Women in Big Data (WiBD) once again welcomes Dr. Michelle Chappel in “Part II” of “Create a Life that Totally Rocks” on May 28, 2020. It was a career coaching session on “goal setting”.  While “Part I” was about “tapping into your inner superhero” to find natural talents that distinguish you from everyone else, “Part II” was about how to channel your superpowers and “think big” when going after your dreams.

Many of us have excuses for never finding the time to do the things we really want, whether it’s a personal hobby or professionally.  Often, our interests and values are interlinked. Pursuing a personal hobby lets us reset ourselves so we can perform better at work. Sometimes we fear “aiming too high” and end up settling for less. A whopping 80% of people give up on their New Year’s resolutions by February because they don’t know how to break them down into “chunks”.

In this session, Michelle showed us how to reach lofty goals by creating subgoals that are specific, measurable, and positive. She asked us to write down where we want to be professionally in 5 years, one year, three months, one month, this week, and ended on what step we can take toward our goals today. Michelle also showed us how to come up with alternative pathways should we run into obstacles. Did you know that writing down your goals increases the chances of reaching them? Sharing your intentions increases the chances even further!

Goal-setting works best when you balance heart and mind. To help us set personal goals, Michelle shared the “The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying” by Bronnie Ware, as follows:

1. You are not living your dream.
2. You work too hard.
3. You do not express your true feelings
4. You don’t spend enough time with friends
5. You feel stuck and don’t let yourself be happy

She then asked which one applies to us most and what small goal we could take today to avoid having this regret in the future. Michelle ended the session by encouraging us to kick off our rockstar plans by following through on the action steps we made for our professional and personal goals this week.

She also shared a few resources to “find your superpowers”:

Clifton Strengths

Character Strengths

Superpowers

In the effort to reach Women in Big Data (WiBD) folks around the world, this session took place earlier in the morning so that attendees across multiple time zones could participate live.

View a recording of the presentation.

Presentation document is available here.

For a free superpower session, you can schedule time with Dr. Michelle Chappel at http://michellechappel.com