Sometime in December, I hand-wrote a list of New Year’s resolutions and then promptly forgot about them. Though they were in no order of importance, the first one was a seemingly-reasonable goal to “blog on sameeriyengar.com 1 post/wk”.
By my (completely non-scientific) count, I have posted exactly zero entries since that time (though, thanks to bots that can fill out forms, I have received hundreds of spam comments). In fact, my most recent entry which contains greater than one complete sentence was over one year ago.
This being the end of May, I am now in debt twenty entries. However, instead of breaking my own knee caps, I’ve graciously allowed myself to submit those entries a bit late and see if its still possible to reach an average of 1 post per week by the end of the year.
There’s no shortage of articles with tips for achieving your goals, which is no surprise considering its a common metric for measuring success. One idea that has resonated with me is to think about two things:
- Why do you even care about doing this?
- How is the process of achieving this goal going to impact me?
My theory is that its easier to commit to a goal if the reason and the impact are something you actually care about. It should probably be something slightly more compelling than “well, it would be kinda cool”. For example, I like the idea of having a blog because it will force me to:
- Practice writing. Presenting ideas in a structured way and writing things that people might actually want to read are useful skills.
- Read. Writing something coherent requires that you’ve at least done a little research on the topic.
- Have something more than a photo of half dome come up when you Google for my name.
Since most goals aren’t easy to achieve, it’s also important to consider (and accept!) the consequences of pursuing that goal. For example, some of the things I am willing to accept are:
- Public ridicule. It’s actually a scary thought to post potentially ridiculous things for all to see but that’s part of having a blog. I’m okay with the fact that I’m going to sound stupid sometimes (hopefully not all the time).
- Less TV time. I’m am (somewhat reluctantly) willing to miss some re-runs of Family Guy to spend time writing.
If you see more posts on this blog, you’ll know that, at the very least, these ideas seem to be working for me. And, if not, at least I will have accomplished a respectable 1.9% of my goal.
If you’ve got other goal setting tips, leave a comment! At least I’ll know the spam-bots aren’t the only ones reading this.
Category: productivityNo Comments.
