I’m not very good at marking my Blogiversary. I did the first year but more by accident than design. The second year I posted on the day but on a completely unrelated topic and the third year I posted the day before and the day following but not on my actual Blogiversary. I believe it is customary to reflect on your previous Blogiversary posts but that seems a little pointless as I’ve done such a poor job in the past. Instead, I’m going to look forward, in an oblique kind of way.
On Stitchin Fingers, SharonB has started a topic "Who is setting goals for the New Year". I haven’t contributed to the discussion but I have been following it and inevitably it set me thinking about goal setting.
My initial thought was that I don’t set myself goals but of course this is not true, I guess we all do to some extent. I just don’t do it in a structured way.
Sharon asked "How do you set [goals] just list them?" On one forum I have joined we declare our goals for the coming month. Many of my projects take several months to complete, so I tend to simply list my current projects and their deadline if it is imminent. "Do you consider how you are going to achieve them - or just overload and hope for the best?" I think that I definitely fit into the overload and hope for the best category. I find it difficult to say no – to myself, let alone anyone else. If I see a project that interests me, I add it to my 'to do' list and hope that I will find time to fit it in. So many of these projects never get off the ground, some get started but fall by the wayside and far too many get squeezed in at the last minute and become stressful rather than a pleasure. Sharon said "This list and overload is one way of not meeting goals." Hmmm, ain't that the truth!
Looking back at the last 4 years, 2007 was probably my most productive. It was also my most goal orientated year. That was the year that I took part in TAST. My plan was to work a small sampler for each stitch within a week starting from the day it was announced. Even though my samplers were small, they were still a lot of work to complete within a week and I soon started to miss my self-imposed deadline, non-the-less the goal remained and I pushed on throughout the year.
Compare that to 2010. This year has been the least productive of the 4 years. I 'planned' to do more than I could possibly achieve. There were at least two time consuming projects that I should have said no to but could not resist taking part. During the summer my mojo went missing for weeks and I think that can be attributed to overload. I have met the some of my goals, those I had committed to doing. Some of the projects that I might have preferred to be working on are yet to be started, and I might have enjoyed the projects I have completed more if I had not felt obliged to do them.
So how do I avoid falling into the same pit falls again? Sharon said, "A dream is a dream; a goal is a dream with a plan". It would seem that before I can set goals I have to consider my dreams. That’s scary. Why am I afraid to name my dreams? Well, it’s that old chestnut of being afraid of failure. Maybe it it time to start facing up to my dreams. Maybe it is time to stop thinking about all the reasons they may not be fulfilled. Maybe it is time to start making some plans and setting some goals.
Or maybe I'll wrap them back up in obstacles and prevarication and keep on overloading and hoping for the best!
Happy Stitching
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4 comments:
I suspect that setting goals is something that only works when you really want it to. Keeping to them requires self-discipline, which is a chore unless you believe it's helping!
That said, sometimes it helps to look at the list and sanity-check it..
Setting goals for 2011 I set some for 2010 and then life got in the way. I am going to set myself some goals one of which is to teach a very good friend to start saying NNNNNNOOOOOO :-) I also agree with Rachel sometimes it helps to look at the list and sanity-check Sue N XX
Setting goals is, as Rachel says, quite difficult and if something happens to interfere and you don’t complete the goals what happens then? I don't think it's a bad thing though, if you're organised enough (I'm not).
Dreams though, I think you should recognise these and give them voice, written spoken, private or public, I think it's important to acknowledge them and give them life, you never know where it might take you. :-)
Carol Anne - It would be wonderful if I could achive all the things on the list by the end of the year, but as Sue said, life got in the way. Life always gets in the way, so I have two lists; the short one for the things to be done in a relatively short period of time, like a few months to a year, and the long one which is more like a wish list. My long list is getting longer and longer but some of the things actually made to the short list over the time, so I think it works for me. C.P.
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