Here’s what I’ve come up with for my goals for 2008 so far:
Create more goals
Think without distractions. Don’t let things hold back creativeness.
Write more (often). This ties in heavily with “Think.” I need to do more creative writing outside of school work.
Get over photographer’s fear. So many times I want to take a picture of something but I don’t because I’m thinking about how people will think I’m weird for taking a picture of something seemingly mundane; I should just let them be jealous of my awesome picture.
Listen to more music, really hear it, not just the words, each note, each instrument. Feel the depth and beauty of it.
Read the Bible, or finish reading the Bible, or re-read the parts I’ve already read. For a while I was reading the Bible every day, but I’d say that was about 2 years ago; I’ll be honest, I don’t think I opened my (non-internet) Bible at all in 2007 and I don’t feel good about that.
Take a photo every day. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece.
Increase reading speed. I’ve always been a pretty fast reader, compared to say other in my class in school, but I don’t read as fast as I’d like to. Now, I don’t want to speed read or anything, I think that’s silly, but if I ever want to be a book editor I need to be able to read a bit faster, without losing any comprehension.
I guess that’s it for goals. Now if I were to make a resolution, and I usually don’t, it would be the same as a couple years ago: a never-ending quest to find beauty in everything, aka find God’s love in everything.
I hope you’ll allow me to critique your list. It’s an admirable list of goals. The element, however, that I think your goals are missing is tangibility.
What you want to have is something you can check off at the end of the day (or week or month) so you’ll know if you’ve actually accomplished it. For instance your goal of “writing more often” needs to be pinned down more. How “often”? Once a week? Twice a month? “More” and “often” are too vague.
So let’s say you made it a goal to write one page a week. That’s a total of about 4 or 5 pages per month. In one year you would have written 52 pages. At the end of the year you can evaluate it and say, “Yep, I wrote x amount of pages this year. That’s more than I did last year.”
Now it’s not so vague.
You can do the same for your other goals. Bible: read x chapters a day/week.
Speed reading: assign a specific goal for the end of the year. Say 3 pages in one minute (or whatever a standard would look like). Once you’ve figured out the goal, you can adjust the amount of time you devote to it per month.
Listen to music: decide how many albums you want to focus on. Once you’ve reached it, you can check it off.
So in conclusion, your list of goals needs specificity and tangibility. The most specific one you have is the goal to take a photo every day. What you want to have is a number in mind and once you’ve reached it you can cross it off, sigh, and smile with the knowledge that you’ve completed your goal. It’s a great feeling.
Have fun with it!
Well, the point was I don’t make goals because I don’t want to fail them. It works the same way with too specific goals—if I miss a day I’m likely to give up, because I’ve already failed—if I make unattainable goals, I’ll fail them. Maybe setting a specific number works for some people but not for me. With creative writing especially, it can’t be so strict, it kills the creative process. That’s part of why I said “write more (often)” and not “write more often.”
Listening to music, is about listening more, not more music, it’s not quantity, it’s quality.
And I don’t want to speed read.
You don’t make goals because you don’t want to fail them? I hope this quote from Bill Cosby will encourage you…
“In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.”
Allow me to double-quote myself:
Touché
;)
Great post and I love your photography. I added you to my Google Reader.
I really like your goal to take a photo every day. This daily practice will only increase your skills and make you challenge yourself to look for new things. This year I am resolving to remember my camera whenever I do things (it doesn’t do much good sitting on the table at home!)
I also wish you the best with reading the bible every day. This practice will help you continue to grow with Him.
Have a great 2008
Thanks Brian! And thanks also for the comment. You’re right about leaving the camera at home not doing much good :) last year when I got the camera I have now I made the decision to take it everywhere with me, now I just need to start taking pictures everywhere I go.