So we’re going to be heading into the third full moon of the year tomorrow. The moon will be entering the Libra constellation, and it will also be the first super moon of the year.

But before I can look ahead to the Libra full moon, I need to look back at the goals that I set for the Virgo full moon and see how I did with each of them.

So what were my goals for the Virgo full moon? They included:

Meditating nightly, and hopefully catching and re-framing negative thoughts into more positive thoughts.

Trying to do a monthly ‘brain-dump’–getting all ideas out of my head on what I would like to get accomplished during hte month (for example-March), and then selecting ideas from the list to put on my weekly to-be accomplished list. Have it such that it is a mix of various things instead of focusing solely on one area.

Continue working on the transition plan–try to figure out which industry positions are of interest and start trying to network again.

So how did I do with each of them?

In terms of nightly meditations–I’ve been doing really well with these. I’ve found that right now the best combination is that I have my ‘noise maker’ going, the lights off, and candles lit. I can usually quiet my mind for a few minutes.

Re-framing the thoughts is always going to be an ongoing battle. I’ve realized that most of the time, the negative thoughts have become ‘background’ noise in my head and I usually have ‘tuned-it out’ aka I don’t realize what I’m thinking. I’m now trying to tie emotions to thoughts and when I start feeling anxious I then try to tune in to the thoughts.

I managed to do a ‘monthly brain dump’ for March at the end of February. It has been helpful in terms of ideas for blog posts (or at least reminding myself of recurring posts), blog/website pages or both. While there is one section of the brain dump that hasn’t had items marked out–I did make a massive list of ideas, with the understanding that I probably wasn’t going to be able to cover everything on the list. Some ideas/topics may make it onto the ‘monthly brain dump’ for April.

So in terms of the transition plan–this is still currently a work in progress, and since I’m not sure if I’m going to stick with trying to be remote/freelance/online or possible a mix of online and in-person I haven’t started networking more yet. Though I’m leaning more and more towards the idea of something that can be semi-location independent and it has flexible hours so that I can also focus on me.

I’ve decided that those are going to be two of the most important aspects of moving forward—the location and the ability to semi-control my schedule. Since I’ve acknowledge that I have a terrible habit of prioritizing one aspect of life over others, I’m slowly starting to bring that back into a balance—and I don’t want to lose that balance.

Therefore I don’t want a job that is going to require me commuting more than say 45-60 minutes per direction (that’s saying I’m willing to lose 1.5-2 hours a day or 7.5-10 hours a week commuting), and one that I can safely leave work at work (even when I decide to go solo—I’m going to ‘create’ an home office where work will stop at 5:30 every day).

As I had mentioned in a Linkedin post last week: I’m focusing on figuring out the direction (or possibly directions) to go in that will allow me to continuously learn, be challenged, have fun, but also have flexible hours and be semi-location independent.

While that may not sound like I made progress on the transition plan—I actually have—in starting to define what type of professional lifestyle I want and now I need to start figuring out (besides scientific writer, data analyst, and possibly project manager) what industry positions would be a good for my desired professional lifestyle.

Progress is being made and I’m slowly starting to stretch the comfort zone. Using my strengths and values as guiding points I may actually semi-figure out what I’m doing with the second half of my life.