I view personal (and professional) development as a continuous journey of learning and exploration.
I have also realized that over the years, certain areas of personal development fell by the wayside as I concentrated more on trying to establish my career in academia (specifically within the biological sciences).
It was only after I basically hit the ‘burnout’ wall, that I realized I needed to find a better balance or harmony between the different areas of life: hence the development and evolution of my blog/website.
This page/tab is going to be dedicated to certain aspects of personal/professional development, such as intellectual health, financial health, occupational health, and environmental health (emotional/mental, physical, and spiritual health are covered under health and wellness). Social health topics will show up as blog posts here and there.
The four topics chosen (intellectual health, financial health, occupational health, and environmental health) are broad; I have chosen to explore certain ‘subtopics’ such as:
Personal finances (again somewhat broad, I will hopefully be narrowing it down to a couple of sub-subtopics in the coming weeks)
Minimalism (can also be tied into personal finances)
Time and project management
Online learning (summaries and opinions on different e-courses/programs bought over the years)
Crafts and Hobbies (which may or may not become linked to other outside ‘stores’ at some point in the future).
These topics can also be tied in with some of the items I had on my ‘everything else’ bucket lit and those items include:
- Learn at least one foreign language
- Have my own business
- Find a job I love or create the job I love
- Write a book (or at least try)
- Plant a tree
- Take a class I’ve always wanted
- Fly a kite
- Eat a fried dessert at a state fair
- Make time to learn a new skill once every two-to-three months
- Make a candle
- Make soap
- Develop a passive income stream
- Create a flower arrangement
- Make mosaic art
- Try to beat a world record
- Learn how to juggle
- Create your own jewelry
- Learn how to cross-stitch
- Overcome at least one big phobia/fear
- Start a herb garden
- Start a veggie/fruit garden
- Participate in a charity walk
- Volunteer at a soup kitchen
- Create necklaces (or bracelets) and donate them
- Ride in a hot air balloon
- Give a public speech (or a talk at a conference)
- Paint, frame, and possibly sell your own paintings
Items from the ‘bucket list’ will show up as either blog posts and/or pages. They may even show up on other social sites as well. This page will be dedicated to the areas of personal (and professional) development that I’ve usually pushed to the side over the years as I was trying to establish myself as an academic molecular and cellular biologist.