Thoughtful Thursday: Cautiously Moving Into a New Quarter

Do you remember all the posts that were coming across social media about how rough 2019 was for many of us and how much we were looking forward to the new start that was 2020? I do, and I long for those naive days when 2020 seemed to be a big step forward into life. Little did we all know that 2020 would be what it is now.

Since it is now July and quarter three, I've been sitting down to do some things that I do pretty much every quarter. I sit down to make goals for myself and evaluate my progress on the goals for the previous quarter. This quarter also coincided with filling up my old bullet journal, so all of this planning and evaluation is happening in my new journal - the one I'm designing for myself.

What have I learned from doing this exercise??

I am great at establishing goals but LOUSY at working towards them at all! I always have really sound and appropriate goals written down for myself, but I rarely make any progress on them at all. I am constantly making grandiose plans without really wanting to accomplish any of those plans.

I have come to the conclusion that this type of goal setting is not for me...and I am trying to be okay with that conclusion.

I have lots of shame associated with this conclusion - I "should," if only I "would," and "I could" statements come into my brain. My self-doubt and imposter syndrome goblins come out to play which increases my anxiety and makes everything just that much worse (even when it is not that big a deal to begin with). Other people do 30-60-90 day goals that are motivating and move them to the next step, but they do not work for me.
I think I may be focusing on the wrong things.
This has been a revelation for me in the past two weeks. I'm not doing what I want to be doing in several areas of my life, but I don't think that focusing on establishing habits is the best way for me to proceed. There is something missing from my business goals. There is something missing from my personal goals. I am in search of meaning. Goals are only appropriate when they are meaningful.

At the moment, my goals are to post a file on Teachers Pay Teachers every week, run one CMTE workshop, make a solid evening routine focused on crafting and being awake until 8:30, and working on increasing my health. These are all reasonable goals, but I find it all too easy to walk away from them. I posted one TPT file this month so far (my target was two), I have become more consistent about blogging, but only because I switched back to my morning blogging time, and my other goals haven't really been touched yet.

I grabbed my quotation box for a little bit of inspiration this morning. It had been on the same card for a long time, so I felt that a change was due. I took all the cards out of the box, shuffled them in my hands, and two cards jumped out of the stack - together. I took them out and read the sentiments. Here they are, in no particular order...

There is more to life than increasing its speed. - Mahatma Ghandi
Cherish yesterday, dream tomorrow, live like crazy today. - Unknown
Time does not change us. It just enfolds us. - Max Frisch
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. - Annie Dillard

Of all the thoughts that could have jumped out at me, I think these were pretty meant to be as they all resonate with the way I am feeling about myself and my life in general at the moment.

I am going to continue the practice of setting goals, at least for this quarter, but I am seriously considering changing these into something a bit less formal and a bit more ethereal in structure and format. I am learning more and more about myself as this year goes on. Perhaps this is due to a global pandemic, perhaps it is due to starting a new decade of life, perhaps it is due to a completely different reason, but I am in a season of change and deliberation.

I am now going to head out into the uncertain world to supervise music therapy interns doing music therapy with my clients (we are still doing live sessions, even when the rest of the world has been working from home). Thanks for reading.

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