Welcome to the new year!
My friend mistraltoes liked goals much more than resolutions. In 2010, she wrote, "I thoroughly dislike resolutions, which always seem to be about forcing oneself to engage in or refrain from engaging in particular behaviors to an unnatural degree, which seems like setting oneself up to fail. On the other hand, I love goals, where it's much easier to think in terms of success being either whole or partial. Thus I always go with goals, rather than resolutions."
In view of this wisdom--and in memory of my friend--I hereby declare that I won't go back to using resolutions. I haven't done that much the last several years anyway, but a lot has changed and is changing in my life right now, and I can certainly use some goals.
For the very first time, I am sharing many goals with someone else. My husband and I have travel plans, financial plans, plans to put our office together so I can establish a new writing schedule, plans to watch movies and read books and go to church, and plans to learn better and better how to love each other.
But there are some goals I have for this year that--while they will include him, and some of my friends as well--are mostly mine.
From January 2011:
Goals for this year include: allowing myself to become more grounded, to trust myself and God and others more; to write more; to be more open and speak my mind more; to be less afraid of taking up the space God has given me in this world, regardless of whether it pisses people off (I am here, you guys, deal with it); to seek to see God more clearly in Himself and in others; and to ease myself out of church ministry work so that I can focus more on close relationships and on my God-given creativity.
I can look back at most of these goals and say with joy that they have been steadily blossoming in my life. That last one, particularly--I am no longer in any of my position of church ministry, I have given myself permission to write the novel that's been in my head for 16 years, and I'm working on making myself space and time for that.
Also, not a goal, but I got married. :)
For this year, for 2012, I have:
Projects--
By July, have a full world-build and outline for my novel. By the end of the year, have a full draft that I can get people's notes.
Plot up an Alphas spec.
Finish a specific fic that still isn't done (I promise I'm working on it, kerravonsen ).
Finish watching Blake's 7.
Reread Joseph Campbell's A Hero's Journey, so that I can have fresh eyes to read one of my favorite Christmas presents: From Girl to Goddess: the Heroine's Journey Through Myth and Legend, by Valerie Estelle Frankel, which is a female take on the hero's journey, starting in myth and legend just as Campbell did.
Goals--
Write more poetry and blog posts.
Arrange my schedule so I can work out more, or at least start running again.
Listen to other people less, and speak up myself more.
Find a place to be involved in Christian community once more. (Sharing one's spiritual journey is important, but I feel I've had little chance to do so in the past few years, at least not in an atmosphere where I could be honest and taken seriously, rather than preached at or scorned.)
Learn to be as irresponsible as my art requires me to be.
Practice doing and daring--practice not being paralyzed by fear of hurting or offending other people or God.
Remember daily that I have only to be myself...myself growing and becoming and creating and loving, certainly, but I have only to be myself in those things, not match the limits or lines or measures set down by anyone else.
And allow myself to make mistakes... as wished by Neil Gaiman for us all this year.
For you all, in this new year: “Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day." --Rainer Maria Rilke
In view of this wisdom--and in memory of my friend--I hereby declare that I won't go back to using resolutions. I haven't done that much the last several years anyway, but a lot has changed and is changing in my life right now, and I can certainly use some goals.
For the very first time, I am sharing many goals with someone else. My husband and I have travel plans, financial plans, plans to put our office together so I can establish a new writing schedule, plans to watch movies and read books and go to church, and plans to learn better and better how to love each other.
But there are some goals I have for this year that--while they will include him, and some of my friends as well--are mostly mine.
From January 2011:
Goals for this year include: allowing myself to become more grounded, to trust myself and God and others more; to write more; to be more open and speak my mind more; to be less afraid of taking up the space God has given me in this world, regardless of whether it pisses people off (I am here, you guys, deal with it); to seek to see God more clearly in Himself and in others; and to ease myself out of church ministry work so that I can focus more on close relationships and on my God-given creativity.
I can look back at most of these goals and say with joy that they have been steadily blossoming in my life. That last one, particularly--I am no longer in any of my position of church ministry, I have given myself permission to write the novel that's been in my head for 16 years, and I'm working on making myself space and time for that.
Also, not a goal, but I got married. :)
For this year, for 2012, I have:
Projects--
By July, have a full world-build and outline for my novel. By the end of the year, have a full draft that I can get people's notes.
Plot up an Alphas spec.
Finish a specific fic that still isn't done (I promise I'm working on it, kerravonsen ).
Finish watching Blake's 7.
Reread Joseph Campbell's A Hero's Journey, so that I can have fresh eyes to read one of my favorite Christmas presents: From Girl to Goddess: the Heroine's Journey Through Myth and Legend, by Valerie Estelle Frankel, which is a female take on the hero's journey, starting in myth and legend just as Campbell did.
Goals--
Write more poetry and blog posts.
Arrange my schedule so I can work out more, or at least start running again.
Listen to other people less, and speak up myself more.
Find a place to be involved in Christian community once more. (Sharing one's spiritual journey is important, but I feel I've had little chance to do so in the past few years, at least not in an atmosphere where I could be honest and taken seriously, rather than preached at or scorned.)
Learn to be as irresponsible as my art requires me to be.
Practice doing and daring--practice not being paralyzed by fear of hurting or offending other people or God.
Remember daily that I have only to be myself...myself growing and becoming and creating and loving, certainly, but I have only to be myself in those things, not match the limits or lines or measures set down by anyone else.
And allow myself to make mistakes... as wished by Neil Gaiman for us all this year.
For you all, in this new year: “Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day." --Rainer Maria Rilke