A New Year, A New Beginning

I always feel like the new year should start in September when laid back summer days end and school starts and everyone's schedule changes to accommodate classes, after school events/sports, and the like. For me, not much changes in January. No one's schedule changes, we all just go back to school and work and every day life after the Christmas and New Year's holidays have ended.

But January is the official start of the new year so I took last week to tie up things from 2021 and to set my goals, both personal and writing/professional, for 2022. I also chose a word for 2022 to help set my intentions and help me reach my goals. 

My word is FOCUS. I have a number of things I want to accomplish by the end of 2022 and keeping focused will ensure I stay on track and do all the things I want to do during this year. 

Do you chose a word of the year? If so, I'd love to know what your word for 2022 is. 

Here's hoping we all have a fantastic 2022 and use the beginning of this new year to start fresh in accomplishing everything we set our minds to.

 

Hello 2020!

I have big plans for this new year. (Don't we all?)  I'm still nailing down my goals as I don't want to set myself up for failure. I've taken a good, long look at my 2019 goals and which ones I met and which ones I didn't and why.

Some of those unmet 2019 goals have been moved farther into the future which is probably where they should have been from the start. Some of those unmet goals have been dropped completely as they were either redundant or shouldn't have been goals to start with. They should have been listed under a "To Strive For" label.

The unmet goals that should have been or could have been completed are moving to my 2020 goals list. I'm still tinkering with that list. I want to find a better way to keep myself on track/hold myself accountable than the method I used last year because obviously that didn't work so well.

One thing I have decided on is my word for the year. It is "Focused." This year I will be focused - not only on my writing, but on eating better, moving more (or at least more consistently), and not letting my email pile up. I'm great at reading/checking my email, but the items I want to save just sit in my inbox and I can't find anything I'm looking for when I need it which kind of defeats the point of saving the information to begin with.

Here's to a wonderful new beginning to all of us.

A New Beginning

It's hard to believe it's the beginning of a new year already. I spent the past weekend taking a hard look at what I wanted to accomplish in 2018, but didn't and then looking at what I want to accomplish by the end of 2019.

I'm trying out a new method of tracking my goals and staying on track. It's obvious from looking back over the last couple of years that the method I was using doesn't work...at least not for me.

In addition to writing and health related goals, I'm thinking of doing the 100 day challenge. I'm still deciding if I want the challenge to be writing or exercise related. I might do both, but I'm not sure if it will be easier to do them at the same time or to do one and then the other after the first one is finished. I won't be doing it in January though. I'm thinking it might be better to do it in March when I usually start to get off track.

Writing More

Last Wednesday's motivation quote - “Setbacks are normal. They will happen. It’s something to accept, along with the responsibility of getting back up and into the game.” ~  Unknown - spoke to me quite a bit. I've been having trouble getting back into the regular routine of writing if not every day, at least on a more regular basis.

Between appointments both scheduled and those that cropped up, the changes in my day job situation, and then the loss of our beloved Petey, I've been struggling to get time in front of the laptop for writing despite my efforts to do so.

So starting today, it being the beginning of a new week and all, I'm going to follow the quote above and get back up and into the game. My goal this week is to get at least 30 pages revised on hard copy and then any changes transferred to the latest version of the manuscript.

Here's to never giving up and always moving forward no matter the pace.

 

A New Beginning

To paraphrase "Happy Christmas" by John Lennon - Another year is over and a new one has just begun. I did a lot of thinking last week about what I did and didn't accomplish last year. I also did a lot of soul searching. As some of you you know, the last part of 2014 was down right soul crushing. My family suffered the sudden loss of an 8 year old loved one. I spiraled into a deep depression. Every morning I found it hard to make myself get out of bed and face the coming day. I spent most of my days with an anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach, hating every minute I was forced to leave my house and face the world.

Someone said to me, "Grieve, stomp your feet at the unfairness of it all, but pick yourself up and move on. Happiness is a choice. There is a positive in every situation, you just need to look for it. Remember the good things and be happy." At first I was offended. What positive thing could there be in the sudden death in someone so young? It wasn't as if she was suffering or had a long, terminal illness. She was healthy and thriving, started vomiting, went into the hospital and a three short days later was gone.

My friend's words kept replaying over and over in my mind. While I still can't see the positive, I realized she was right. I need to move on and not feel paralyzed by what I lost or fear of the future. Of course this is so much easier said than done.

With that in mind, I decided that the new year is the perfect time to try and move forward. I've started keeping a gratitude journal - a daily journal in which I write three things I'm grateful for. I'll be honest and admit a couple of days finding those 3 things have been difficult, but I'm hoping as time goes on it'll get easier. I've cut those things and people out of my life that were negative or caused stress. I'm working hard on trying to be positive and having a positive frame of mind. I read somewhere that no one can change your life, but you. I really need a change especially after the last half of 2014 and that's what my focus for 2015 is going to be.

Here's to new beginnings while still remembering the wonderful parts of the past.

Goal Review

I suppose I'm a bit early with the topic of this post being that it's only the 3rd week of December but...

I bought a nice new day planner for 2014 the other day and started writing down the dates of guests I'll be hosting here and dates I'll be visiting other blogs. As I was flipping through the pages of the first couple of months, I couldn't help but reflect on what I have and what I haven't accomplished this year.

Did I meet all the goals I set for myself for 2013? No, unfortunately, I wasn't even close. This caused me to take a look at those goals. Were they too far reaching? Too much out of my control (such as hitting the best seller list - no, this wasn't one of my goals, just an example)? Did I utilize my time outside of the day job to the best advantage? The answer to all of those questions is a resounding No.

This led me to ask the question "Why?" I'm not sure I have an answer to that. Perhaps because my goals while concrete, weren't broken down into specific deadlines such I'll have X done by Y date. Perhaps while I thought my goals were reasonable, I always found myself feeling as though I was behind in one thing or another so maybe they weren't as reasonable as I thought way back in January 2013. And sometimes, life and family responsibilities came first.

As I start to think about goal setting for 2014 and what I'd like to accomplish in the coming year, these are some of things I'll be keeping in mind. Are my goals truly reasonable? Have I built in time for unplanned events/responsibilities that may crop up? Would it help me stay on track if instead of concrete final goals, to break them down a bit more with specific deadline dates?

I'd be interested in hearing about your goal setting methods and what works for you.

This I know for sure...

I realize January 1st is the official beginning of a new year, but I've always felt that the new year begins when school starts again. Even when I was a child, it seemed like the beginning of the new year -- new clothes, new school supplies, new classes and/or rooms, the unofficial end of summer, the beginning of the change of season to Autumn.  There doesn't seem to be anything special about January 1st. No new clothes, school supplies, etc. It's still winter which seems to drag on endlessly by that point. To me, it's just an extra day off from work.

So while I don't have any school aged children, I'm looking forward to this Labor Day weekend. I'll be spending it reviewing what I've accomplished up to this point, setting new goals, and looking forward to a new beginning of another "new" year.

When To Start

This week I'm starting work on a new novel.  I've been thinking about this particular story for about a year.  I haven't written it before now because it will have a long arc spanning at least 3, but more likely, 4 books. And while I want to write this particular story desperately, I think knowing it would span more than one book scared me at the same time.

I've taken copious notes, written out a timeline, and done research all in preparation to actually sitting down and putting the words of the story on paper. Now's the time to start.  Yet without writing a word, I'm already feeling overwhelmed. Part of my trepidation may be that I'm not much of a plotter. I write one or two sentence paragraphs outlining the key point for each chapter but not much else. I once tried writing a detailed outline/synopsis of a story and ended up not being able to write it. I think because the synopsis was so detailed, I felt like I couldn't deviate from it and ended up putting a choke hold on my imagination and where the story could go. 

I think I'm worried that my plot may not be able to sustain a series, even though I know it's the only way to tell the hero's story properly. But it's time to put fear aside and write the book that's been haunting me for so long. As the old adage about eating an elephant one bite at a time goes (paraphrasing here), I'm going to write this book - one word at at time. And while it may take me longer than it usually does to complete a first draft of a manuscript, I'm already looking forward to the sense of accomplishment of writing the one story I feel compelled to tell.

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. 

Happy New Year?

January 1st is the official start of a new year but I've always viewed the first day of school in September as the beginning of a new year.  Teachers and children go back to school, routines change as after school activities start anew, and the changing of the season from summer to fall begins.  I think all those years of school and college (although I started in mid-August when I went to college) is what first made me start to view September as the beginning of a new year. 

Don't get me wrong, I celebrate New Year's Day on January 1st just like everyone else.  I even set my goals in January with various end dates throughout the year but all of those goals are met by December 31st. (I hope.)  But there's something about September that makes me want to start new and fresh.  Maybe it should be Happy New Beginnings Day although I can't imagine too many kids are happy school is going to be back in session.

Between family obligations, various doctor appointments, and a work schedule where I didn't always get out on time (which cuts into the writing time), I've been struggling to find time to write the last few weeks.  So with a new school year starting and the coming fall season, I've decided to look past all those empty calendar days where there's no notation of what I'd written on any given day and begin again.

I've set a goal beginning today of writing every day for 100 days straight.  Even if I can only manage a paragraph due to time constraints, I will attempt to write every day.  I'm hoping it will help me get back into a daily writing schedule, help me get past the point in my manuscript where I've been stuck for the last few weeks, and to help me reach my goals I set at the beginning of 2012. 

I have much I want to accomplish and it's time to get started.  Happy New Beginnings Day.