Patricia Harrelson

Every year–and I mean every year for as long as I can remember– I have written my annual goals in January. Last December as the new year approached, I kept reading admonitions about how writing goals is useless. “It doesn’t help,” said people I trust.

One writer said that writing goals is detrimental because in the act of writing you trick your brain into thinking the thing is done, and so you aren’t motivated to accomplish the goal anymore. I could see the truth in that as some of my goals had remained on my list year after year–things like establishing a regular meditation routine and saying “No” more frequently.

Another writer, suggested simply picking a word to guide your new year. I picked patience and was promptly assaulted with all the ways I’m impatient, especially when it came to getting my major writing project done, the biography I’m working on about local family physician who died in 2010. I wrote about managing this project back in October. I did well until the holidays descended, and then the routine I’d put in place to make progress dissolved. I kept telling myself that as soon as January came, I’d hit the ground running. But when January came my elderly uncle was in the hospital 3 hours away and then he died without a will and there was much to do to get him buried and deal with his things. Suddently, it was the middle of the January and I’d made no progress on my project.  I was swirling in self-recrimination, confusion, and impatience.

By the way, I had written out my goals as I always do despite warnings to the contrary, and near the top of the list was: Make significant progress on the Bogquist project. So I was definitely beating myself up. But then my teeth helped out when I chipped one and older crown fell off. I left for the dentist angry about yet another turn of events that was thwarting plans to work on the project.  The estimate for the dental repairs was an astronomical $2000 throwing me into a total dither, so much so that I couldn’t get my temperamental older car started (it needs focused attention to start). The weather was bitter cold, and I sat freezing, hungry (I hadn’t eaten since the crown fell off at 4pm the day before) and utterly miserable.  I reached for my mobile phone and proceeded to cancel everything on my schedule for the day.

I went home and worked for eight hours on the project. What happened? I experienced a radical internal shift–a shift guided by stuff I’d written in my plan for 2013:

• Drastically shift my priorities
• If necessary abandon sleep, people, and television
• Patience requires effort

 I put in 21 hours on the project this week. I’m on a roll. If I stay on this side of the shift, I’m confident I will make significant progress on the project this year. 

What do you think about writing New Years goals? What works for you?