January 8, 2020 – The Twenty-Seventh blog of the RestorationAge

Despite the events of the week, while those in government are going about doing the work of the country, I am going to go about working on the things that I can control, which for me right now, is writing this blog.

First of all, let me say, that my mind was absolutely blown away by the responses and support that I received on my last blog or what Jerry Maquire would call a Mission Statement.

While I have been writing this blog for a while, most don’t know that I started initially in the direction that I’ve finally acquiesced to. I wrote for a couple of months on lack of confidence issues, but then let that lack of confidence take over and migrated the blog tone and message to a more generic and current issues based blog. (See Blogger Note at bottom.)

I actually deleted five or so initial posts that I was afraid to share for fear of what people would think – cause don’t I have it all together? Hell no. Do any of us? But not to worry, those posts were archived. If I read them today I know I would be floored by how far I’ve come in a year.

Let me preface this blog and any further blog with the statement that all thoughts, directions, and advice are strictly my own and not a directive or suggestion that it’s my way or the highway. Advice is merely a recommendation offered as a guide. Everyone’s process is unique to them – we absorb from experiences around us, we try things and see how they fit and either keep or discard. If anything I mention or suggestions I make could be helpful to you – please have at it. Maybe it will lead you to develop your own system.

I’ve never really been a goal setter. And definitely not a successful resolution setter. But I’ve found that as one year slides into another, I have found a definite need for goals. I have to hold myself accountable for real things I want to do or accomplish or they just may or may not get done. I do not want to go another ten years and look back and say “I wish I had…” or “I should have…”.

2020 was my first year of setting some goals. I started on November 24, 2019 – I have the list right here in front of me. I don’t remember why I started on that day, but it was probably because I got a new notebook to follow someone’s suggestion. I can’t imagine that one day I woke up and said, “I’m going to write some goals today.”

My little notebook started with daily goals, which was actually just a glorified “to do” priority list. But when it came to goals I wanted to set for a year, I literally wrote, still thinking about it. I don’t think I’ve ever allowed myself to think a year out on specific things that I would like to accomplish. Obviously I’ve had goals to get married and have children, things like that, but those aren’t tied to a time limit. You don’t have control over them. They happen when they happen, if they happen.

Sometime between November 24th and January 1st, I actually sat and thought about what I wanted to accomplish over the next year and scribbled them down. They were pretty generic, but definitely organic. I wrote things like: Get to this weight and maintain, finish writing that screenplay and enter a contest, take a trip with Mike, ride 7500 miles, etc. The list remained the same all year, but as smaller goals were met they were replaced with new goals if I wanted.

The most important thing was that in addition I created a monthly list. I put milestones into place to finish every month so that when November rolled around I wasn’t trying to cram all the goals into two months. Cramming the night before the test was never my jam. Attempting to reach these milestones every month was key. Sometimes I was able to do it, sometimes I wasn’t. If I didn’t, that thing would just roll over to the next month. I wasn’t a failure at it, it just wasn’t working in that time frame.

On New Years Eve day this year, I sat down to re-evaluate the year. Again, this is something that I had never done before – taking inventory of the year; and it was, call me crazy, freaking amazing.

I wrote four lists. The first was a list of Things I Accomplished in 2020. I would guarantee that most people feel like they didn’t accomplish much this year, but if they sat down and really went through their head and wrote it all out, they would be more than pleasantly surprised. Obviously write down the big things, but no accomplishment is too small, such as “Read or listened to 15 books this year”, “Stretched or did yoga at least once a week”, “Resealed the backyard fence”. The list of things you finished outside of work will knock you over. You’ve been busy, trust me.

The second list was of goals that were on the list for 2020, but are still a work in progress in 2021. Yeah, getting to that certain weight and maintaining is still on the list.

The third was a list of things I want to give up in 2021. These I found are more behavioral in nature. I wrote about one in my last blog of 2020 – give up being a victim. The behaviors on this “give up” list are ones that I will have to constantly remind myself of.

Before I started the fourth list I did something that I encouraged my kids at Christmas to do. I told them to sit in a quiet place and think a year in advance. Imagine themselves a year from now, where they are, what they are doing – down to the smallest detail and come up with a list of goals that will put them in that exact place one year from now.

Then I took my own advice and did this exact thing. Again, there is no goal too big or small. I just sat and wrote. After about fifteen minutes had two pages of things I felt I want to accomplish in 2021.

Two pages sounds like a lot, but some of them were along the same lines. For instance, I wrote down things like deep clean cabinets, get a new mattress, paint Ian’s room; but for all practical purposes I would list these as House Jobs and New Purchases.

Most of my goals are small things, that will come and go through the year, but there about three bigger goals that I’ll be working on all year. Cate thinks that I am taking on too many, but I’m a multitasker and focus better when I’m working on several things at once. Some people can only focus on one thing at a time, so for these people, I would keep your big goals to one. And when you complete that one, add the next one.

Also note that if a goal you had in January is not serving you in July, take it off the list. Goals aren’t set in stone. No one is going to berate you for not working toward that anymore. It’s like if you are reading a book, but struggling to get through it. For heaven’s sake, put it down. Pick up another one. Why waste your time?

So, after I wrote out my four lists and reviewed where I had been, what I had accomplished and where I plan to be in a year, I was almost euphoric. I was high on life, as it were. It was like I had cracked the code of some big secret. I was so attuned into my goals that I could really see who I was and where I was going to be this time next year. And it was real and easy, not hard like I’ve made it out to be for so long.

I’ve always been the planner, the Admin of the family, but the fact that I hadn’t been admin-ing my own life just couldn’t be ignored anymore. I’m learning to trust myself and to just do the work.

There is no right or wrong time to start a goal-setting practice. It could be at the first of the year. It could be from today. It could be from March to March. It belongs to you if you decide to do it. They are your goals.

I encourage you to give it a try. It won’t be easy at first and these goals have to really be forefront in your thoughts and beliefs all year and the days may go whacky like this year, but I know if I can do it, anyone can. Just ask yourself, if I work toward these goals, what can go right? Nothing bad happens from setting a goal and trying to reach it. You may succeed, you may fail. But not trying is the biggest shame of all. As someone that may benefit from you reaching your goal, I beg you to try.

Thanks again for reading and for your support. It means the absolute world to me.

Cheers to 2021.

LLM

Blogger Note: This blog was written in and around the happenings at the US Capitol this week. Now, while I have changed up the focus of this blog away from current events, I want to make sure it is understood that I do not support what happened on Wednesday, January 6th and was appalled by what actual citizens of this country were capable of. Not only that, I was appalled at the Congress members who were elected by the people that took it upon themselves to raise objections about the results of an election that they did not support. It was one of the most UN-American things I have ever witnessed – and I have witnessed a lot over the last four years. I have spent many years working on museums that help tell the history of this great country (Capitol Visitor Center, National Constitution Center, Museum of American Revolution) and everything that happened on Wednesday is in total opposition to the ideas and beliefs that this country was built on.