Hi, there, friends and readers! Me again, coming at you with a catch-up post about goal setting or failure as the case may be. If you’re anything like me, you’ve tried to reach SO many goals in the past, but you’ve struggled to complete them. You’ve started off with the best intentions; you know what you need to achieve and have a good idea of how. But you’re still not reaching them. Why do you think that is?
I am no self-help guru, lol. In fact, it’s pretty funny considering how many times I’ve failed in the past. I tend to hit some goals but not every goal for various reasons – primarily lack of motivation and laziness. I will be blunt here. There is no fooling around with goal setting; it is SERIOUS business 😅. Well, it can be for some. I think I’ve mellowed out a lot over the years. And I don’t see goal setting the way I used to (which was do or die, lol). I’m happy to achieve one of my goals, let alone an entire list.
So this year, I created a goal-setting non-goal setting list to change things up a bit. So how far have I progressed since then? I “officially” started on January 02 this year. Here is my first post about it. And this is my list:
- Read more books – at this stage, I have like five books I am reading but never finishing. I don’t know why that is, but I seem to get distracted by other things easily. So this step is to at least finish FIVE books this year. Not that many, considering how many books I used to read (usually a book a week). I just stopped reading entirely, and I want to go back to enjoying reading again.
- Work on my fitness. Last year I was diagnosed with hypertension (high blood pressure), and I need to get fitter, even in small steps. I will buy a treadmill soon, and I’ll slowly track my progress.
- To care less about social media and more about the well-being of my family, myself and others. I want to become a better person in general.
- To formulate a plan for my writing and where I need or want to take it in future. This could even mean leaving my current job to pursue writing again, I’m not sure, but it’s a HUGE step which is why I need to make a plan with smaller steps to work through so I can achieve it. This goal might take more than a year to put in place; I just can’t confirm that yet. It’s definitely a super-goal I need to break down into smaller steps.
So far, I have worked exceptionally hard towards the first goal, and I’ve read two books since then and a comic. I’ve reviewed the star wars book and the comic here and the non-fiction graphic design book over on my writing/book reviewing blog here.
With number two on the list, I started out walking a lot more, but when we (New Zealand) went back into “semi lock-down”, I lost motivation to continue that. I am still walking every day when I get the chance, but I’m not pushing myself very hard, and I know I can do better. So we’ll say that I’ve started that goal, and it’s currently a positive “work in progress”.
With number three on my list, “care less about social media, – I have failed terribly there. It will take a lot more effort than I initially anticipated to walk away from caring about social media. That said, though, my partner and I have a “no internet” rule after 6:30 pm each night, and we’ve never broken that once so far. So I feel like I am slowly contributing towards this goal but mostly indirectly.
I am also still cleaning up this blog, which ties into this goal. I accidentally deleted a whole lot of followers from my blog the other day, and I am slowly working my way through reinviting them back. SO SORRY if I deleted you, it was entirely by mistake, and I’ll get back to inviting you soon, so don’t worry if you see me following you again sometime soon, lol 🤣😝.
And finally, number four was to formulate a plan for my writing – there is an event that has impacted this goal in a big way which happened to me very recently. So, for now, planning to do anything with my writing is officially on hold. In a really short time, I managed to leave one of the websites I was writing for (as a reviewer) and get a new job, one I’ve wanted for a while. I couldn’t get this job last year because there were no openings. But a position opened up recently, and I was asked to apply by the team manager, and I got the job! To be clear, it’s not a full-time writing job, but it is a job that I actually want to do, so I feel terrific about it!
And now I am keen to hear all about your goal setting or achievements so far this year! And remember – IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW BIG or important the goal is because everything can be done in little steps. What’s important is that you take a step! Talk to you soon friends, hit me up in the comments where I’ll be hanging out to chat ☺️😊
darksiderconfessions.blog 
I’m glad I didn’t get deleted, you’re one of my favorite sources for Star Wars updates! My goal this year is to get better at skiing. So far, so good.
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Ahhh thank you so much Ang 😀 That makes me feel so happy that my star wars posts are helpful 😀 I just hope you can handle the few “non-star wars” posts I post as well 🙂 Oooh did you have any pics of you skiing? I have never had the opportunity to ski. I’ve only seen snow twice in my entire life lol
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Ha, I live in New England and we just got a “bomb blizzard.” Actually only a few inches where I live, but Boston got like 20 inches or something, lol. I didn’t know you guys don’t get much snow–guess I’m thinking of those snow-capped mountains in Middle Earth, lol.
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Yeah, in the North Island, it’s way too warm to get snow in my city. I think it has snowed here like twice in a 150 years or something stupid lol. But we get pretty moderate weather both winter and summer which is why a lot of people like my city I guess. But the South Island is a different story, if you go too far south, it snows a whole lot in most places due to it being so close to Antarctica 😀 One of my colleagues recently moved to a city in the South Island and he is complaining of how cold it is there already and this is summer LOL
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Non-Star Wars posts are great too. I started skiing a couple of years ago, but I injured myself last year. Now I’m back to square one. Honestly I’ve always been too busy skiing to take pictures. I should maybe get a GoPro
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LOL of course! Heheh I mean some people take pics of the wilderness and stuff like that with other people skiing lol I wonder how well it would work with a go-pro? I think it’d be awesome 😀
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Oh yeah, my buddy has a helmet he can mount one on. It’s impressive 🙂
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Sweeet! Maybe you could post a few on your blog 😀
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Maybe on my Instagram 😊
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Ahhhh 🙂 best place for it 😊
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Yes, a wise old Jedi once said, “Walk a pebbly path now to avoid a boulder strewn course later in life.” Small steps into a larger world young Padawan.
p.s. That old Jedi (though maybe not so wise) was me, I told our friend Neo that quote.
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Advice good it is.
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My usual goal every year is “write more” or “do more with my writing.” Pretty vague stuff, which leads to vague results. So I’m trying to get more clear on what I mean exactly when I say that. Still working on that one, lol, besides the blog posting. Good luck on all your goals, you can do it!
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As a fellow writer, I totally understand lol. My list for this year seems less heavy than previous years which in itself makes me feel more like I can achieve these goals in time. But since landing my new job this year, freelance writing is going to have to take a back seat for a bit. I’ll still be writing in my diary every day and blogging as often as it feels necessary to. And really we should be counting those actions as part of the bigger “goal” because if we’re still writing, we’re still growing 😀
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Speaking of jobs, how is the job hunting going?
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Well, it’s going, lol. There’s a particular place I’d like to work, but after two separate applications, silence from them. I’m not giving up, though. It’s a co-operative grocery store, and I finally got the bright idea of getting a membership and maybe doing some volunteer shifts. I’ll worm my way in!
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Now that is a plan! Well, I wish you luck 🙂 Fingers crossed for you over here 🙂 I know how hard it is to find the right place to work given my situation lol I went from a team that was completely restructured to a new team doing a job I really don’t enjoy to finally getting a job I want to do. It can be a long road to the right one but when you get it, it can be well worth it 🙂
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Yeah, I’m playing the long game, lol. Hopefully it works, lol.
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I am sure you’ll succeed 😀 I’m rooting for you over here 🙂 And how is your fanfic going so far?
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Ah, the fanfic, lol. I’ve been working on it intermittently, but not as much as I had hoped to. No excuses, just laziness, lol. Time to get back to it.
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Yeah I am the same lol except for me it’s just lack of focus right now. I am happy mucking around in Photoshop but the minute I think of writing I am like “nnnnooooooope” lol
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My life goals have become less ambitious after passing 50
Current list
1 wake up
Smashing that goal every single afternoon 🙂
Number 2
be happy.
That often requires work.
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Being happy is one of the most difficult things to achieve. Some people say happiness is what you get back from the world when you’re a good person. That’s a little naieve I think. Happiness is directly connected to you and your views of others and the world. It’s a big thing 🙂
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I agree. It fairly obtainable when your feeling good, but harder when your under stress or tired.
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Absolutely. I don’t care what any of the self-help gurus tell you about happiness. It is and always will be the hardest thing for people to obtain on a regular basis and even harder to hold on to.
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[…] already know, I am trying to up my game a bit in the reading department. It’s actually one of my goals this year to finish at least five books. I know five doesn’t seem like much but for me, someone who […]
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