Life Plan and Future Goals

Life Plan and Future Goals

Abstract

Live the life you love, and love the life you live. That might be easy to say but it is never easy to do. You see, when the rubber meets the road, life is hard and life is often unfair. People must work to live instead of living a life that includes work. All too often, people get stuck in positions that are not pleasurable and deprives them of the real joys of life. As humans, we are all in a race to get nowhere and we do not take time to stop and “smell the roses”. We are trapped chasing the dollar instead of chasing God. With this unbalanced life, stress becomes the norm and our cries for relief become louder and louder until we break. This paper proposes the desperate need to become balanced in our daily life. It reviews areas of my weaknesses and strengths. Further, this paper sets out a personal wellness plan that focuses on the many ways a to live a balanced life and reduce stress.

Life Plan and Future Goals

My life plan is to fulfill my passion and have my own company. After completing my undergraduate degree, I plan to go to Houston University for a Masters degree in clinical psychology. Later after completing my masters, I hope to attend the Thurgood Scholl of law.

I would the desire to pursue a masters degree in clinical psychology is based on the need to serve patients by offering advanced psychological therapy. By attaining the postgraduate studies, I hope to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills that will enable me to provide excellent clinical psychology services. The medical psychology field has always been my passion ever since I started my undergraduate studies and I always focused on completing this level before advancing to the postgraduate level to advance my knowledge base. Furthermore, I have always had the dream to own my own company where I will offer different services to people in an attempt to make everyone’s life better. I hope to achieve this dream after completing my education milestone. Currently, I cannot tell exactly what type of company I would like to establish but I have the idea of starting a service provision company that will specialize in offering special counsel to business investors informing them on the best strategies to embrace in their business as well as providing legal counsel to businesses on how they should handle issues related to business regulations (Greene, 2017).

Throughout my life, I have been interested in finding a career that can fit effectively with my character. I want to be able to offer help to people in different difficult situations. My entire life I have been destined to listen to other people’s problems because of my sympathetic personality. I learned these values from my parents as well as some of my college professors who always give motivation on scaling higher dreams in life. Or maybe it is the human nature for some people to be that way. Hence the decision to settle in the psychology career pathway started from home and later in high school when I learned about the important role played by psychologists in our society. Taking this career path in psychology also comes with numerous challenges because of some stereotypes people have towards psychologists. But I cannot let other people’s thinking hinder me from following my passion and attaining my dream (Burnette, 2019). Taking this career path I can liken it to the freedom fighters that dared to fight and could not be deterred by any form of intimidation. Similarly, this is the position where I am, and all I am concerned with is the future dream and the previous academic achievements that I have acquired up to this stage in life.

The field of psychology has numerous sectors and practices’ hence basically pursuing a career in psychology is a good decision. One of the aspects of clinical psychology that excites and keeps me motivated involves the chance to diagnose and make decision whether a patient has a mental problem, and if they have the mental health issue, what is the scale and how I can as psychology specialist help the patient through the journey of dealing with the diagnosed mental health condition. I recall during my childhood when I used to watch a television program “The American Serial Killers,” that portrayed the life of serial killers in the society (Davidson, 2017). The television program depicted how serial killers would conduct themselves normally while in public, however, their mentality was different because they were often driven by the desire to kill. I was often left with questions on what transpired in these offenders minds. I was curious and I wanted to know how they could hide their identity to an extent of even befriending the victims before ending their lives. Hence from that moment in my childhood, although I never understood quite well what psychology was by then, I later realized that the serial killers had mental issues that often drove them to commit the atrocities.

Furthermore, the fact that these aspects of psychology are used even in the justice system to determine whether suspects are mentally stable to stand trial, I believe that by taking a career in this field will give an opportunity to utilize my skills as well as learn more on how to deal with different psychology cases. This is the reason why I also have a plan to attend a law school so that I can learn about the justice system. In order to help suspects with mental health issues, I need to comprehend different aspects of the law. I believe that by advancing my knowledge in law, I will be capable to inform individuals with mental health issues on the best way to argue their cases especially if their offenses are caused by the mental health triggers.

One of the most important goals in my life is to serve the public. To achieve that goal I have to offer my services in the law enforcement agencies. My plan to attend law school is to serve as a pathway for me to get to the justice system and be able to offer assessment services of the offenders. Through this career I hope to explore different aspects of psychology that are vital in determining the direction that a court case takes. Clinical psychologist’s services are extremely vital in establishing an individual’s psychological status to help in the law enforcement sector. In most cases, law enforcement agencies lack their own psychologists to conduct the assessment, hence they resolve to hiring clinical psychologist’s services to help in in the investigation of crimes or even processing of criminal charges against offenders. I am interested in working with the law enforcement agencies because of the diversified cases presented which in most cases require one to study behavioral patterns in individuals as well as analyzing other information such as their religion, gender as well as their occupation.

My other life goal is to establish my own business company (Davidson, 2017). I know that starting a business leave alone a company requires proper planning as well as the allocation of adequate resources. I believe over the period throughout my life I have been able to learn crucial skills that can enable me to manage a business or a company. During the course of my undergraduate studies, most of our professors thought as the importance of responsibility and how to deal with different aspects of life. The diversified subject coverage during undergraduate studies not only prepared me for the psychology field but it opened my eyes such that I could see different opportunities that can help me achieve more goals than I ever thought before. Furthermore, to achieve this goal of establishing my own company, I will get the startup capital from my parents. Both my father and mother have always been supportive throughout my life. They pay for my tuition and are willing to support me to ensure that I achieve my dream. I have always drawn inspiration from my parents because they strived to build their wealth through hard work and commitment. From them, I learned the importance of commitment and determination when pursuing something in life.

Throughout my life, I have learned the importance of socialization (Burnette, 2019). From my elementary education to the current level of undergraduate studies, socialization has enabled me to create a friendship. I believe that the friendships I created and some which I hope to create in future will help me in pursuing my goal of a career in clinical psychology. The connections are essential when searching for employment especially after undergraduate studies, however, for my case, I will first take postgraduate masters degree followed by law school before I will finally embark on searching for employment. Essentially, the main reason for advancing my studies is to enhance my knowledge and skills as well as increase my competitive advantage in the job market. For instance, I know that working with a law enforcement agency requires additional qualifications other than the degree in psychology. Therefore, by attending law school I will be able to enhance my position in dealing with assessment of the offenders.

In conclusion, with my determination and persistence, I believe I am capable of attaining my life goals in terms of having a good career in clinical psychology as well as establishing my own company. After my completing my undergraduate studies, I plan to join the University of Houston for a masters degree. From there I will head to law school. I have a goal to serve the public by working in conjunction with law enforcement agencies where I will be able to offer a psychological assessment to offenders to aid the law enforcement officers in processing criminal charges as well facilitating criminal investigation processes. After attaining my educational goals and having a reputable career I will venture into entrepreneurship and establish my own company that will offer a wide range of services to the public. All the knowledge and values I have learned throughout my life as well support from my family, I hope to attain all my life goals because most these goals began as a passion since my childhood and am willing to strive until I reach them(Greene, 2017).

Personal Assessment

I understand stress and the affects it has on the body, mind, reactions, and emotions. Stress has many forms and it is important to be personally responsible and self-aware of your emotions to recognize when help is needed. The stress reaction assessment helped me to objectively look at some areas of my life that I might be ignoring. The purpose of this assessment is to help counselors in assessing the impact of compassion fatigue, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress as well as helping individuals recognize areas of wellness that might need addressed.

First, the cognitive category indicated that I have had diminished concentration, self-doubt, poor abstract thinking, and memory problems. I can only speculate what is causing these problems to arise, but it might be because of school and the pressure I feel regarding how I use my time. First, I have been going to school for quite a few years, and that includes my time in the Air Force. Second, I always feel as if there is not enough time in the day to accomplish all that I want to. What’s more is that I do not stop actively learning and I have not taken time to give myself a mental break (Davidson, 2017). I graduated my undergrad in December then jumped right into this professional counseling degree plan. The problem here is that I am mentally tired, or at least I think I am. I do not feel I am learning what I need to learn and further, that I am suitable for this career. I want to help people, but I do not feel equipped emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. Therein lies my self-doubt. Which in turn affects other aspects of my life. The emotional results follow with my cognitive results in that it indicates I am easily angered or frustrated, overwhelmed, depleted, and apprehensive. The emotional problems affect my behavior in that I can be impatient and irritable. These combine to affect my spiritual, interpersonal, and physical life as well. I have not taken the time to study the bible and pray as much as I like and further, I have not been very physically active either. Which brings about my fatigue, aches and pains, and headaches. Everything is interrelated, when one area is out of balance, the rest follow suit.

The self-care assessment is a tool that provides an overview to effective strategies in maintaining self-care (Greene, 2017). My self-care worksheet indicated that my physical self-care is average in the areas that are easily controlled. However, it is poor in areas that require more time away from home. I am doing even worse in psychological self-care, averaging on the rarely scale of frequency. The emotional self-care does not look too much better than my psychological self-care but I have a few more 4 ratings than I do 3. In this category, I play well with my children because they are my life. My spiritual self-care is better than both my psychological self-care and emotional self-care. My spiritual self-care is an area I wish to improve further. I need to do more to pray and study the Bible. My workplace is irrelevant at the time because I do not have a job currently, but if I did have a job it would rate poorly. When I was working, work was my life.

The last two assessments I found a little more difficult to complete. The Social Support assessment tells me that I have people for emotional and companion support but I rely on nobody for informational support or instrumental support. I provide these types of support to others but very seldom receive it back. I have always been willing to give of myself but reluctant to receive. Further, the Life pie assessment indicated that I do not balance my life. However, what I would like to note is that I believe that I should have God in the center and not myself. For the purposes of this assessment, I placed a heavy emphasis on raising and keeping with my family and little on myself. I am often involved in too many activities for other people and neglect the areas of my life that could significantly reduce my stress.

Wellness Strategies

            Wellness is defined as “striving toward positive growth” (Granello & Young, 2012). Further, wellness involves responsibility and self-actualization. Therefore, it is my responsibility to promote my own wellness and to be intentional in the areas I need to improve. These assessments gave me an opportunity to examine areas in my life that are sufficient and other areas that need work. As I think of a way ahead to my own personal wellness I am reminded of my undergrad businesses courses which taught me a good acronym for setting goals. Specifically, goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely (SMART). By setting SMART goals I should be able visualize the goals I am trying to pursue and get there with better efficiency.

The Stress Reaction assessment showed that I need to pay more attention to my emotional wellness and physical wellness as well as other areas. However, by focusing more on both my physical and emotional wellness, I can better manage the cognitive, spiritual, and behavioral, and interpersonal of my life. To better take care of my physical well-being I will set the goal to walk 30 minutes a day before 9:00 am in the morning. This goal will accomplish a few concerns of mine. One, it will help me become more active. Two, it will help me get out of bed and an earlier time, and hopefully go to bed earlier. Three, I can take my daughter and dog for the walk with me. This will allow me to exercise the dog, who greatly needs it and spend a little extra time with my daughter. Hopefully, by setting this little physical goal I will be able to better handle my emotional and cognitive stressors. Which I believe, in turn can also help change the behavioral, spiritual, and interpersonal stressors I indicated before. I can set more goals, but I think it is important to start out small and work my way to obtaining the bigger goals I would like to accomplish. By setting smaller goals first, the accomplishments should keep the momentum going.

The Self-Care Assessment showed areas that I can consider strengths and areas in which I can improve. Some of my strengths included was eating healthy and regularly, getting medical care when needed, and getting regular medical prevention care. Other strengths included listening to my thoughts, judgements, beliefs, attitudes, and feelings. Spending time with others whose company I enjoy and playing with my children. I also have a spiritual connection, cherish hope and optimism, and singing praises to our God.

This assessment also showed areas that I am weak and like the stress reaction assessment, it would be wise for me to set a few SMART goals to better assist myself in changes that I need to make. I noticed that I need more exercise, as addressed above. I also need to work on my own self-care. One area I would like to improve is writing in a journal and reading books that are not school related. To do this, I must be intentional about my time, in which I feel I have very little. The goal I would like to set is to take one hour every other day to read and write for the next month. When I can accomplish that, I will move my goal to read and write every day for at least an hour. Further, I need to work on my emotional self-care by spending a little more time praising the things that I do and identifying comforting activities that I enjoy. Doing so would probably help reduce my stress and in turn help reduce and emotional stress I may be having. I am not always stressed out, but when I am, I need to make a better effort in noticing and eliminating it. In addition, I need to work on my spiritual self-care by praying more and knowing more about God. I would love to spend more time with nature and taking time to just reflect on the beauty of this world, the beauty of God’s creation. I believe that if I can make personal time to go fishing, the activity is quite enough and still enough to provide such reflection.

Social support has always been a weak area of mine. I help others but I do not often accept help for myself. When I took the assessment for social support, I noticed that I am ok in emotional and companion support but I am lacking in the informational and instrumental support areas. I believe this is because I always try to have the answers and I do not seek answers from other people anymore. I rely heavily on myself. To fix this I need to build these areas of my social network and let other speak into my life. This is not an easy task for me.

The Pie of Life was my last assessment. This assessment made me think about where I put my priorities and how balanced my life really is. It is unnerving how unbalanced I am. I put a large premium on my family, as I should. But they also run my life and I realize and know that it is important to set the right priorities. I cannot help them sufficiently if I am broken myself. Therefore, as discussed already, I need to learn to allocate my time to my advantage. I need to not do so many activities, whether that is letting go of some of my volunteer activities or letting someone else take care of the house a few more times so I can focus on keeping myself healthy. The school slice of my life needs attention as well. I spend a good amount of time working on these classes, but I need to figure out a way to be more productive. Hopefully in doing so it will free up some more time for physical activity or other free-time.

To conclude, I might not be balanced in where I spend my time and activities but I am certainly trying. These assessments have reminded me on areas that need improvement and areas that are fine. If you can tell anything from this paper, it is that I am a family man and I would do anything to raise my girls right and be a good husband to my wife. Even if I must sacrifice a little of myself to get that done. However, I cannot keep at this pace and expect everything to remain fine, I need to focus more on my own emotional, physical, and mental well-being.

References

American Counseling Association. (2014). 2014 ACA Code of Ethics. Retrieved from http://www.counseling.org/docs/ethics/2014-aca-code-of-ethics.pdf?sfvrsn=4.

Davidson, J. (2017). How to plan your life. Pelican Publishing.

Granello, D. H., & Young, M. E. (2012). Counseling today: Foundations of professional identity. Boston, MA: Pearson.

Greene, B. A. (2017). Future goals. Self-Efficacy and Future Goals in Education, 50-62. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315523019-4

QuickRead, & Burnette, A. (2019). Designing your life by bill Burnett and Dave Evans

(Summary). QuickRead.com.