I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I do set goals every year. My best friends, my writing peeps (a.k.a. The Purples), and I have been doing goals together since 2005. We even gave a workshop on goal-setting to our local chapter in October of last year.
I first started seriously thinking about goals–specifically writing goals, but all goals–after attending then listening to a workshop by Barbara Samuel at the RWA National Conference in 2004. It seemed appropriate to run into her when thinking about my goals for 2015. I found this blog by her shortly before Thanksgiving.
I shared the link with the Purples. One Purple friend shared this link. And this one. Another Purple shared this. And another link showed up on our e-mail loop.
I think the recurring theme in most of these shared blogs is that we’re all feeling overwhelmed. We’re juggling too many roles. The demands on our time are increasing and any support systems seems to be vanishing. I once read a book–I thought I’d written down the quote, but I can’t seem to find it–in which the author wrote, “If one more person tells me to get up an hour earlier to do whatever they think I should do–eventually, I will never get to bed.”
We are too demanding of ourselves when we set our goals. We need to take a step back and take a deep breath.. Setting our goals needs to be rooted in reality–our reality, with our families, our homes, our day jobs, our spiritual communities, and other obligations.. We need to create realistic expectations for ourselves, and the number one goal should be, “Say No.” Our goals need to be grounded in truth, not fantasy. One person can do only so much.
