by Aileen Journey
I went to see Harry Potter last night. I loved the series and read most of the books to my kids. I thought the movie was great and it felt so satisfying. I was trying to figure out why this huge, trying adventure felt so satisfying even though the idea of a boy going through all of that mayhem and misery would be horrifying. I realized (perhaps the last person on earth to get this) that these adventure, “holy grail” stories are a metaphor for our own lives, but set at a distance so we don’t feel so distressed by them. While watching the movie, I was thinking, almost unconsciously, about my new business and the goals I have for it and what I need to do first and next and so forth.

Building a new consulting business certainly seems a bit more mundane than searching for horcruxes and destroying evil in the world, but the element of the unknown and reaching goals is still the same. I have an idea of where I want to be (successfully earning money doing a job I like), but I don’t really know what obstacles I will be encountering. I don’t plan on having to slay any talking snakes or deal with actual evil, perhaps just with ideas that don’t work and cause me to have to start again.

In some ways it feels just as anxiety provoking to me as watching Harry battle the army of the Dark Arts. I knew he’d succeed. I certainly hope that I will. I do now plan to think of my work on my future as a great adventure. I will try to consider each obstacle as a new chance to triumph over my opposition. I’m not sure it will make the path seem less anxiety-provoking, but it may help me keep going and see obstacles in a more positive, if not exciting, light than I might have previously.

A couple of years ago I did NaNoMoWri. For those of you who don’t know about NaNoMoWri, it’s an online group of people who spend November writing a novel.  The goal is to reach 50,000 words in the 30 days.  I had heard about it a couple of years ago, but was working two jobs.  When I had  more free time I figure I’d try.  I do very well with deadlines and a bit of pressure.

It made me think, though, about small goals and how they grow together to become something big.  To write 50,000 words in 30 days you have to write about 1667 words a day or more one day and less another.  It’s not that many words really, but if you do it you end up with a novel-length manuscript in the end. That’s not to say that what is written will be good, but the fact that so many big things can be approached with such little effort is amazing.  If someone wanted to write a novel and take a whole two months instead of one month, that’s just under 900 words a day.

One of the reason that many people can achieve this 50,000 words goal or even more is that they have chosen a goal and chosen a deadline.  These two things work together.  it’s important to have a goal so you know where you want to go, but it’s also important to have some kind of timeline.  Without a timeline, even one that you do not make, you are free to just continuously put off your goal or even the tasks required to achieve that goal.

Procrastination is what keeps almost all goals from being achieved.

We put things off, we make excuses. We assume that we can’t do it.  We find other tings that are not uncomfortable to do instead of doing the tasks that will take us to our goals.

Right now, I have huge amounts of free time.  I can earn enough money in a relatively short part of my day and then I can do what I want.  The problem is that I haven’t set any time lines for myself.   I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do and what steps will get me where I want to go. The problem is that I haven’t set any dead lines.  I’m just meandering along without doing much towards my goal.  I know that if I would put deadlines on certain aspects of the task, I would get far more done and achieve my goal faster.  The problem is making myself do it, especially when I don’t have to.

NaNoMoWri gives me the incentive to move ahead.  It only happens in November, so I can’t really put it off unless I want to wait for next year which doesn’t make any sense.  It’s flexible so if I don’t get it all written I’m still fine.

The point is, find some way to motivate yourself.  Find someone or even yourself to give you an incentive to work on your larger goals.  My initial writing goal was to have a writing career by the time I was 50.  I still have many years left to achieve that, but maybe I should shorten the timeline.  Maybe I should make financial goals for next year and the year after and so forth.  One thing that’s becoming clear is that I need to impose some clarity about goals, tasks and deadlines for myself if I want to transition to a writing career.

I was able to complete the novel in those 30 days, but it’s taken me over two years to edit and proofread it.  It’s a smaller job, but without a deadline it wasn’t a priority.

Goals need a pull (the goal) and a push (the deadline).  Find ways to create both so that you can really get yourself moving ahead.

by Aileen Journey