The frameworks and vocabulary introduced by Nicole Marquesa and TehShan Lee on January 21, 2026.
Plain-language definitions for the frameworks and vocabulary that appeared in this session. Terms flagged presenter-adapted or presenter-original are Nicole's or TehShan's specific articulations. Terms flagged industry-standard are widely used across career coaching and HR.
An eight-area goal-setting model — Career & Life Purpose, Professional Growth, Relationships, Spiritual Alignment, Home & Surroundings, Rest/Recovery/Relaxation, Well Being & Physical Health, and Financial. Each area is rated on a 1–10 scale to create a January baseline, then paired with one outcome goal and a target date. The model is a variant of the wheel-of-life framework used broadly in coaching; Nicole's specific eight-area articulation and the rating-into-goal flow is what she walked through in this session.
The framing layer this companion uses to describe what Nicole's exercises are actually producing. Read structurally, a January 8-Stack rating is a sensor reading; journal entries are a longitudinal log; celebration goals are commitment devices; the whole session is data collection on yourself so that a future AI, a future recruiter, or a future version of you can query the year and find recurring skill, growth, and preference signals. "Baseline" does not appear in the slides — it's the editorial reframe the companion uses to make the session legible to readers who find empowerment-genre language unfamiliar or off-putting.
A practice Nicole introduced of pre-specifying how you'll celebrate each milestone in your search — before the win occurs. Written in first-person, timebound form: "I will celebrate [milestone] by [specific reward] within [timeframe]." The structural purpose is to close a reinforcement loop: naming the reward in advance makes the motivation system engage now rather than waiting for the finish line.
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound. A goal-setting framework attributed to George T. Doran (1981) and now ubiquitous in HR, career coaching, and performance management. Nicole illustrated it with a direct contrast: "Network more" (vague) versus "Schedule and attend 3 virtual coffee chats with former colleagues by January 30th" (SMART). Only the SMART version generates usable data about progress.
A structured reflective practice — a daily or near-daily log of what happened in your search, what you learned, what energized or drained you, and what you'd do differently next time. Reflective journaling for job seekers is an established coaching tool; Nicole's specific contribution is the prompt architecture (the simple four, the three categorical prompts, and the structured-daily variant) and the framing that the journal is not a mood exercise but an accumulating dataset your future self — or an AI pass — can analyze.
One of three categorical journal prompt frames Nicole walked through for the harder days of a search. The prompt: "What specifically frustrated me today — and what part of that frustration is within my control?" The writing covers the triggering event, whether the issue was effort/clarity/timing/fit, and one concrete adjustment for tomorrow. The purpose, as Nicole put it: "Turns venting into traction." Cognitive-behavioral in structure, not affirmation-based.
Second of the three categorical prompts. The prompt: "What did I do today that moved me even one step forward, even if it didn't feel productive?" Writing covers small actions — applications, networking messages, LinkedIn posts, journaling, skill-building — reframed as real momentum. Nicole's stated purpose: combats the false belief that only interviews count as progress. Critical on the long, slow stretches of a search where lead indicators diverge from trailing ones.
Third of the three categorical prompts. The prompt: "What am I genuinely grateful for today — even while this process is uncomfortable?" Writing covers skills you now clearly have, supportive people, clarity gained, and lessons from hard environments that now protect you. The naming is deliberate — Nicole explicitly distinguishes this from toxic-positivity gratitude ("bypassing reality") by naming the discomfort first and the gratitude second. Grounding, not escape.
Two closely-related interview response structures. STAR: Situation, Task, Action, Result. PAR: Problem, Action, Result. Both are methods for turning work experience into interview-ready narratives with clear setup, action, and outcome. Nicole referenced them as one of the things a job search journal helps you refine over time — each interview you capture becomes raw material for a sharper STAR/PAR telling of the same story.
Two distinct uses of AI in the journaling loop, both demonstrated or flagged in the session. (1) Template generation — prompting ChatGPT or Gemini to create a journal structure tailored to job search specifics; TehShan ran this live. (2) Retroactive analysis — after several weeks of entries, feeding the accumulated log back to an AI to surface recurring skills, accomplishments, and growth patterns you hadn't noticed at ground level. Nicole flagged the analysis loop in her speaker notes; it is the load-bearing idea underneath the entire session, because it converts journaling from self-soothing into self-research.