Tackling 2014

The New Year is upon us and I am more than ready for a fresh start! 2013 marked some amazing changes in my life, as well as new goals, new realizations about myself and the past, and a lot of other heavy things I don’t wish to bore anyone with. Besides, 2013 is not my current focus. I’m finished with being retrospective, my eyes are facing forward.

I’m so excited for the newness of this year and I’m ready to set up some goals for the coming months. I’m a self-challenger but not always an actualizer, usually because I set HUGE goals that can’t be attained in my reality. I need to learn the concept of baby steps and moving progressively instead of diving in head first into arctic water. I’m tired of being shocked.

I want to stress I’m setting goals, not resolutions. I don’t make “New Year’s Resolutions” because my experience from watching those around me who do so is that they’re easily forgotten by February. This translates to an inherent meaninglessness. And resolutions are too restrictive, I feel like making a resolution is like making a binding contract with myself that says I need to change because the current me isn’t good enough, then I feel bad when I don’t.

Conversely, goals smack of fluidity, they can expand, morph, and be removed depending on circumstance. Most importantly: they can always be made, I don’t need an arbitrarily marked day to make a goal.

Now I’ll get down to my list, a list in no particular order that I plan to print and put on my wall for accountability’s sake.

 

My Goals for 2014

Complete “Brew Disaster” and shop it around until it’s picked up
Complete my story for What Follows, no matter the fate of our current kickstarter
Do the necessary research for my NaNo novella and do at least one rewrite
Write a minimum of 1000 words a week
For every 4 “new” books I read I want to pick up an “old” book off my TBR shelf
Complete my werewolf dossiers and a schematic for book one, at least
Concretize current elements of Anxiety Ink
Act like a smoker, i.e.: take time to go outside and breathe a few times a day
Make time to exercise more for better energy and health
Make dinner a few times a week
Be more accountable: put everything on the calendar, make time, and budget accordingly
Don’t take on more than I can handle, acknowledge my limits
Be positive
Read my writing and grammar books before buying more reference books
Shop my literary stories around
Write a book for NaNoWriM0 2014 instead of short stories
Take an interest and reach out
Organize my writing fodder –the working pile on the desk must go
Declutter
Read at least 3 Shakespeare plays this year

 

That’s it for now, like my goals my list is fluid so I will edit as the year goes on.

I would love to hear other people’s goals/resolutions/desires for 2014, so please share!