Gap Year Strategic Plan

(I've been having some internet issues, so this is a few days overdue. It's also now going to be out of chronological order, but the pictures for the other two forthcoming posts have been slow to upload.)

September 19, 2011

When I decided to take a year off, I didn’t really have any goals or plans in mind, it just felt like the right thing to do now. Over the summer, as I finalized plans and person after person asked me why I was going to Nepal, I thought maybe I should figure out exactly what I was hoping to get out of the trip. Fast forward to a few days before I left the US, I still had not quite settled on anything, mostly because I was too busy enjoying the Colorado summer to give it much time and energy. But thanks to some gentle prodding from Cole and a lot of thought in my first few weeks here, I have arrived at some goals for this year. I share them here because in addition to the typical travel blog reports on my trip experiences, I’m likely to do some writing about how my experiences contribute to changes in my outlook on life.

1. I want to embrace life outside my comfort zone.

For the last 24 years, I’ve lived a very comfortable, consistent and relatively insular life. It’s time to shake up my exterior surroundings. My goal is not only to be uncomfortable and out of my bubble, but to revel in being out of my bubble. My hope is two-fold: First, that if I become comfortable with a major shift of environment, I will be more resilient when more minor environmental shifts occur in my ongoing life. Second, that if I really open up to different lifestyles, cultures and attitudes, I may find some that fit me better than those I was brought up with (or perhaps it will reaffirm those that I was brought up with) and I may come home with a more solidified idea of the kind of life I want to build for myself. A good example of this that is already starting to percolate is how different cultures define community and family and what commitments family/community members have to one another.

2. I want to do some good in the world.

Over the years, I’ve struggled with balancing a desire for a public sector/nonprofit career with a desire to have a job that I love. I’ve had some experiences volunteering for my favorite nonprofits that I have just been miserable, despite my allegiance with their mission. I hope to sort out how I can be most effective in my contributions to the greater good, both this year and in perpetuity. Maybe some folks are best cut out to donate money, some to advocate, some to teach, some to build and innovate, some to heal, etc. Maybe if we all dedicated some fraction of our special skill sets to making the world a better place, instead of going down the most accessible volunteering path, we’d actually jointly get somewhere. (Not an easy task I suppose, since this requires both identifying your skill sets and seeking out ways to apply them to the public good.)

I am hoping that I can use evaluation (and more broadly, organization capacity building and empowerment) as a platform to make the world a better place. Regardless of your personal viewpoint on dedicating resources to evaluation versus direct services, the powers that be worldwide, from governments to funders to individual donors, have decided that assessing the impact of nonprofit work is important. So maybe I can help equip nonprofits with the necessary skills and considerations to function in this new world.

3. I want to dedicate bandwidth to historically neglected pursuits.

I have had a highly intellectual and physically active upbringing and my greatest passions in life have been academic or athletic. I’m grateful for the intellectual curiosity and physical health this life has bestowed upon me; however, I’ve had a sense these last few years that I’ve left portions of myself under developed. I think up to this point, I’ve only tackled things outside my passions when there’s been a pressing need to. For example, in the last year, it’s become clear that I never learned how to treat my body with kindness and my injury year of 2010 has forced me to focus on this area. This year, I want to dedicate some time and energy to portions of myself that I’ve always thought could use some work but which I never actually had the motivation to work on.

I will start with perhaps the biggest gap area of all: religion and spirituality. I’ve had a curiosity about religion for as long as I can remember and I frequently toy with the idea of trying to educate myself. This is the year to actually get it done. I’ve bought all the religious scriptures for the major world religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism) and I plan to read the uninterpreted texts and then so some reading on how people apply these religious principles. Though I doubt I’ll come away a devoutly religious person, I have two hopes: First, that some bits and pieces of the faiths will resonate with me and I can develop a kind of “Elena faith” to help me grow and develop as a person. Growing some strong ethical roots now, while in a very stable mental state, will hopefully position me to better weather physiological challenges in the future. Second, I hope that I’ll come away more educated about world religions. There is no avoiding that we live in a faith-based society, and I think I suffer from a major lack of understanding of religion and how it influences behavior. This may be an area that I can only partially develop through reading, but maybe after I’m a little more educated, I can have better conversations with others and learn from my peers.

A little terrifying that my goals are now well-documented and online for friends and family to hold me accountable to… but I guess I should practice what I preach...