I know goals and I know goal setting and I know how I’m supposed to make them SMART* (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) and I’m supposed to have checkpoints and so on and so on.

I completely understand all of that, and the reasoning behind the structure. The problem is, of course, putting it into action. 

I’ve broken down my goals into small steps, and laid those out on my calendar, milestones to meet on a long journey toward whichever goal I’ve got on my radar at the moment.  But I still haven’t really gotten far with a lot of them.  Instead I spend a lot of time reacting to stuff that jumps out at me from my To Do list, or via phone call or email.  It’s not an effective way to work and it can be rather demoralizing.

I get big projects done, but usually by concentrating my efforts for a few days here and there. Even my NaNoWriMo novel involved me writing 30,000 words in two days – I impressed myself, sure, but it is not a sustainable way to work.  And I sure as hell can’t exercise that way, and it will never work for my business.

So we come to the question I’ve been driving myself nuts with for years.  How do I actually apply myself to those small goal steps?

I’d like to say the answer came to me in a vision, or that I had a great revelation after reading a work of genius but it wasn’t that exciting.

Instead, I was putting some dates in my calendar for AAMP  and pulling back from the deadlines to see when I’d have to do promotion for those events. As I entered the promotion schedule into my google calendar, the program was setting each work topic as an event, usually an hour long one.  I was shortening those promomotion schedule ‘events’ to 15 minutes when it hit me:  I was actually going to need an hour to do the promo work – why not leave things as they were?  Even if I had to move the timing around on the actual day (or even the actual week), at least I had allotted time to do the work.

And then I was hit again (I should learn to duck 🙂 ).  I had allotted time to (say it with me) DO THE WORK!

You see where this is going, right?

All this time I’ve been breaking things into steps (even teeny tiny ones so wee that they can’t even be described as baby steps), and I’ve been attaching them to dates as deadlines but I haven’t been allotting time to actually (say it again!) DO THE WORK.**

This has, of course, been complicated by the fact that I haven’t had a lot of work time in the past few years.  The time I did have I often frittered away in trying to choose what was most important to do at that moment.*** So scheduling time to do specific goal work hasn’t been the only factor in not getting to some of my goals, but it’s been a big one.

So can you guess what I’ve been spending this last week of Planuary doing? 😉

*Apparently the new acronym of choice is HARD (snicker) but that book won’t get here until next week, so let’s run with this, it’s just the opener anyway.

**I’m sure I’ve read somewhere or at least been told about this, but it never got translated into something to do until now. If I go back in my archives and discover that I’ve discovered this before and didn’t act on it, I’ll be really annoyed.  Best not to go delving into my archives, I guess.

***I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve gotten to the end of an unproductive work session only to realize that if it is all equally important it doesn’t matter where I start. Glerg.

I’m like a frickin’ Zen Koan here.

One of my goals for 2011 is to learn to face my Taekwon-do belt tests without fear. * 

Usually, right before my test I’m all whacked out, worried that I might mess up, or that I don’t know my stuff or that I might make an ass of myself.  I’m trying to let go of that fear, well, to acknowledge it and then let it go because I know that the fear of messing up is far worse than when I actually mess up. 

I waste a lot of time on fear.  I don’t often let it stop me but I do often let it loop over and over and distract me from more interesting things, and sadly, TKD belt tests are only one of the the things that I fear.  The advantage though, is that belt tests are fairly fixed.  I know far in advance when they’re going to be and I have a list of things to prepare before I do a test. 

It’s ideal, really.  A fear-inducing situation where I have a decent measure of control, where preparation will make a definite difference. 

So, I’ve been practicing my patterns (Do San is my current one) and reviewing my theory (I know the Training Secrets of Taekwon-do inside out) and I’ve been step-sparring like it’s going out of style (it was never in style, don’t worry, you aren’t behind).  I’ve been taking as much control as I reasonably can, and you know what?

I feel good.  I’m not afraid for my test on Thursday at all.

Now, come Thursday, I may be scared a bit, but usually I would be getting anxious already.  This is huge for me.  And even if I get scared on Thursday, that’s a fairly reasonable amount of time to spend thinking about something important to me.  I can accept that level of fear as part of the process.

The plan is to translate this into a plan for other fear-inducing situations. I want to bring other worries down to a reasonable size by determining what I can control,  planning for that, and then letting the rest go.

How much of a role does fear play in your life? Does it stop you from doing things or have you learned to work around the fear?  Or are you out of the fear loop and not get this at all?

Now, on that note, I’m off to do Do San again.

*I just typed feat.  Somehow I don’t think that’s going to work.

When I was in Girl Guides I always hated the Guide Law that stated ‘A guide smiles and sings, even under difficulty.’  I can see the value in the be-cheerful-keep-your-spirits-up sort of mentality it implies and sure, sheer grumpiness might make a bad situation worse sometimes but given that I will power through, I wanted the freedom to power through in whatever mood I wanted. 

My own personal version of that law became ‘If you can’t smile, then try not to throw up.’ – much more do-able for me.  And while I couldn’t articulate it at the time, I think part of my irritation came from the feeling the as a girl, I was supposed to be sweet and kind and never angry or upset.  Perhaps that’s not what the writer of the law intended, but I get that feeling from it even now.  *shudder*

I hate those sorts of sayings*,  a pat little description of how someone is supposed to behave without any reflection on the individual circumstances. 

One I’m struggling with right now is ‘Start as you mean to finish.’

How the hell am I supposed to do that when I don’t know what the end is going to look like yet?

Sure, I can see how it’s consistency is valuable, and I can see that it would be good to know where you’re going before you start but it’s not always possible – and it can really cause someone like me (always looking for the perfect system) to get stuck because I can’t start the way I ‘should’.

How does starting the way the way I mean to finish allow for growth?  How does it address the changes and obstacles that alter our plans?

Sure, I’m probably asking too much of a saying, but I expect a lot of words and this group is failing me.

I have a lot of big plans for this year, but I’m not starting as I mean to finish.  I’m starting where I am and seeing what happens.  I’ll aim for consistency, work toward finishing my projects, but I refuse to get so caught up in the method that I can’t do the practice.

I have no idea how I’ll finish – so I’m going to start as I mean to start – one tree at a time.**

* Another one that gets me is the one about how God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle.  That actually hurts my teeth.  Seriously? So much presumption and shut-up and take it, all in a few words.  Sure, on the one hand it’s telling you that you have the strength to make it through, but it also makes it sound like you were given this trouble because you’re strong. Grrr.

** You remember, of course, that I have a backward forest and trees problem – it’s not that I can’t see the forest for the trees, it’s that I forget the forest is made of trees and I only see that giant, scary, dark mass and think I have no way to deal with it.

Reverb10 Prompt: Appreciate. What’s the one thing you have come to appreciate most in the past year? How do you express gratitude for it? by Victoria Klein author of 27 Things to Know About Yoga

In 2010 I’ve really come to appreciate my friends.  I have always been appreciative of them,  don’t get me wrong, but this year I have been seeing them even more clearly and become even more deeply grateful for them.

There are 7 of us (10 if you include the kids) that get together most Friday nights, and then another 5-6 who join us when they can and we play Rock Band, or board games, or watch stupid movies or just chat.  We really get each other and each of us accepts the others, not in spite of our various crazinesses but BECAUSE of those crazinesses.*

We have a running joke in the group that no matter what (geometric) plane of geekery any of us happens to exist on, someone else in the group is on that plane with us.  So far we haven’t found any geeky topic obscure enough that someone else hasn’t done it before or at least heard of it.  We’ve spun the joke out into a pretend movie ‘Geeks on a Plane’ ** in which some hapless individual is trapped in an airplane bathroom when a geek drops from the ceiling to demand if she prefers Kirk or Picard.

That sort of stuff isn’t going to work with many people, but we’re all over it.  And I’m grateful to be part of this circle.

If you asked me to describe myself, I’d probably use a lot of buts and ifs (I’m a good mother but…  I’m a good writer if…) but I’ve always described myself as a good friend, no ifs or buts required.  So to show my gratitude for these people, I’ve mostly been keeping on keeping on, but I do take it up a notch when I can – always going to pick up the ones who don’t drive, keeping a variety of snacks on hand to match everyone’s dietary restrictions (gluten free, dairy free, no citric acid, chamomile tea),  collecting their kids from school, planning events for us all.

Even thinking about how lucky I am to have these people who really care about me, who really accept me, who will really help me when I need it, in my life makes me tear up a little so I’d better sign off before I get all maudlin.

* Made-up word alert!

**See what we’ve done there?  TWO types of planes – and a silly movie reference!