages. I think you can learn a lot about a culture by exploring a language, and it's so interesting to see how history influences a language's development. This is a goal I REALLY want to start working on soon. I took about 6 years of Spanish when I was younger, and would love to spend some time re-learning and improving on the language. I think it would be incredible to work on Spanish, then spend some time traveling through Central/South America. I also took two years of Swahili in college in hopes that some day I'd travel to East Africa and use it. I unfortunately can only remember bits and pieces of Swahili, but it was a fairly easy language to learn (even though VERY different from English). In order to achieve this goal, I've been looking into some courses at the Boston Center for Adult Education. They even have a Spanish for Travelers class! We'll see where this goes, but I think I need to just jump in head first. Perhaps I'll start by using Duolingo? No time like the present!

Establish a long-term volunteer commitment
As I think about my career path, I know where I've come from, but I don't quite know where I want to go. I've now worked in the nonprofit sector for 6 years, but I still don't feel like I've found my passion. Before I take a leap professionally, I think it's important for me to really start to discover what that passion is. A "risk free" way to do this is by finding a volunteer opportunity that I'm interested in. Some topics that peak my interest are:

- Mental health

- Addiction

- Physical health (especially obesity/weight issues)

- Food justice

- Foster youth aging out

- Prison recidivism
- College access and success

Kind of all over the place there! What can I say? There is a lot I care about, and it's time I explore these more deeply. I've started by joining a Boston Volunteers meetup group, and also subscribe to a few newsletters that alert me to volunteer events. What I really have to do is just take the leap and try something non committal at first -- I'm not quite ready to be say, a long term mentor, but there's no reason I can't start small.

So here's to always trying to improve! What's been holding you back from achieving your dreams?