A New Beginning

I'm not good a keeping New Year's resolutions so I've stopped making them. I do make yearly goals though. Somehow it's easier for me to meet goals than it is to keep resolutions. I'm not sure why. Maybe, it's just that word - Resolutions.  So many people make them at the start of a new year, but so few of us ever keep them so maybe I set myself up for failure just by using that word.  At least that's what I'm telling myself.

This year I've made both writing goals and personal goals.  Right now they're just big goals. For example one of my writing goals is to keep on top of writing related email instead of letting it pile up and become unmanageable.  Right now, I have 478 unread emails in my writing email account.

I'm going to use this first month of the new year to fine tune those goals, break them down into smaller goals with deadlines quarterly, then monthly, then weekly.  By breaking them down, they'll be more manageable and easier to achieve.  One goal may be - "this week I'll clean out 25 emails, while keeping up with any new email as it comes in." It's a lot easier to know I only have to clean out 25 emails than it is to feel overwhelmed by trying to tackle the whole 478 at once.

I'm looking forward to this year with an optimism I haven't felt for a while.  Maybe it's because I'm in a better place than I have been the last 2 1/2 years. Or maybe it's because there's something about a new year. It's a fresh start, a new beginning. A time to let all the stuff that happened in the past go, or at least try to.