“Okay,” you say, “What are these great goals we’ve been hearing about?” I have been ambitious this year and have a whole bunch of goals in a variety of categories. I plan to work at living my life “on purpose”. As I’ve already stated, I want to be more productive and feel better about how I spend my time. The older I get, the more precious each moment seems to me. So here are my goals for this year….hang onto your hat!

SPIRITUAL:
1) Finish reading the Bible (started last year and don’t want to start over, so I’m picking up where I left off….doing pretty good so far!)
2) Memorize the Books of I II and III John
3) Go through at least one whole Bible story book with Owen…twice.

HEALTH:
4) Exercise at least 200 days in 2012
5) Lose at least 50 pounds by November 1, 2012 (I have lost 2 lbs.)

ART:
6) Paint or draw 50 pictures, any size
7) Paint all the rocks I have
Start a creative project with Frank of some kind and sell a finished product

WRITING:
9) Edit first novel enough to try to publish
10) Finish first draft of second novel
11) Start next installment of Carly Boone on blog

MUSIC:
12) Keep practicing the Ukulele and be able to play 3 songs with more difficult chords next Xmas

FINANCIAL:
13) By the end of the year be able to make $100 per month (net), selling art and crafts on our Etsy website

Yes, it’s a lot, very ambitious. But I am positive that I can accomplish all of these if I learn how to budget my time better, and tackle a little bit every day. The way I am working to do that is actually very simple. I read my list of goals several times a week. I try to keep the list at the front of my mind (instead of waaaaay at the back). I make lists of things to accomplish and keep that list with me at home. I made myself a daily schedule that includes all the categories of things I want to work on. If I can develop the self-control to stick to the schedule during the week, I will be able to develop the good habits necessary to fulfill the goals! I CAN DO IT!

What are your goals? Where do you see yourself in a year….five years….ten years? Do you have goals? How do you plan to reach them? What’s important to you? What do you want to achieve? What do you want to do with your life? These are all questions I have asked myself over the years, and my answers have been, well, nebulous at best. My path to my goals have usually been winding and haphazard. For example, when I was in high school I knew I wanted to go to college (mostly because my mother was pretty insistent about it, so I assumed that was the thing to do), but I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to “be”. Once I got to college, I realized that all I really wanted was to be a wife and mother. Nobody informed me that you can have more than one goal (and I’ve always been rather single-minded…not much of a multitasker).

When I reached my goal of being a homemaker, wife and mother, I was happy with those roles, but still felt like something was missing. As my time was filled with all the tasks that go along with that life, I didn’t have much time left over for ”art” (and didn’t realize yet that creating was that important to me…that came later). Oh, I “feathered my nest”, made costumes, decorated cakes, made stuff for Bible classes. I found ways to be creative, but I also wasted LOTS of time with with all kinds of time-sucks. One of my few real regrets in this life is how much time I’ve wasted….I mean thousands of hours doing NOTHING worth anything. Sigh….anyway.

I feel that I have mostly stumbled my way through my life, having worthwhile goals in mind, but no clear-cut path to reach them, like raising my kids to be mature adults who love the Lord and strive to serve Him…I always prayed fervently that my children would grow up to be Christians in spite of me, because I knew I wasn’t perfect and had no idea if I was raising them “correctly” or not. Praise the Lord for hearing and answering those prayers!

All that stuff is a round-about way to say this. I want to change how I operate my life. I’m almost 53 years old, and I am going to make better use of my time. Oh, I know myself well enough to know that I will never be 100% efficient, I can’t completely change who I am. But I can develop new habits and be more productive. I  can find a way to stop wasting so much time. Next, I’ll tell you all about what I plan to accomplish in 2012….it’s quite a list….and how I plan to get there!

I am a goal setter. I have trouble getting motivated and setting goals is one way for me to feel like I’m working toward something, that I’m moving forward with my life and not just floating through it, letting circumstances and other people dictate my actions (and mood). And sharing those goals is a way of feeling at least some outside pressure to accomplish them. Self-motivation has never been my strong suit. I have learned to compensate for my weakness in this area by “tricking” myself into reaching for my goals. I’m taking a pottery class (my second) right now, which achieves several things. It forces me to do something creative which I have a tendency to put off, using “life” as an excuse not to do something for myself. It gets me out of the house for a few hours each week and away from family pressures, so that I can lose myself in something other than the same stuff all the time. It puts me in a position to be around outside people so that I’m not just talking to toddlers all the time! (slight exaggeration). In other words, a good thing.

January 1 is one of my favorite days of the year, because it feels like a clean slate. Whatever I did or didn’t do last year is past and I get to start again with new ideas and new goals. In 2011, I had about 7 or 8 goals I was working toward, some easy, some not so much, and I accomplished 3 that I can think of off the top of my head. I finished the first draft of my first novel (a BIGGIE), I was accepted and registered at Boise State University (even though I didn’t get to actually attend because of circumstances over which I had no control, I still accomplished that), and learning to play the Ukulele (not very well, but I accomplished the goal of being able to play a couple of Xmas songs for my family). BUT…in other ways I failed miserably. Like the fact that I had the goal of painting 26 watercolors (one every 2 weeks, a very doable goal), and I didn’t paint a single painting….not ONE. In fact, up until this last week I hadn’t painted anything in almost 2 years. (a separate issue of the paralyzing fear of failure….I’ll address that another time) Losing weight and memorizing scripture from the Bible were 2 other big fat failures.

But, you see, last year is over. A new year has begun. I get to start again! That makes me very happy. I keep in mind that I did accomplish something, and try to learn from the failures. I thought long and hard about goal-setting and how to accomplish them, and I have decided to take a more “intensive” approach this year. My biggest goal for the year is FOCUS and SELF-CONTROL. This is my mantra for the year. All other goals will be under this umbrella.

You might be wondering how I plan to accomplish THIS goal, since I have struggled with these very concepts my whole life. A lack of focus and self-control have plagued me always…..always. Attention Deficit Disorder is a term that I feel strongly is over-used and over-diagnosed these days OR it’s so prevalent because of TV and video games and fast-paced everything that it’s an epidemic among children and adults….whatever. All I know is that I have been in my own world and a daydreamer as long as I can remember.  I was always able to concentrate when I absolutely had to, in classes and such, but otherwise I was often in Lala-land. Ask anyone in my family….being in my own little world is very common with me…I have a wonderful ability to tune out everything and everyone (sometimes that’s NOT so wonderful). I’ve been hearing, “Earth to Ann!” my whole life. Now this could be an “artistic temperament” or ADD or just habit. Any label given, it is deeply ingrained in me……and I want to change it. I want to be able to hold focus and have the self-control to do what I really want to do. Thus, the mantra.

“Okay,” you might be wondering, “How do you plan to change a lifetime of the  inability to get anything done?” Ah, yes, that’s the important question. I plan to change my habits! I’ll get into it more next time….

Now that Carly has wrapped up her first adventure, I will admit I’m anxious to start another right away. But I’m going to keep everyone (including myself) in suspense for a while. When I started a blog (again), I never intended it to be strictly a vehicle for Carly Boone. I wanted to write, but not just fiction. I’d like to share. I’d like to inform. I’d like to have a dialogue with people. So far, even though I know there are several people reading my Carly segments, my daughter is the only one who comments….so I’m not sure a dialogue will work. But I still want to give it a try. So, at least once or twice a week I plan to write whatever happens to be on my mind. You may like it, you may not, we’ll see. But please stay tuned…..at the very least, Carly will be back soon! Check in once in a while and see what’s going on in Annie’s head (hehehe…inside joke).