Goals

I kind of suck when it comes to achieving goals. I'm not being down on myself, really. It's just the truth. For most of my life I have avoided setting goals for myself because I never seem to be able to achieve them. I'm honestly not sure that this is a terrible thing. Sometimes I think our society is too goal-driven, too accomplishment-oriented. In order to achieve goals, you have to set them above everything else. Sometimes you have to sacrifice things that honestly are worth pursuing more than the goal, which is not good.

Or maybe I am just trying to find excuses for why I hate setting goals for myself...

Anyway, my writing goal for November was to blog every day. As you can see by that little "7" next to November 2010 over there --->, that didn't happen. But I am okay with that, because I did happen to blog more in November than I have in any other month for 2+ years. And I had a great month which was not negatively affected by my lack of goal-achievement.

Over the past few years of transitioning into "adulthood", I have come to realize that I am a very externally motivated person. When I have goals, assignments, deadlines, and tasks that are placed on me by others, I am very successful at getting things done. I may procrastinate to the last minute, but I will get it done on time. I cannot stand to let people down.

The flip side of this is that I am very poor at self-motivation. When left to my own devices, there is very little I want to do besides watch Gilmore girls and knit (and, in my current state, eat and eat and eat). I HATE doing chores when I am home alone. I mean, seriously, I can get so much done when Isaac or my mom are at home with me, but I can barely seem to load the washer when left by myself. And then it's only when I HAVE to because I will have no clothes to wear to work the next day, which will make me late the next morning as I scramble around to find something to wear (see, external motivation).

I think this is why I have trouble achieving my writing goals. I also think this is why I am going to commit to having a new writing goal every month, whether I achieve them or not. Because I will never learn to become self-motivated in my writing if I don't start somewhere. Instead of focusing on my failure to achieve last month's goal, I am starting fresh with excitement (and fear!) about this month's goal.

My writing goal for December: write a Christmas-themed short story that is as un-cheesy as possible. I say "as un-cheesy as possible" because I am fairly convinced that, unless your name is O. Henry, it is impossible to write a Christmas short story that is not cheesy. But I will try!