This is the latter part of a sentence that begins, “We set goals for ourselves…”
Like most, I’ve never been great at acknowledging, let alone rewarding, achievement. My mother has the famous story about bringing home her “99” test score to her father and him replying, “Where’s the other point?” And while I’ve never been that exacting with myself over tests, I’ve certainly been exacting over other efforts of mine.
Theater, singing, writing, artwork. (Strangely, though, not musical instruments… perhaps to the dismay of my bandmates!);)
And, of course, I’ve been exacting with myself over my time and my goals. I have not at all been able to stick to the 30-minutes-of-reading-per-day limit that I set for myself about a month ago. In fact, I have swung the pendulum crazy far in the other direction reading the Game of Thrones series, as the set was gifted to me by a colleague for my classroom, but deemed too violent for middle schoolers!
That all said…
As part of the structure of my weekly Goals Group call on Sundays, we’re each required to share about our achievements from the past week. And while I can’t yet point to a balanced relationship with couch+sunlight+novel, I can boast about many other achievements.
I come to reflect on this today as our Goals Group will be coming to a close this Sunday, at nearly the exact 6-month mark. Together, myself and two other ladies have spoken about our vision and goals for our lives in all areas, fears and illusions that impede our efforts, and tiny little markers of movement that we set out for ourselves that week to report upon the next.
In this way, I have been able to write a weekly list of accomplishments in my pocket calendar (yes, paper), and I gotta tell ya, I love it! I love writing in the notebook, “Accomplishments,” and following that luscious word with a dozen actions I’ve taken.
Many have been related to this blog redux, some with flying an airplane, writing my Allegory, or using my time well at work by taking breaks. Ice skating, vitamin-taking, meditating…
I get to write a list each week of things I feel proud of! So if, honestly, nothing at all came from the larger goals I’ve been setting before myself, if I didn’t scrape the surface of a single dream, the mere habit of writing, sharing, and honoring all that I’ve done in one week will have been success enough. (Dayenu!)
But… my dirty little secret is… I do have to keep reminding myself of that each and every week.
Owning Voice 