Current Project: Edits on a novella, CHASING RAINBOWS
Status: Getting there
By the time you read this, it will be a new year: 2009.
The theme of our blog posts this week has appropriately been goals and resolutions. When Lisa set 26 goals on her 26th birthday back in April, she asked others what our goals were. I didn't list all my goals then, but I did list some things I intended NOT to do (tattoos, nose piercings, daily blogs). Well, I met those goals--no tattoos, piercings or daily blogs for me. :)
At that time, I also touched on something that I want to expand on with this blog. Digging beneath the surface of the goals I set, as we do with the characters in our stories, to discover WHY some goals were on my list year after year with seemingly little progress and letting go of the blocks that were keeping me from reaching that goal.
I have a book written by Louise Hay called, "Heal Your Body." Ms. Hay's experience has been that physical illness has a mental cause. For instance, a sore throat is the inability to speak up for and express yourself, and eye problems are not liking what you see in your life. She goes on to say that if you recognize that cause and change your thinking, the physical ailment will go away.
If that works with physical ailments, why not with goals? Is there a mental cause or thought pattern that helps us reach our goals or prevents us from reaching our goals? And, if that's the case, you could just write a list of what you wanted to accomplish, get rid of any blocks or change your thought patterns, and voilá--success.
I had typed in a facetious comment here. However, as I think about it, this really should be the case. I just hadn't thought about my goals in that way.
So instead of including a list of goals in this blog, I'm going to take some extra time to really look at them. Why do I want to accomplish a specific goal? Has the goal been on my list for many years and, if so, why? Am I making progress and if not, I need to dig deeper to find the blocks, then get rid of the blocks or decide not to work on that goal right now.
For those remaining goals, I'm going to use the same type of detailed plotting I use for my stories. What do I want to accomplish toward that goal in a year/month/week/day (book/chapter/scene/page)? I can even set up my own character arc, so that in a specified time, I'll reach my goals (happily ever after). Yes, now I'm getting a bit silly and I'm sure these methods are similar to what many goal-setting experts have recommended for years, but perhaps just worded differently.
Since this is a holiday, I'm not going to give you an assignment or ask you to post your goals--unless you want to. :)
I'll just say Happy New Year and close with these words from Paul J. Meyer: "What you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass."
4 comments:
Well, Genene, you know me, I like to look at the other side of things. I'm not sure about this comment:
"What you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe and enthusiastically act upon must inevitably come to pass."
Couldn't that description fit someone desperately in love with a movie star, say, who believes in their heart that this movie star is their destiny, and ardently desires the movie star's attention and enthusiastically acts by stalking the movie star?
And doesn't it fit some of those people who are convinced they are the world's most gifted singer and have taken years of fruitless lessons and dress and act the part and yet don't have a talent that will ever be appreciated the way they want, hence their dreams will never come true and not because they didn't want it enough?
Doesn't timing come into it (Hillary Clinton)?
Can we really affect our lives with desire and hard work or is there also self awareness of where our strengths lie?
I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud here. Whatever you've done in the past couple of years has certainly worked well for you as you seem more at peace with yourself. And that's worth investigating in and of itself. Happy New Year!
Ah, Alice, you make an excellent point where this quote falls short and where I also make assumptions that ain't necessarily held by everyone else.
That's only one reason I love to hear your perspective! You make me think and consider things from different angles.
Because of my Reiki training, the beliefs "do no harm" and "for the highest and greatest good of all concerned" automatically come into play with everything I do.
However, this quote doesn't include those beliefs and I didn't say anything about them either, did I?
Stalking the movie star definitely does not fit "do no harm" and probably doesn't fit "highest and greatest good."
Is this true with Hillary also? Dunno, as I've decided--though not an official New Year's resolution--not to discuss politics because it's an emotional hot button for many folks. :)
Does it fit those people who think they are the most gifted singer? Maybe, maybe not.
You also ask if we can affect our lives with desire and hard work... I think we can, at least up to a certain point. HOWEVER, the hard work part is something that I've really been examining lately.
The movie, The Secret, and the teachings of Abraham both raise the issue that hard work isn't necessarily the key that Americans have touted it to be for a long time. (If you work hard, you can be anything you want to be--kinda like people who think they are the most gifted singer or swimmer or whatever but never achieve their dream.)
And there are many examples where people seem to get far more than they "deserve" by not working at all. That's my opinion, of course!
So where's the logic? Is there one answer or is it different for different people?
I'm still looking for the right combination. Hard work in my careers has been successful for me up to a point. Then I hit a plateau and -- eh! How am I blocking what I say I want? How do I need to change my thinking and my actions? Are my desires, beliefs and actions aligned or contradictory?
Alice or anyone else, any other thoughts? Answers? Things to consider? Hearing other perspectives is wonderful for helping me dig deeper--which seems to have landed near the top of my list of New Year's resolutions.
Thanks, Alice!
My number one goal right now is to figure out why I hold myself back. Eli's wonderful blog on belief made me realize that I don't have a time problem, I have a belief problem.
"Write daily" has been on my list of resolutions for the last five years. Five years. FIVE YEARS. During which time, I have racked up about 7 months of writing every day. Not consecutively. And one only has to look as far as Allison Brennan with her soccer team worth of kids to realize that I don't have a time problem.
I WANT to write daily, or at least on some sort of a schedule, for the same reason I want to clean daily, exercise daily, and eat right daily--everything works better when there is a routine.
I'm still investigating why the writing thing is such a HUGE block for me, but I have already uncovered a big reason why all of the above are so challenging to me: I believe that nothing can be done in 15 minutes. "I.e. No sense in starting that---I can't finish it anyway. No time to really get started." This isn't a time problem, it's a perception problem.
Ah, Wavy, perception is so important, isn't it?
I also have some goals/resolutions that have been on my list for many years. You're much younger than me and are already looking for the why. Good for you!
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