Forged

I wonder if I'd do as well with New Year's resolutions/goals if I lived in the Southern hemisphere. The cold up here at this page on the calendar lends itself to hibernation and routine, a perfect climate for the sorts of goals I tend to give myself. "Take a picture every day," "Write," or even, "Exercise" as long as that last one doesn't mean doing anything outside. I've already completed my writing for today so that's 7 days in a row for me, huzzah!

I did free writing for a couple of days and then, thank goodness, I came upon something I wanted to write. Eventually I want it to be a 3-5 minute spoken piece (3 guesses why and the first 2 don't count) so it has more heft than a blog post but less than a novel. That seemed right in keeping with my hope to reach my goals. I spend my 15 minutes each day writing on it, picking up where I left off, trying to add a little something instead of going back to fix what I can't yet know is broken. Yesterday, frankly, I'd had it. I hadn't left off in a great place the day before, I didn't feel like continuing, the goal says I have to write and it can't be blog posts, it doesn't say what I do have to write! (Note to self: May have discovered flaw in plan.) So I sat down and I spent my first few seconds debating what I would write about. I skimmed the last few sentences from the day before and suddenly it seemed like a better idea to soldier on than to detour. Not at all surprising is the fact that yesterday may have been when I turned an important corner on the piece. I may wind up scrapping much of the first couple days of writing and go in a completely different direction but I wouldn't have gotten there if I hadn't forged ahead. So I guess all this fancy goal stuff might be working for me.

How about you? If you made goals are you working on them already? How do you feel about them? Yeah, it's only one week in but if we don't check in it's easier to let them fall by the wayside. I don't want you to fall by the wayside. I like having you right here next to me.