Targets versus goals

 

Lately I have been thinking about things that I would like to achieve in 2023, and I kept saying that they are my goals, but now I am thinking that they should be considered my targets. What is the different between the two terms for me.

Goals – something that you want/need to achieve and if you don’t, you can get upset with yourself because you didn’t achieve them.

Targets – things that are you are going to strive to achieve and even if you don’t reach the target but made progress towards it, you will be happy.

Now what I have come to realize is that if I say that I am going to have these goals for a year and I don’t reach them, I am very disappointed in myself for not reaching them. What I don’t normally do is think about the reasons why the goal wasn’t reached. There are times when the goal was just out of reach from the beginning, and then there are times when the goal couldn’t be reached because of things that happened during the year to impact the achievement.

This coming year I am going to be aiming for targets and if I reach them, I will be very happy but if I don’t, and I can identify the reason or reasons why they weren’t achieved I will be happy. I know for some f the different things that I want to aim for I am going to be pushing myself, so maybe just having the target is a better idea. In some ways I think we put too much pressure on ourselves when we set either goals or resolutions because you don’t know what the year is going to be like and some of these things can be impacted by things outside your control. For example, did any of us think about how Covid was coming to impact us and our goals in 2020, probably not but did we beat ourselves up because some of the goals weren’t met, we may have.  Now to figure out how to change our mindset to be aiming for targets instead of goals.

It might be very similar for a lot of people, but at least being able to figure out something that you would like to achieve instead of I have to achieve it may help move things forward.  I am now going to work on getting some targets that I would like to achieve in 2023 and then at the end of the year I will be how things went. I will also track things that impact me during the year to determine if it helped me reach the target or not reach it. No matter what I am looking forward to seeing how things go in 2023, and I will see what I achieve and what I don’t, but I am not going to put that additional stress on myself saying that I have to achieve goals, next year I will be aiming for targets.

Hope everyone can figure out what works best for them because knowing if a goal or a target works best can help you see how to achieve things that you want to achieve.

Goals

 

We all have goals that we want to achieve and there are things that it’s easy to do and other things it can be a bit of a challenge. I know that I have a couple of goals that I need to work on getting better at.

One goal that I need to set is to spend at least two hours each day writing or sketching. If I can do this for even the next couple of weeks, I should start to feel better about things. 

My biggest obstacle about achieving goals is myself because I always find other things that need my attention or even distractions that keep me from achieving my goals. Yes, I am my worst enemy when it comes to setting and achieving goals. I am great at setting goals for myself, but it’s the actual achieving them is where I get in the way. One thing I do is not set aside time for myself and stick with it. Too often, I set aside the "me time" only to find an excuse as to why I shouldn’t take that time.

The "me time" is a way for me to recharge my own batteries and even regain some focus. Too often, I just plow ahead and do all the other things that need my attention, forgetting that taking some me time will make the other things go faster and be less stressful. Simple tasks sometimes seem so difficult, and that is probably because I have lost my focus.

If I want to be able to write more often and clearer, I need to write more. This sounds funny in a way, but practice makes perfect. My drawing isn’t something I am doing to make money, but I think my drawing is going to help me write better and be more creative in general.

Yes, I have these goals that I want to start working on because being able to see things moved forward and more of my own goals achieved would be great. So maybe what I need to do is make sure that my sketchbook is always handy with a couple of pencils so that when I have those few minutes even not the two hours, I can work on something, and then I will see how it goes.

Where has the year gone

As a lot of people are saying they really don’t know where the y ear has gone and I can totally agree with that. It is now the 18^th of December and that means that there are less than 2 weeks left in 2017. What have your accomplished?

I am one of those that gets goals at the beginning of the year and at the end of the year I sit down and got over what I have been able to achieve and then what has changed over the year. Normally I am able to accomplish some of the original goals and I think that is going to be the same for this year. I haven’t looked at the original goals and will do that at the very end of the year. I know that there are still things that I want to accomplish this year so that means that I just need to sit and get things done.

This past year has been busy for us and I have to say that I have really enjoyed what we have been able to do. Sure I know it has meant some changes in what our original goals were but at least I know that I am feeling happy with where things are standing at the end of year. I know one thing that wasn’t on my list this year and that was getting my Certified Professional Bookkeeper designation so that is something that I can admit has changed where I have been focusing some of my time and energy over the last little while.

For a lot of people setting goals at the beginning of the year isn’t something that they do and that is fine because everyone is different. I also know that when I set my goals I am setting them at a given point of time and things around me can change the overall goals and that I am fine with. My goals are just things that I am going to try and achieve but again if they aren’t achieved I am not going to be upset because I always know that I have been able to achieve other things instead.

Some years I do a review of the goals at the mid point of the year and this year I didn’t and that is fine with me because I know that I have been doing other things. New projects have happened in the last half of the year and those are going to be some of the things that will help me set the goals for 2018 when I sit down and do that. Being able to look back at a year and see that you have been able to accomplish something is important and as long as you have been able to get things either moved forward that is what you need to be happy with. Some goals are going to take a lot longer to achieve that you originally thought and some goals are just not going to happen and that is fine as well.

Look at your 2017 list of your goals for the year and realize that some probably were achieved, some goals won’t be achieved any longer because of other changes and some of the goals may go back onto the 2018 list but remember to write down the other big things you have accomplished so that you can see that you may not have achieved everything that you originally set out to do but you did achieve a lot of other things.

2017 is almost over and 2018 is just around the corner and before long we are going to be saying where did 2018 go but at least seeing that you have got things done is what is important.

Where has the year gone

As I sit here and write this, I am wondering where the year has gone. It seems to have passed by very quickly and now to see what next year has in store.

There were 366 days in the year this year but there have been times when I sat back and I wondered what we accomplished this year. There are a lot of things that have happened and things that have been accomplished along the way.

One of my big accomplishments for this year was my writing. I have been able to see a huge change in my writing and the number of words that I have been writing on a daily basis. I am no longer afraid of the blank page and I now actually enjoy starting my day working on a journal entry. At the beginning of the year I was happy with I was able to write 2,000 words a day. In January I had a word average of 1,946 words a day and now I have word averages of around 2,250 words a day. Sure that doesn’t look like much of a big change but it does mean around 8,000 words more written each month.

I still have things that I didn’t accomplish this year and they will be added to the list of things for next year but at least I know I have another 365 days to get them all done. I am looking forward to going back and looking at the goals that I get at the beginning of January for myself and seeing how I did. I will do that review at the very beginning of 2017 and I will also set some more goals for myself for 2017 while I am at it.

Through this year I have also been able to take some courses and am now working on using the knowledge that I have gained this year to change some of my functions with work. Being the co-owner of the business means that having these additional skills means that we have some new offerings that we can provide clients.

Yes, the year seems to have gone by quickly but when you can sit back and see some of the accomplished that were achieved through the year it does feel like there really was quite a bit accomplished throughout the year.

As the year comes to an end it is time to sit back and see what was accomplished and what wasn’t accomplished. Sure there will be some disappointments of not accomplishing everything that was on the original plan for this year but new things were added and new accomplishment achieved. Sit back and look at your year and think about what was accomplished and know that over the last year things have changed and there your goals have also changed.

Knowing who you are

Lately, I have spent a bit of time thinking about what makes me happy and what doesn't.  It can be very difficult to face some of the things that you have hidden in the back of your mind for way too long, but it does help.

Being able to accept that things aren't always going to work the way you want is important when you want to make yourself happy.  Knowing that you are going to hit some bumps in the road is another thing to accept.  The outcome can be that you are able to face the things that have bothered you in the past and put them back in the past instead of dealing with them continually.

For so many years, I have been a person that put everyone else before me and never did things that I wanted.  Lately I have started to do things for myself and does it ever feel good.  Having the strength to say that I am important has been something I hadn't done in the past.  Now I am saying I am important, and I need to focus some time on things for myself instead of always for someone else.

Knowing what makes you happy can really make a difference on how you deal with things.  I continue to run into situations that get me frustrated and down, but I know I am who I am.  The situations may set me back a little bit, but at least the setback isn't nearly as far back as it was in the past.  I continue to think of the goals that I have and want to achieve in the future, and now I can say the future isn't so far ahead anymore.

New projects are now on the horizon for me, and I think I am finally able to say I am ready to accept these new projects.

Stepping back and rethinking

There comes a time when you need to step back and rethink all your different priorities. This has happened to me, and I have had to rethink some of my goals as well as my priorities. I was one of those people that had to please everyone in the past, and I didn't care if I was happy or not. Doing this causes a lot of problems because you don't really feel happy when you are doing some of the things you have agreed to do.

Being able to rethink your goals is a project because you have to think of why you are aiming for that specific goal, was it to please someone else or to please yourself. It does take some time because it can also mean redoing the goal so that it is more for pleasing yourself. Some goals just get deleted because when you realize you aren't going to achieve it and be even a bit happy, there is no point in doing it.

I was one of those people that had to please everyone, and I would forget about pleasing me. I came to realize that there are some people that no matter what you do you will never please them, so why try. This step was a huge thing for me to realize, and since doing that I have felt better and have given up trying to please these people.

I now have goals that are for me and help me be happy. I am not saying that you put yourself first all the time, I am saying you need to remember to do things that please you as part of your life. How you feel is very important because if you aren't happy, you can't really make others happy, or at least the people that count.

Writing with a purpose

Today I decided that I am going to try and write at least 1,000 words of something. I am not sure what I am going to write about, but at least it is worth a try to see how much 1,000 words actually works out to be.

Setting goals. I think it's great when people have goals that they have set for themselves, and they can achieve them. I think I need a goal for my writing so that I can ensure that I actually get some writing done most days. I have read a few blogs, and they have mentioned that to ensure they get writing done each day they have set a goal of 1,000 words each day.

In my previous blog I was mentioning that for me, I always find a reason not to sit and write instead of trying to get into a habit of sitting down each day and working on something for a little while. One thing, I have come to realize is that I need to set aside some time each day no matter what. Yes, I have a busy schedule, but I need to ensure that I have taken some time to work on the various blogs and articles that I want to complete.

The actual habit of writing each day is something that I am finding so hard to do, and I know that once I make it a habit, it will be so much easier for me to do. Even yesterday, after writing the blog about the challenges of writing, I found that I came up with a lot of different reasons why I couldn't continue to write. So here I am sitting in front of my computer today, determined that I am going to at least spend some time working on my writing instead of checking out the various websites and blogs that I easily distract me from what I originally sat down to do.

Why is it that so many of us have such a hard time writing, but we have lots of ideas running around in our head that we want to get out onto paper. I know I have a habit of writing down all the little ideas that I have that I want to expand on, but it's the expansion of these various ideas that I find so challenging. In some cases, I find that I can write at various events that I go to even if there is a presentation going on in front of me. Yes, I go to events and try to listen to presentations, but if the topic isn't of interest to me, I can block it out and actually get some writing done. In some cases, I am writing down ideas and in other cases I can complete an entire blog entry or article while at the event. In some cases, I think it's because I don't have all the other things around me distracting me, and I can focus on a task at hand.

Where I can write. Some of my longer writing has been done when we are taking an escape from our normal schedule, and I am relaxing. I know that I have been able to write for a few hours at a time during this time, and it is so rewarding when I come away from an escape with articles and blog entries that I am very happy with. For me, I love to be able to sit and look out at different scenery, and it seems to help me focus on different ideas. Some of the blog entries refer to a sound I have heard or something I can see, and other times the blog entries have nothing to do with where I am.

Now, I am feeling a lot better about my time today because I am actually seeing that I can sit and work on a subject for a while and actually see results. Lots of ideas have come into my head while I have been writing this blog entry, and I know that I am going to continue working on the ideas. One thing that I have fighting is the feeling of checking different things on the internet instead of continuing my writing. So you can see that it is possible to focus on writing if you really want to and get something down instead of finding a million reasons why you can't find the time to write.

I am going to continue working on my writing and I know that some days I may not be able to write 1,000 words and other days, I know that I am going to be able to write a lot more than that. The other big thing is finding a tool that shows you how many words you have written instead of trying to guess. If I can continue to write each day and see that I am achieving my goal, I think I am going to feel a lot better about my writing. I am going to track how many words I write each day for a while because it's important to see days that are very good and days that aren't so good.

Not everyone can write easily, and I understand that. For me, I want to express some of the ideas and feelings that I have, so my writing is how I can do it. Some people can draw their ideas and others can vocalize their ideas; I can write them. So here I am knowing that I can actually write 1,000 words and have to admit that it hasn't really been that hard to do.

So, thanks for reading this entry, I know it is a lot longer than a lot of my other entries, but I really wanted to see if I could do it. The word count of this document is now 990 words, so I can safely say I have written my 1,000 words.

Bye for now.

My plate is overflowing

Yes, like everyone, every once in a while, I feel like I have way too many things on my plate and don't seem to be getting anything off it. 

Today was a day that I was going to work on a couple of items and of course I got one thing done and now my do to list has just increased.  I am juggling a lot of different things and know that if I could just focus for a little while I could make a dent in all the other things that are on my list.

Some days, are like this, you don't get what you wanted to be done, but you do make progress on a few other tasks that you have to complete.  You also have the days when you make some progress, but then other things just get added to the list. 

My goal for today is to finish the things that I need to get done, and then I am going to sit back and figure out what I did today.  I know that my list of to-do's is going to get longer, but at least then I will have everything written done instead of just mixed up in my head.

Off to focus on one task and then will sit back and see where things stand. 

Setting goals for yourself

January is a time to sit back and think of all the things that you would like to achieve in the new year.  A lot of people say, "I want to lose weight" or "I want to exercise more". 

The comment "I want to lose weight" is something that I now laugh at as I mentioned this to an instructor once, and he said, "But do you really want to find it again?"  Instead of saying "I want to lose weight", how about "I want to get rid of some weight".  At least, if you get rid of the weight, you may have a better chance of keeping it off.  I am made this a goal a few years, but this year I have decided I am not adding this to my stress level.

Goals should be achievable and realistic.  I have normally made goals that I hope I can achieve but end up not achieving them, and then I end up frustrated.  This year, my goals are realistic to me, so now to work on achieving all of them.  Simple, small steps is what I am going to be taking to ensure that I accomplish what I set out to do.