Baby Steps
It frustrates me that the year’s almost two-thirds over and I’m still somewhat stuck in neutral, little from where I was the first of the year. I’ve decided that I should start taking some of my own advice.
In thinking on it today, waiting to get admitted into graduate school, I remembered something I’d often said about the UAH SGA: “We do a great job of setting short-term goals and achieving them, and we have these great, lofty long-term goals that we never seem to achieve. Why don’t we work to align the short-term goals towards the long-term ones, and set some medium-term ones in the interim?”
So, in thinking on this more, I’ve decided that I’ll set a daily goal, a weekly goal, a monthly goal, and a yearly goal. In my waiting today, I got started on a daily goal that’s been hanging around for a bit: reading a goodly chunk of the New Testament each day. But, in thinking on that even further, that’s something that I want to be a habit, not a goal. I differentiate the two, because a habit is something you should do often, while a goal is something that you should ideally do once.
[Before you ask, I'm ambivalent about sharing these goals publicly: it seems braggadocio and fake to make them public, but publicizing it also provides some level of accountability. But crap ... accountability can't really be made to the entire Internet, really. So, ... no.]
As I start to pick up the pace, I figure that I should start getting a bit more serious about non-work things. If I come to any great or small revelations about such a process, be sure that I’ll ramble on about them as if we all should care about it. [You all realize that I do this just so writing my memoirs will be easier, don't you? ;)]
Welcome to my world of late.
What started off as a cool idea that was going to get me through the new testament ended up getting me through the entire Bible in around 4-5 months. I’m taking a break on that now, not reading it, but rather other stuff. (Purpose Driven Life has been my reading the last few weeks)
At the beginning of August, I decided that I wasn’t doing the right amount of work at the gym… here I am nearly four weeks later and I’ve not missed a morning yet. I wasn’t planning to keep it up at this pace by any means, but it’s just happened.
Those mid-range goals are, in my opinion, the best ones to set. They’re going to take some work, sure. But you can see how to get there from where you are now. And if you can see the way, you can break it down into a LOT of little, simple goals that can be lined up and knocked out. (I think Jessica gets rather tired of my lists of little goals that are especially common on the weekend)
Good luck as you move forward with this. If you need accountability short of the entire internet, I’m around… give me a call.
August 25th, 2005 at 11:36 amYou’re right that you can’t be accountable to the whole Internet. Perhaps you should start by just submitting your goals to the .org sites.
August 27th, 2005 at 5:09 pmRick: Here’s where I’d blast PDL … except I haven’t read it.
Mark: If it weren’t your anniversary, I’d smack you for that. [Funny, but still smack-worthy!]
August 27th, 2005 at 5:11 pm