Pondering With A Purpose

Thanks to Brenda for hosting.  As anyone who reads this blog on a regular basis knows, I am working at the 2012 PGA Championship this week.  I apologize in advance for any flubs as I am working on about five hours sleep a night after working over 12.  My brain is fuzzy and Brenda is asking us to think.  This should be either good or a disaster.  Let's find out which.  
This week's theme is goals.  I have always been a goals oriented person ever since I was small.  It is actually a bit of a problem that I have right now but I will get back to that in a minute.
I have always felt that it was important to set goals.  They give an individual something to work towards and to strive for.   Goals provide a challenge that allow people to keep moving forward and progressing with their lives. 
My advice about achieving ones goals are to work backwards.  Start with the goal, then look at the path to achieving that goal.  One of the assignments I give to my younger students is to find their dream job.  I then have them look at the job ad and the qualifications for said position.  I then have them build a path to be able to meet those qualifications. While the path may not be 100% clear, it will at least give them some framework to build upon.   
In my case, I reached my largest career goal this year when I was granted my tenure this year.  As a result of this achievement, I have been trying to search for what my next career related goal should be.  While I have one more promotion I could receive, the path to it seems clear and I am on track for it by continuing my current path.  The question is now is what challenge do I put in front of myself to help me grow and develop as a professional and a person.
What is really interesting is yesterday in my foggy brain I was thinking about this very question.  My goal I believe is now to create a better work/life integration.   I am a truly lucky individual as I have a great career and a fabulous family but I have always kind of kept the two worlds separate.  Work is work and home is home.  Like this week, when I have really had to focus on one the other really suffered (please read yesterday's post for more on this).  There has to be a better way.   Can I have the best of both worlds?  I seem to almost live two separate existences but the reality is that I only have one life.   That sounds like a challenge that may even turn into a goal...What do you think?

Thirsty for Comments Thursday - Link up a great post to share!

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Pour Your Heart Out Wednesday

This week I am teaching a course at the PGA Championship (if you want to read about it click here and no I am not teaching anyone to golf).  This class has changed my whole families life around tremendously.  I have been leaving the house at 4:15 AM and returning about 8:30 PM at night.  This has meant that Heather has for the week become a single parent. This has added to her work and stress load tremendously.  I am grateful to her for all of her efforts this week.

This kids are also being affected.  Erik cried last night because he wanted me to play with him but I just had to go to sleep.  Liam has been trying to do as much as he can to get close to daddy and even our sullen teenager was cuddling up to me the other night.

So why put the family through all of this?  As a result of all of this, I was reminded that of the old saying is that it takes a village to raise a child.  This is such a great learning and networking opportunities for the students that it was very tough to say no to.  The students so far have responded by working extremely hard and really trying to make the most of the opportunity.  That is the real reward for all of this sacrifice.

Wordless Wednesday - Views from the PGA Championships

 

If you want to know why I'm hanging out at the PGA Championship all week, check out this article

And don't forget to link up your Wordless Wednesday posts:

YouTube Tuesday

Up at 3:00 AM not be home until after 8:00 PM - running the whole time in between.  Yeah, bring it on!

Monday Listicles

Thanks to Stasha at www.Northwestmommy.com for hosting Monday Listicles.  I am working 24/7 right now and I am incredibly busy...my apologies in advance for being slow in the bloggy world in advance.

10 People to Invite to Dinner.

I am going to do this in sections...

These three would be invited just so I could listen to them argue.  It would be fun.

10. Winston Churchill
9.  Sir. John A. MacDonald - First Prime Minister of Canada
8.  Carl Marx

Entertainment

7. George Burns
6. Frank Sinatra
5. Marilyn Monroe

 Getting the Geek On

4. Robert Oppenheimer
3. Albert Einstein
2. Marie Currie

Most Important

1. My beautiful, talented, intelligent and fun super-wife Heather (check out her blog at www.actingbalanced.com).  She is a widow with three kids this week and is doing a tremendous job taking care of them while I am working. 

Monday Quiz About Me

Poor Wayne is completely exhausted from the preparations for the PGA Championship - if you haven't been keeping up, he's got 26 students helping to run the hospitality suites at Kiawah Island Ocean Course this week and he's been putting in some long hours already.. and it starts tomorrow, so he went to bed early and let me answer his Monday Quiz About Me for him... hmmm... we'll see if that was a good idea or not...

1. Where do you go to get your news?

Mostly online and from podcasts - ESPN, The Globe & Mail, BBC, The Toronto Star, The Toronto Sun and I kindly email him any relevant articles from the local news

2. What Olympic level skill do you have (e.g. One could be a world-class paper clip bender)?

Stats!  Wayne can turn any data into a swiss cheese maze of answers to questions no one ever thought to ask and come up with significant answers :-)

3. If I say the word, 'intellectual,' what do you think?

Wayne!

4. Who in your family do you look the most like?

His mom, although from pics I've seen of his maternal grandfather I'm thinking him too!

My 5th Question is:

If you were having someone guest write your MQAM answers, who would be writing them?