Goal setting is a universally good thing. Everyone I know wants to set goals. They want to be moving forward. I have goals. I want to be moving forward. I want to be accomplishing my goals. For me, my goals are my ways of becoming a better person. I will be better at being me because I accomplish goals.

My goals need direction, purpose and reason. My goals need to solve a problem. As a matter of fact, since I have started making my goals solutions to problems, I have been able to sustain moving forward. I love solving problems and therefore I am able to sustain this repetition. However, I do not do a great job at identifying my problem areas intentionally. I walk into my solutions based on intuition of where I have been at or how I am feeling, not based on my own actual calculated observations of what is going on.

Not using a calculated information means I can start solving the wrong problem. I start treating symptoms, not the disease. I try to put bandaids on hemorrhaging and tunicates on cancer. In order to set better goals, I have to actually observe, record, and discuss. In order to solve problems, I need other people’s perspectives in addition to my own.

How do you set goals? What problems do your goals solve? Are you solving symptoms?

Solving for I,

–JT

I did it! I did an entire month of writing and blogging. I did not miss a day. This isn’t really a huge deal for some. For me it is a bit of an accomplishment. I don’t often feel like I carry through all of my goals to fruition. I will usually give up, make excuses, or chicken out.

Not this time!

This time I carried it all the way through. I left no stone unturned. I went all the way and didn’t even half-bake anything. I’m not terribly proud of every post. However, I definitely learned quite a bit about myself as a writer and a person. I look forward to the next year, continuing to write and grow as a person. I feel like I can actually achieve these goals and I’m not making lofty goals for myself that I cannot achieve. In the coming year, I look to continue to write. I’ll be posting much less, two or three times a week seems sustainable.

Most importantly, I was successful at something and I did a pretty decent job. This whole last month of writing wasn’t just to fill 30 days with useless blog posts, there are enough of those on the internet, it truly was to write about, process, and discuss what has been going on inside of me and get it all out. Accomplishing something makes me feel good about the coming year. I feel like I might be able to accomplish something more and be successful at something else.

Proudly,

–JT

The Square Root of All Evil

Accomplished a Start