A funny thing happened on my way through this ROW80 journey. A hiccup. An expected busy kick of life that grew into a bit of a bottomless well. A loss of perspective.
See, I’ve learned, at almost four decades in, that I’m a pretty tough critic of myself. Yeah, I’ll go through life looking at other people and having compassion, mercy and understanding. Not on my own watch of myself. There is a brutal critic who sees things in black and white and swings a mighty big red pen.
So even though I knew my world would get busy as I planned my goals — I’d said, “I want to focus this next 80 days on craft elements to getting my novel started… in the midst of this, I am headed into my psycho period at work (now until mid-November).” — there was still a feeling of defeat as day after day passed, with swamped hours going by and me missing getting goals done.
I didn’t even give myself any credit for finally digging out an old crochet project and getting it back going. Or taking the time to watch a few movies. Snagging time to get in a bit of the reading. Swinging through, reading and giving support on the blogs of other ROWers. Never missing a deadline on the recap articles I write for Reality News Online. Right now, I’m the covering the Wednesday performance shows for The X Factor. I’ve done previous articles for The Voice and America’s Got Talent.
My original plan was to ramp up the goals post November 10, but I am not going to do that just yet. For the next two weeks, I’m going to go steady on my original goals, but set up my week to have mini-goals of what I’ll have done by Wednesday check-in and then by Sunday. If that works better, I’ll then see if I want to ramp up on December 4 or wait until January.
Here are my goals: 1. Write 500 words a day, three days a week. ~ 2. Read one chapter a week of a craft book. ~ 3. Read one chapter of a novel each week. ~ 4. Blog three times a week. ~ 5. Read, retweet and comment on at least 10 blogs a week. ~ 6. Exercise at least 30 minutes a day, three times a week. ~ 7. Crochet one hour a week. ~ 8. Enjoy watching one movie a week without multitasking.
Here is where I am at today’s check-in: 1-3 and 7-8 are done. I did about 1/2 on 5. Rotten goose egg on 4 and 6 due to playing with the procrastination puppy. Oh he’s cute, but he teethes on your time and them makes messy puddles on your planning.
Here are my goals to complete by next Wednesday: Goal 1-Have two days done. 3-Done. 4-Two done for Monday and Wednesday. 5-1/2 done. 6. 1/3 done.
How about you? Any other psycho tough self-critics in the bunch? Have your goals gone as planned this round? Did you decide to retool and if so, what changed?
Barbara McDowell 