This week for Road Trip Wednesday, YA Highway asks, What are your goals for the new year–for reading, writing, or other? I gotta tell ya, this kind of question always terrifies me.
It goes along with that equally frightening question, Where do you see yourself in five years? Luckily I’m not out there pounding the pavement looking for a job and so I don’t have to answer that one.
The thing that’s so scary about goals is that I immediately fear I won’t be able to reach them. I’ll promise myself I’ll lose five pounds, and that bowl of ice cream will tempt me. I’ll declare I’ll read four books a month, and I’ll come up one short. It’s much easier to do things “unofficially,” that is, having the idea or notion or half-baked whatever that I might want to eat half as much ice cream next time I scoop up a bowl. And maybe I’ll count the number of books read without stating that this many reaches a goal.
That’s not to say I can’t meet deadlines or finish tasks. I do that all the time. I have a few book deadlines in the upcoming year that I have to meet. But those aren’t really goals. To me, a goal might or might not happen, and let me tell you, these books have gotta happen. No choice there.
So what is it about the word goal that makes me cringe, that makes me worry? What’s up with that, do you think?
Well, whatever it is, let me put on my big girl panties and fess up to one goal I’d like to achieve. Here it is: I want to become more disciplined in my writing life. I’d like to accomplish that by resisting the allures and attractions of the Web and Internet when I should be writing. It is ever so much more entertaining to read blogs and tweets all day than it is to put words on a page.
Gulp. There, I said it. And I will work toward it, I promise. I will do my best to achieve that big, scary goal.
How about you? What are your hopes for the new year?
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