About three years ago I performed this goals-setting activity in the place of New Years Resolution’s, and then I pretty promptly forgot about it. Late last year an interviewer stumbled across my list, and he brought it up in my interview by pointing out that I was interviewing for a position I’d identified that I wanted years previously. His mentioning of my post got me thinking about how these goals really still represent a lot of things I want to do, but they could use an update. So, to celebrate graduating law school (a very old goal) and converting to Judaism (a relatively new goal) I decided to update my list! Below are my goals as I view them as a brand new lawyer and Jew.
This list is different from my original one in a few important ways: First, I no longer count “Checked Off” goals in my list of 100. I did that initially because identifying 100 goals felt impossible. Now—three years outside of the abusive relationship with my biological mother, and immensely more confident in and happy with who I am as a person—100 goals is something I know I can aspire to without needing to count things I’ve already done. Second, I’ve created a space for continuous goals that are not intended to be checked off at any point. Finally, I now have a section of goals that I removed from my previous list (also not counted in the 100). I think these goals are important to keep visible, both because some of them represent things I used to want that I no longer want, and because some of them are things I failed to achieve during the time period I could have achieved them. Thus, they all represent areas of growth and learning in my life that I have no intention of forgetting.
Checked Off
- Get into college
- Get into Kobylka's SCOTUS research class
- Study abroad in Oxford
- Graduate undergrad with honors
- Get into a T14 law school
- Get some nice photos taken, just for me
- End abusive relationship with Brooke -----This marks the end of things I had achieved in the last goals post
- Transfer to a better law school
- Own a fitted suit I'm confident in
- Properly ask a girl on a date
- Play a fun DnD campaign beginning to end
- See John Mulaney perform again
- Ski again
- Get a tailored coat that I love
- Formalize Lori's position as my mom
- Visit Israel and Palestine to learn
- Graduate Yale Law School
- Convert to Judaism
- Learn how to make a few good cocktails
To Do
Continuous Goals
- Have a close knit network of friends I can rely on, who all rely on me
- Travel consistently through adult life: like once a year at least!
- Live an intentionally Jewish life
- Remain un-addicted to caffeine
- Be able to consistently touch my toes without pain
- Play more video games with good stories
- Keep a low sugar intake day to day
- Have a plant-heavy diet that isn't gross
- Walk and bike more than I drive
- Maintain a healthy, strong weight
- Have nice nails consistently
- Perfect more recipes
Career
- Pass the New York bar on the first try
- Do a legal fellowship
- Get a (short) PhD at a European university
- Publish my first law review article
- Become a law professor at a university I like
- Write and publish a law review article that becomes widely respected and read among criminal justice academics and students
- Be a really good professor—the kind students love to take classes from
- Head a sentencing reform project
- Be so influential in my legal field that I get taught in introductory and undergraduate courses
- Be so influential in my legal field that I get tapped by the government for reform projects
- Help to make the criminal justice system more just
Judaism
- Be a person who semi-regularly keeps Shabbat
- Learn to make a challah I really love
- Be able to confidently sing Kiddush
- Host a great, multi-course Shabbat dinner
- Host a fantastic, raucous Passover Seder
- Find a synagogue I love in NYC
- Find a consistent way to be participating in Jewish study
Creating and Learning
- Go to a poetry workshop
- Get a poem published in a proper journal
- Learn to bake a good berry pie
- Learn how to consistently perfectly cook a steak
- Learn to bridge shuffle cards
- Learn to sculpt/make ceramics
- Learn basic sewing
- Learn basic furniture restoration/alteration
- Make a crossword puzzle and submit it to the New York Times for publication
Travel
- Get a skiing lesson
- Become a black diamond skier
- Visit Japan for an extended period of time
- Visit China for an extended period of time
- Visit Germany
- Visit Greece for an extended period of time with my friends
- Go back to England for an extended holiday
- Go to Disney's Star Wars world
- See the Great Pyramids
- See the Northern or Southern Lights
- Participate in the Holi festival in India
- Participate in the Day of the Dead in Mexico
- Participate in Mardi Gras in New Orleans
- Participate in Carnival in Brazil
- See the cherry blossoms in Japan
- Participate in Octoberfest in Germany
- Snorkel around the Great Barrier Reef
- Have tea made with the water that fed the tea plants somewhere abroad
- Have high tea in more places
Experiences
- Get married
- Have a non-regular, un-stressful wedding
- Adopt a kid with my supportive partner
- See another production at The Globe
- See all of Shakespeare's plays performed
- Get rid of all my student loan debt
- Have enough money to retire comfortably when/if I choose to do so
- Be able to do 50 push-ups consecutively
- Be able to squat two plates for 10 reps
- Be able to bench one plate for 10 reps
- Get better at sketching flowers
- Eat at a three star Michelin star restaurant
- Eat real wagyu beef
- Take a martial arts class
- Earn triple F badge
- Find a local place to consistently swing dance
- Find a local place to consistently Latin dance
- Throw nice dinners/get-togethers as an adult
- Be the kind of person who has a go-to cobbler and a tailor
- Be able to jog a block without being winded
- Try peyote or another (safe) hallucinogenic drug
- Get a full body scrub
- Ride a horse not on a trail
- Learn how to parse through basic (elementary school level) Hebrew
- Have a home that friends are always coming over to
Owning
- Display an extensive tea collection prominently in home
- Own soft, fitted leather gloves
- Buy a second fitted suit that I love
- Own a hairless cat
- Own a dog
- Fully furnish and decorate my home with furnishings I love
- Own all stainless steel and cast iron pots and pans
- Have a home and office full of plants
- Have a tailored wardrobe that I love
- Have a windowsill garden
- Grow a plant from tiny to giant
- Keep fresh flowers in my home
- Have matching jewelry that I'm confident wearing
- Own a few beautiful (commissioned?) art pieces
- Have a garden/greenhouse area I can sit in and read/write
- Have a local or personal sauna I can relax in
- Own a tea shop in later life
- Legally own an ethically procured narwhal horn
Removed Goals
- Get on Law Review -YLJ had an anti-transfer policy when I transferred, which I helped to change!
- Write and publish a respectable student note while on law review
- Graduate law school in the top 10% of my class -YLS doesn't rank students
- Clerk at an appellate court -I realized clerking wasn't as necessary as I had thought for my career path
- Be a Supreme Court clerk
- Become a Supreme Court Justice -I fell out of love with SCOTUS as I came to understand how political it really is
- Learn more about coding -With less social support for this goal, it felt less important, and less doable
- Get a short story published -I've moved away from short story writing in my day to day
- Never stop learning throughout life (i.e. don't become a useless old person) -I took these two "never" goals out because a negative goal isn't something I want to work towards; I want to work towards positives!
- Never dye hair
- Read all of Stephen King's works -I don't actually like Stephen King this much. Why did I put this initially?
- Make my own boba at home instead of buying out all the time -Now, I just aspire to have enough money that I don't have to feel weird about how much I spend on boba!
- Be an eco-conscious person -What does this even mean? Totally unachievable goal, too vague.
- Be passable in a couple romance languages (Spanish and French?) -This goal was a stretch when I wrote it, and no longer really interests me