Goals and rewards

Like many people, I can do great on my goals in January, then thinks start to drop off. This year January went well but so did February. It definitely helps that I’m not setting too many specific goals for 2022 — that gives me more flexibility and fewer Must Do X every day goals to make quota. And I did not fall as far behind as I did at times in January, so unlike Luke Cage, there were no ambushes just as I thought I’d finished.

Writing went well. I finished Oh the Places You’ll Go on Monday, subject to a final “read aloud and proof” session this month. I rewrote Impossible Takes a Little Longer, started rewriting Southern Discomfort (not committed to the changes yet, just experimenting), submitted six stories and finished proofing Questionable Minds. Still no sales this year, but that’s not a goal — it’s something I have no control over, other than making my stories as good as possible.

I managed to keep up my exercise and other morning routines, other than the week after my vertigo attack, but that’s forgivable. I kept up my cooking goals with lots of veggies and fruit dishes (again, not that week. Much comfort and junk food eating. Vertigo sucks) and baking bread regularly. I had stretch goals for bicycling and walking, and I managed those too.

I did not do so well on my political engagement efforts. I’ve been writing postcards encouraging people to vote Democratic but I fell behind due to vertigo and then just falling behind. Still got like forty out but I’d wanted more. Will do better this month though. And I wanted to look for other ways to push back against the looming fascist wave but I haven’t found anything yet.

I did not make my goal of reading a book a day  (or watching a movie) — too much time spent on that Annotated Dracula.

I earned enough points (on my entirely personal goal-achieving scoring system) to justify a $100 book purchase, though it was two purchases, $40 and $55 respectively. But I think I may have set the bar too low, made it too easy for myself. It’s a difficult thing to judge. Mark you, I don’t want a goal so high I never achieve it, and I certainly put in the work. Still, I shall keep tinkering with it — do my writing goals need quite so many points? — until I feel I have achieve a satisfactory metric.

#SFWApro. Cover by Billy Graham, all rights to image remain with current holder.