Setting #Goals -- a post by mama virg

I used to post all of it on the blog, but in recent years I've gone far more private with a lot of my goals.

When I started, I did it for accountability--if I'd published online that I was going to do something, I was more likely to hold myself to the goals I'd set.

But then I became more involved in social media. Some folks were fantastic, really supportive and encouraging. They'd say they believed in me, rah-rah, that sort of thing.

Some folks? They attack you for being transparent. Whether they call the posts bragging or if they flat out say you can't do it, they're there to encourage that little voice in the back of your mind which told you that you couldn't do The Thing.

I say The Thing because it doesn't matter what goal you've set, they're out there to either accidentally or purposefully undermine what you're doing. Are you all about losing some weight this year?

"God, don't tell me about your salad or the fact you've managed a mile in under ten minutes!"

Sure, you may have just accomplished something really, really major (perhaps you were addicted to soda or couldn't walk the block without wheezing a few months prior to posting your update), they are there to tell you to stuff it.

This goes with writing, too, although it has always been mind boggling to me when other writers attack their own kind with cannibalistic glee. We're all out there, sitting alone with blank screens and minds full of doubts, trying hard to do something we've dreamed of. Why, when you know how hard it is to juggle life and storytelling, would you tear anyone else down? Can that actually make anyone, whether you're the poster or the one reading it, feel better about themselves?

Eh, well, it happens and it happens to everyone is my point there. It isn't always trolls, either. More often than not, the naysayers in the world are people we actually know--our family, our friends, our spouses. If they can't see where you're aiming or understand how you're planning to get there from here, they're as likely to accidentally shred dreams with their comments as strangers.

Even if they follow the statement with a jovial, "Oh, you know I'm only kidding!"

So, that said, I've been quieter about my personal goals. I've told some of them to my best friends. Some I've shared with my crit partners. But like a dragon guarding a treasure, I never gave anyone access to the whole dream. Almost like I thought if I only shared fragments with this person and other fragments with another...

No one could tell me I couldn't do it.
My point? Setting personal goals is important. Whether you share that goal with the world (joining something like NaNoWriMo where everyone can see that you're trying to write 50k in a month or joining a weight loss support group, for instance) or if you keep the nuggets spread out like me, the goal itself can drive you to more.

I told my kid the other day that he shouldn't worry what people think of him. Most people are far too concerned with the little voice in their own head--

The one saying, "Gah, I got coffee on my shirt. Now all anyone can see is the coffee stain...is there something in my teeth? God, I can't believe I just said that. I'm an idiot."

--to even bother worrying about all the things you're busy crucifying yourself for.

Because we all do that. We all fight the little voice in our heads. We wage a daily and constant war against the internal narrator, bury our insecurities with fake smiles, pretend we're okay when we're totally not...

I've said it before and I'll likely say it another thousand times--

If we spent our days working to bring up those around us, giving them hope, encouragement, and bringing light to the world in general, we probably still won't change the world. We likely won't even change our hometown.

But we can change the people around us, one smile at a time. If we make the people around us happier, we've changed OUR world, which is more than a lot of people ever manage.

Set goals. Nail them. Do a little butt wiggle and dance around your house with the joy of accomplishing The Thing, whatever your thing is.

Change your world instead of trying to change minds. You'll never change what the world thinks of you, but you can change how you look at it.

Sometimes all it takes to start is knowing one person believes in you.

xoxo
mama virg

Impatience

Lately, I have felt...impatient.

I have multiple books coming out (something years ago I wouldn't have dreamed of.) Even one year ago, my confidence level wasn't to a point that I would have believed that I could be not only a multi-published author but a multi-published author in more than one house.

Yeah, I've done that. I should be super duper proud of me.

Instead, lately I have been impatient. I haven't gotten things done as fast as I want them done. Yes, as an author I comprehend publishing schedules...that isn't it. (Although having five contracts signed and under my belt before March is over...feels pretty darn good.) I want more.

So before 9am this morning, I buzzed off another query on one of the stories still floating uncontracted in my harddrive. Yes, there are a few. There are a few more WIPs.

I set an unrealistic goal this year for myself, or so it seemed when I set it. I wanted to contract a book a month for 2012.

I know that a writer has no control over publishers. Even if you write the best book ever written, there is no guarantee that someone is going to shoot you a contract on it.

But I wanted to see if I COULD push myself outside my box and force myself not just to write but to send out what I wrote without painfully gnashing my teeth for months over it.

Write it...two crit partners...edit it...out the door.

For a control freak, that was like saying, "Just dive out of the plane without the parachute. No big deal."

That it has worked so far is leaving me...

Restless. If I can do that, it seems like I should be doing more.

I'm not sure exactly what MORE I want.

I have a long list of goals I wrote myself for 2012. You see, this is the year I turn 35. After two strokes, I realized awhile ago, I might not have forever to do the things I want to do. 35 was a magical number in my head. I was supposed to have a bunch done by 35 since it meant I was officially closer to 40 than 20. (I know, my idea of math skills is sort of wonky. But you can't pretend to be close to 20something when you are closer to 40...so...)

The list was something like this:

1. A contract a month for each month of 2012
So far so good...I have a small buffer, even. My impatience has me firing off queries still. Hence my 9am query letter.

2. Become okay with my body
This one was weird. I wouldn't mind losing weight. Even if I don't lose weight, I comprehend that I am not Igor and that there are those who find what I got hot. But so long as I was getting in my own way, so long as I wasn't okay with what I saw in the mirror, it is a weakness. I have been working on believing that I am beautiful, sexy, desirable. And...uh...it is a process. I have gotten to the point that I don't make faces at myself in the mirror anymore or look at my ass and gag. Not bad progress for almost April but I was hoping it was more of an overnight thing.

3. Sustain my ability to stay home with the kids.
I managed to make it home with them for the first time in their lives. Now...to stay here.

4. Travel.
I have had two really lame goals for most of my life. I have said, since I was a freakin teenager, I want to see the ocean and desert before I die. I have traveled from San Antonio to Toronto, from Colorado (and stood on the Rockies and looked out at the world) to the hills of West Virginia and yet...

Still no oceans or deserts. It is like Fate is up there grinning at me..."You can get close but not quite there...not yet."

5. Be willing to fall in love.
Not fall in love...I wasn't putting a goal on love. Love comes when it wants to. I just wanted to get into a place where the idea wasn't terrifying. Right now, I'm still not there. Love means giving up control (something I suck at.) Love means being willing to trust that person with your heart and know they will probably break it. Love means throwing that parachute into the wind and instead taking their hand...

I suck at that.

A friend of mine told me yesterday that it isn't my job to make a man impassioned when I mentioned that I wasn't the kind of girl that inspires those kind of feelings in a man. I kind of want to be that girl...shh...don't tell her. And if it isn't my job, I would still like to meet one...one that just finds who and what I am irresistible. I figure probably part of the problem is that willingness I mentioned. If I am not willing to leap off the cliff with him...why would he be willing to risk everything and shove me into a wall, risking rejection and whatnot, just for a moment in my arms?

Oh, and I am a bit of a bitch. But that isn't on this years list to fix.

So it is almost April. Almost the halfway point of the year. Deadlines loom and my list lingers in the back of my head with little to nothing checked off.

Maybe I am impatient with myself for setting goals like this. Maybe the universe for making it so hard to just DO them.

But regardless of the why, I sit here today and am restless.

How to be a quitter

I am good at being stubborn.

Even when it is stupid.

I have a huge internet confession to make-

I have been a smoker for almost half my life.

So this year, I decided I was done. I decided to ask my doctor for Chantix to help me make the change and set everything up for my own success.

And then I read the Chantix box.

It can cause strange dreams, depression and is a little scary sounding.

More scary than dying of lung cancer? Probably not. But when your mind is the most important bit in your personal tally of great traits, scary nonetheless. (Although I confess, as a writer, the strange dreams seems like it almost be more of a perk than a downfall.)

What if I loose that special something that makes me a writer? What if it messes with who I am rather than just my bad habit?

So I stalled. Stupid, but I stalled. I have had that box of Chantix and not taken that final step to TAKE one.

Today was the day. Today I took my first Chantix, risking everything to try to accomplish my goal.

(I am still curious about the strange dreams...Strange according to who? Because I can say, honestly, most of my dreams are pretty darn strange to begin with.)

Part of me still wants to rebel. I am NOT a quitter.

I am a writer. We are ALLOWED to smoke too much and drink far too much coffee. It is almost an expected portion of the stereotype.

But today, a bigger part of me has decided that I AM a quitter. My health has sucked for a long time... Maybe this will help. I deserve to see my kids grow up. I deserve to not die gasping.

Will this be easy?

Oh, hell no.

But I am going to do it.

I am going to apply my bullheaded stubborness to it and kick its ass.

What are you quitting this new year?