2014 New Years Resolutions

2013 was a really wonderful and positive year for me professionally. My practice grew, I made some wonderful professional connections, saw some wonderful little friends for treatment and assessment, grew in my knowledge and really feel that I grew a great deal as a clinician. I also had a few pretty cool experiences. My little practice had it's first birthday, I started this blog, and I began indulging in my enjoyment for developing resources, sharing them through Teachers Pay Teachers.

This year, I want to keep the momentum going. Now that I'm back to work, I've had been thinking a lot about what the goals I have for myself and my practice are this year, and how I can go about achieving them. I would to be proactive this year about working toward professional goals, so that I can make the most of the opportunities I have. My big goals are:

Learn more

This is one is obvious, and comes with the territory of being a Speech Pathologist. There's always new and better information coming through in the research, and always more to learn to make me a more effective clincian. This year, I would like to dedicate more time to professional development, and hopefully attend more conferences. Right now, I am keen to build on my knowledge of early language development and difficulties. It's one of my favourite populations to see, and an area that I'm so, so passionate about.

Build on this blog

I started this blog in October, and haven't done a great deal with it yet. I've not had time to get a good feel for the direction I want take it in, or what I want to write about. This year my goal is to explore blogging more, while sharing my experiences, resources and information I think others might find useful. I also want to use this blog as a platform build on my own clinical knowledge and learning

Get involved in community awareness

This will be a new challenge for me. I've signed up to be a Nation for Communication Champion for Speech Pathology Australia, as part of the International Communication Project. I have plans so far to send out information about the ICP to clients, and encourage them to share their stories, but I'm in the process of brainstorming ideas to spread a wider net of awareness about communication difficulties (suggestions are welcomed!). I'm really excited to see where I can take this one.

As I get deeper into the year, I will hopefully be able to make these very general goals much more specific. It will be interesting to revisit these through the year to see just how much I feel I've accomplished in each.