Friday, January 02, 2009

The making (or not) of goals

For the first time in a long time, I'm having difficulty creating any goals for 2009. It could be that I'm having a very rough week and my only goals at the moment are getting through the next 24 hours. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

So I'm going to review some goals from past years.

2005

1. Credit Cards paid off by March 31st. This would effectively
take me out of debt - on paper. There's still a Legal Aid bill from my
divorce, but there is no interest charged so it can continue to be
paid off in pre-authorized payments. My car is in my name and registered to
me, but the loan is not - therefore it does not show up as
'my' debt.

2. 10% increase in income from writing. Rather than do 10% more,
I'm going to become more efficient (buying the laptop was a start) and more
effective (by charging more).

3. One more column. I have two: both horse related. I'd like to
develop one either online or in print that is not related to the horse
industry. Maybe writing related.


4. Finish 2 non-fiction books that are currently in the works and
start developing my fiction writing.*

*I finished one proposal and the other one was crap

2006

Apparently I made no resolutions!

2007

  1. Write Rookie Reiner (yeah, I should think so... I'm contracted to do it now!)
  2. Increase writing income by 10-15%
  3. Learn to do my own taxes
  4. Reach the milestone of 300 published articles (I'm at about 210)
  5. Finish my ICEA coursework and attend the September convention.
  6. Finish two more Book Proposals (one horse book and one non-horse book*)
  7. Set up new accounting system**.
  8. Pay off two credit cards, the line of credit and cancel one card.
  9. Move. (as in... out of this house...)***
  10. Write more about common things people care about and less about politics.
*still does not exist
** yes, if by "new accounting system" you mean, continue to throw receipts on to a pile called "ignore".
*** I did, into another rental...

2008

I didn't make any resolutions that I can find. I did write about 2008 being my Year of Hope though.

I did buy a house, finish my second book (and edits on the first), celebrate 3 years of marriage and my first year as a manager at work.

So I have tried a couple of different ways of resolving to resolve. I've made goals, I've set themes, I've NOT made goals. I can honestly say I do not know what works best for me. At the moment I can't see my way out of my little raincloud to decide what I want to do.

The skies will clear soon. I hope.

2 comments:

Rosemary said...

I'm trying to decide if I want to write out goals for this year after coming upon last year's list of goals (which I never looked at last year!). First, I need to clean my desk and file and get my expense list ready for the tax man. Maybe then I'll be able to write out some goals for 2009.

Good luck!
Rosemary

Anonymous said...

If it makes you feel better, here is my list of 2009 resolutions http://russellcavanagh.com/2/?p=102 for your enjoyment. All the best (and a belated Happy New Year!).