My Goals

Thank you very much, YeamieWaffles, for pointing out the fact that I haven't really discussed my goal plans with the new followers I've gained. I've left you all a little lost.

If you'd like to read my former posts on the subject, you can find my first post, Becoming Great, or read up on the list on my page entitled 2013 Goals.

But if you'd just like a quick recap, I can spell it out pretty quick. Basically, I've tried to be a writer and consistent in a lot of activities throughout my life, and I've failed at all of it, over and over again. This time, I dedicated myself to building a base for accomplishing my dreams, and determined I wouldn't give up until I had everything I had ever wanted.

To that end, this year's goals are about building habits and skills that will help me reach my future goals and get my writing career on track at last.

Very admirable sentiment, right? But it wasn't solid enough to be a real plan. I needed something big and easily understood to come back to again and again when I wanted to see where I needed to go and what I wanted to accomplish.

So I created a list of 16 things I wanted to add to my life by the end of the year. They are:

1. Exercise, stretch, meditate, and work on my writing every morning & every evening
2. Journal, stick to a budget, & write a poem daily
3. Blog daily
4. Clean & organize environment
5. Set diet (list healthy choices, count calories consumed & calories burned)
6. Learn to cook healthy alternatives
7. Sketch something daily
8. Write daily (x amount of words daily on main project)
9. Improve posture (Alexander technique)
10. Learn Spanish
11. Learn belly dancing
12. Improve my Walmart work performance
13. Start composting
14. Study anatomy
15. Learn chess
16. Study classical literature

I've reached number 7 and become a little stunted in my growth at the moment. Which is no wonder, when you realize that I've started this life change only 3 months ago and have already tried to cram half the list into my life.

I think I might have overdone it.

But my premise is still effective. I believe I can slowly integrate great change by adding small changes over time. And each addition to my life has proven incredibly enriching. I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed broadening my horizons. Of course, it's also a little scary.

But then, what's life without a little fear?  

My Own Worst Enemy

I've never understood what has held me back from being the person I wanted to be. I did a lot of research at the beginning of this life change and tried to find out what that was and make it work this time. And I discovered so many useful things. I found my way to what I needed.

And now it feels like I'm back where I started from. I don't understand it. It's like my own mind and body turned against me just as I got into the swing of things. And I'm not just talking about the emotional mind that sabotages all humans in their pursuits of doing what's best vs. what feels good. I'm talking about literally turning against me: I have a lupus flare and I can't physically do any of the things I need to. Plus, there's the little fact that I am bipolar (no manias, just depression), and I've been terribly depressed the last week or so. Add that in and you have a double whammy.

I'm weak as a kitten physically, my brain thinks nothing but bad thoughts no matter how many times I redirect it, and I feel exhausted, mentally and physically all of the time.

But I NEED this so badly. I have to make this life change happen. I have to make it work. This is that important to me.

Lately, I've been slipping a lot. I think it's because I lost the ability and time to do a lot of my pre-planning. Pre-planning is one of the most important things I've found in my arsenal of change. If I didn't plan ahead of time what will and won't happen, what I'll work on and what I'll ignore, I fail.

I haven't cleaned my room hardly at all. I've maintained it to a certain degree, but no real cleaning. I haven't cleaned the kitchen. I haven't cleaned out my car again. I haven't done my daily routines. I haven't done a lot of things of late.

And jumping right back in right now feels impossible. I tell myself to get up and do it, but my mind and body fight me the entire way. I end up feeling worse when I try than if I didn't.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just too broken to succeed.

But then I think about all the people who have made it. Did their problems seem any less insurmountable? When they thought about all it would take to make them succeed, did they ever feel terrified and overwhelmed?

Were they their own worst enemies, too?

I know I spend a lot of my time on this blog complaining about the difficulties. So I'm going to try being more positive and upbeat on here again. I look back at my first posts, and I like what I was writing then. I was full of hope and determination and every word shone with that emotion behind it. Lately, my feelings of inadequacies have come out to play, and my writing has reflected that.

No more.

Complaining, while inevitable, is not what I want to waste my time on. I'm going to get this train back on track, even if it feels impossible. And I'm going to be more positive again. I like that version of me.

But I can't succeed if I'm fighting myself the whole way. I'm going to have to do more research and figure out a way to deal with the physical and mental problems I have. Because they aren't just going to go away and let me succeed. They are here to stay and I'm going to have to cope with them if I want to make this work.

I really want to make this work.

My Superpower

I was thinking to myself on the way to the hospital to see my mom and I realized something. I have an incredible superpower.

Unfortunately, it isn't something cool like telekinesis or technopathy.

I have the amazing ability to create worlds and characters and stories in my head. I can go anywhere I want to, just by thinking about it. I can feel any emotion I want to, have any relationship I want to, be any person I want to, just by imagining it. I'm incredibly creative, and my brain never stops wanting to create something else. It churns out ideas at an unrealistic rate.

But I don't do anything with it.

I spend most of my time inside my imagination, creating and pretending and building inside my mind where it does no one, not even me, any kind of good. I read books and watch TV in a strange attempt to direct my imagination so it doesn't go directions I don't want it to. And then I do puzzles and play games so that my brain's too busy to create, just to turn it off for a while.

But I never use my gift, my superpower, to benefit. I've tried writing, tried to make it direct my imagination in a constructive fashion. And I fell head over heals in love with the method. I found that writing opened up my imagination in ways I never dreamed. And it directed my focus, so that my mind didn't wander.

But then I grow bored. I want to move onto something else. And the book is never finished.

When I started the series I'm currently working on, I determined that wasn't going to happen this time. And it hasn't. It's been around 2-3 years since I first started designing this novel and I haven't allowed myself to get distracted yet.

I've decided, though, that the only way I'm ever going to see my superpower benefit myself and others, is if I direct it towards my goals mercilessly. I can't allow myself to imagine and create whenever and wherever I want. I need control.

Control is one of the few things I don't find easy to create.

Small periods of control are easy. It's the long-term that I can't seem to manage. But this new life change is all about changing that. Shaping my mind and my life the way I want them to be.

So that's my next concentration. I'm going to continue on with my goals (drawing daily is my next goal and it starts on 4/25), but I'm going to do so with an overall thought in mind: I want the ability to turn my superpower on and off at will.

I refuse to let it rule my life. It's time for me to take control.

Daily Stats:

1. Exercised, stretched, meditated, and worked on my writing twice today.
2. Wrote in my journal, stayed on budget, and wrote a poem today.
3. Posted on my blog.
4. Made my bed and did some laundry.
5. Kept to my diet.
6. Made pizza and lots of vegetables and fruits for lunch.

Failure Is Not An Option

It's awfully ironic that I'm forced to write this post after yesterday's. It would be hilarious if it wasn't happening to me.

My mom had to go to the hospital today. I spent over 7 hours there and that isn't including the doctor's visit before hand, the stop at the restaurant with my mom, or getting ready to go. All-in-all, it has been an extraordinarily unproductive day, and an exhausting one to boot. I'm about to go to sleep after one giant day of fail.

And my poor mom. She's got to be miserable. I would be, if I'd been to the hospital as many times as she has been. To be sticked, prodded, and examined repeatedly sounds (and looks) like hell. Talk about an annoying, unproductive day.

To be honest, I don't feel like I wasted my day. My mom needed to go to the hospital and find out if there is anything wrong with her heart. I needed to be there with her and make sure everything went okay.

I'm not ashamed of that.

But I refuse to let a day of not reaching my goals lead to more days like this. So thinking on this day as good data for future planning is useful. Of course, I have to face the fact that days of failure will come regardless of how much or well I plan.

It's a life of failure that is unacceptable.

Daily Stats:

 

1. Didn't do my routine at all.
2. Wrote in my journal and kept on budget. Did not write a poem.
3. Posted on my blog.
4. Made my bed.
5. Did not stay on my diet.
6. Didn't cook anything.

Write It Down (And Then Do It)

Is there anything you want to accomplish with your life? With this year? With this week? Today? This minute?

Then stop what you're doing. Go on. Take your eyes off the computer screen and get a notebook out.

Done that? Now write down what you want to do with your time. Write down, in detail, a specific goal you want to accomplish. Finished yet? Then give yourself a time limit to accomplish that goal.

Having a day and time that you have to achieve that goal makes it suddenly much scarier, doesn't it? I've found both in my writing and in real life planning, everything becomes more real if you write it down and plan it out. And real is a heck of a lot more terrifying than fantasy.

But real is what you live. Real is possible. Fantasy is just a hazy wish you dream about before you go to sleep at night. If you ever want your life to become that dream, you're going to have to make it real.

Is that enough, however? Can you just give yourself a general goal and a deadline and voila, you're a success? Of course not!

You're going to have to plan. A lot.

Take that general goal and break it down into many, smaller goals. Once you've finished that, give yourself a mini-deadline for each of your small goals. Be conservative; it's better to have too much time allotted than not enough in this exercise.

Now look at your coming schedule. What time do you have available for this activity? How can you fit your goal pursuits into your daily life? Obviously you're going to have to give up something to make your goal happen. Because if you didn't have your time wasted on something else, you'd already have accomplished the goal by now.

So do an honest evaluation of your life. Is there something you could cut back on, just a bit, to fit your new activities in? Is there anything you can cut completely?

Write down any decisions you make about your decisions here, too. The human brain is a funny thing. Writing your goals and decisions down on paper has shown to make people more susceptible to implementing those changes.

Having said that, I don't want any of you to mistake my meaning. Once you write it down, you're still going to have to do it. You have to get up and walk away from the pen and paper and actually accomplish something if you want to succeed at your goals. But writing them down is an excellent strategy at changing the way you think about those changes. It takes something that seems like a fantasy and brings it into reality.

And no one knows how incredibly hard that is to do better than a writer.

Daily Stats:

 

1. Exercised, stretched, meditated, and worked on my writing twice today.
2. Wrote in my journal, stayed on budget, and wrote a poem today.
3. Posted on my blog.
4. Made my bed.
5. Stayed on diet (improved my vegetable and fruit eating!).
6. Cooked breakfast, fixed my lunch, and fixed myself dinner.