IELTS CUE CARD – Talk about a time you set a goal

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the world came to a standstill as strict lockdowns were enforced everywhere. With nowhere to go, time, weekdays, and routines  became an abstract alien concept to the majority of us. To keep myself preoccupied and to prevent myself from wasting this precious time, I set a few goals.

My goals were as follows: getting up early, every single day consistently; continue a modified version of my workout even at home; and to learn a new skill.

The first two goals were easy enough to implement once I got used to. I made sure to keep my favourite song as an alarm tone. Rather than keeping my phone next to me while sleeping, I started keeping it in the kitchen which was all the way across the apartment. Once in the kitchen, I had a glass of water and began my day with a big smile.

I soon noticed that getting up became easier every day, my moods got a whole lot better, and I just felt generally more productive. I managed to do variations of indoor yoga six days a week, for I gave myself a pass on Sundays. That’s another thing I did, I made sure not to lose track of the weekdays, I treated every day like a work vacation; a day to get the most out of.

Now as for my last goal, it was to learn a new skill to keep me focused. The skill I chose to learn was animation. It was slow, time-consuming work; reading from the manuals and online free tutorials I could get my hands on. But lo and behold, two weeks later I finished my very first simple animation of a 90-frame loop of a walking bird. I was very proud of my creation.

The lockdown in my city lasted for months but I am proud to say that I achieved the goals I  set for my self development. I even look forward to achieving them tomorrow, and every day that is to come in the future. The main thing I learned along this journey is realizing as an adult how much our choices reflect in our lifestyle. How little things change our day, how improvement actually feels, and how easy it is to take that first step into the unknown.

Useful words and their meanings
Lockdown	an emergency situation in which people are not allowed to freely enter, leave, or move around in a building or area because of danger
Standstill	a condition in which all movement or activity has stopped
lo and behold (a phrase)	something that you say when you tell someone about something surprising that happened