Monday 2 January 2012

Does Goal Setting Work?



Becoming a Writer
 It’s time again for the New Year’s Resolutions, so I thought I’d look at last year’s blog post where I made a mighty list of (unlucky?) thirteen resolutions! How did the year pan out?


1) Set Realistic Goals. I broke this resolution already when I made a list of 13 goals! I began this blog by writing that our mission was to be boaters, travellers, writers and parents, but I didn’t know if it was realistic to be all of those things, as well as a medical secretary, a hypnotherapist, a home-maker and a wife. In 2011 we were boaters, travellers, writers and parents, but I dropped the hypnotherapist and medical secretary parts of my life. I’m quite pleased with that!

2) Enjoy my children, every day. Spend quality time together. Life is short. I think I do this, but I still need to be reminded of it.

3) Put some TLC into my marriage; recognise thoughtfulness, make time for each other, listen, and focus on the positives. I did do this and we are in a much better place than we were last year. We happily enjoyed our five year wedding anniversary on 11/11/11.

4) Get a bigger home, more storage space, a washing machine. I’m really pleased about achieving this one. Our gorgeous new boat is my dream home, and it has a washing machine.

5) Sell a freelance article. I’ve had articles published, but this year I am going to be paid for writing something! I have bought a book about it. Ok so I didn’t read the book, but I have been published in Towpath Talk and Waterways World, with more writing work coming up! A dream come true. And I’ve set up my freelance website http://peggymelmoth.wordpress.com/writing/

6) Finish writing one of the three books I’ve started writing. Now I can’t remember what one of these books was! But the other two are still unfinished. But I am really going to finish the Narrowboat Wife book soon. And I did write an ebook, Narrowboat Families.

7) Keep on top of the housework/ boat chores. Not so good at this. But what mother of two pre-school kids has a pristine home? I’m better at not giving myself a hard time over this.

8) Settle in a community. Get some neighbours and a local pub. I’m happily enjoying our new winter mooring at The Grand Junction Arms and we’ve got to know a few local boaters, and even some house people!

9) Exercise – swimming or yoga? I failed miserably on finding the time for this. But now that we don’t live in London I walk a lot more – there’s not even a bus route to the Grand Junction Arms. I’m in The Countryside without a driving licence. I walk up hills pushing a heavy pushchair with two children in it; that’s got to count for something! I also pull mooring ropes and push lock gate balance beams.

10) Be more calm and confident – use self-hypnosis more often! I did not manage this one. I hardly listened to my lovely, relaxing self-hypnosis mp3 and have been waaay too anxious this year. But it did lead to some great creative writing about my imaginary friend Mick Jagger.

11) Promote my blog. I did pretty well at this and now have about 2000 page views a month. I’m not promoting it any more though – no time! And I’ve had about 24,000 page views in total. Amazin! Although I heard on BritMums that it’s not cool to count.

12) Get a job related to writing. So, I’m doing a bit of feature writing and a bit of business blogging and I’m really enjoying it. I’m also doing some medical audio-transcription, being a virtual assistant and starting a temp job as a part time library assistant. I know I sound busy but I do actually need more clients. Please visit my website to see how I can help your business.

13) Long term goal – make writing my career. I have definitely made some good steps towards this.

Overall Score: 7/13

I’m really happy with that, and quite surprised! But I heard it’s not cool to count.

Next week: The Best Goal is No Goal

2 comments:

Alice said...

very impressive Peggy! wow... I didn't set goals last year and I don't think it helped in keeping me on the straight and narrow (normally I do) so today I am about to sit down and just write down some of the things I would like to focus on this year. I'm hoping 2012 will be more productive! wishing you every happiness and continued successes for 2012 xxx

Narrowboat Wife said...

Yep, I'm gonna write this years goals soon and make it a blog post for next week. Just think, 2012 is the year you finish your novel! Another dream come true. xxx