Sunday, January 23, 2011

Success and Failure in the New Year

Do you often set yourself up for failure by taking on too much? I know I do - especially around January every year. All those future plans and goals that sound so doable between Christmas and New Year’s Eve seem to become less so as January races toward February. And I’m not talking about the usual New Year resolutions - I actually have a pretty good handle on setting reasonable goals and keeping them. What I am talking about are all the other projects I take on with NO hope of success. Let me explain.

Failures for Jan 2011

First I signed up for a blog challenge - one post per day for 30 days. The posts could be any length and spread across multiple blogs. Not too hard, right? Well, even though I know frequent posting is one of the keys to blogging success, I didn’t even make it halfway through the month. I ran out of things to say. Yes, me - the girl who was paid as a child to shut up. I did start the challenge two days early and posted daily until about the 10th, but then reverted to my less-frequent-posting ways. So there’s a habit I failed to develop.

My second project is actually a 3-in-1. I took an online class through KSURF in Nov-Dec. A 20% discount good through Dec 30 inspired me to sign up for three more classes. Well, you work at your own pace with no set deadlines other than you have 60 days to complete each class. How close do you suppose I am one-third of the way through? I’ll give you a hint - it’s quite a bit lower than one-third. The good news is I can download all the lessons and complete them at my leisure (hmm, sounds exactly like what I’m already doing!). But when will that time be? Anyway, I still have until March 1 so it may happen yet!

Now you may be feeling sympathetic because you think I’m feeling bad. Please put your sympathy to better use elsewhere! I am now so used to my adult-onset ADD that I don’t beat myself up any more about the stuff I don’t get done. In fact, I wouldn’t even have used the word “failure” if I could have thought of one that meant “didn’t get it done but so what.”

And a Few Successes

First off, I am completely on track with my main actual New Year’s resolution. Of course, it’s kind of a cheat because I’ve already developed the habit and just keep recycling this resolution every year. Anyway, I have a morning stretch and afternoon walk routine that I do every day that I’m home. And I’ve been home every day so far this year. Now before you get too impressed with my consistency, I also did my stretches and walking almost every day I was home in 2010 - and it may have even been every day but I think I might have missed once or twice when I wasn’t feeling well. So, like I said, I’m already in the habit.

A second BIG success is that I am finally moving forward with my Custom Memorial Quilts site. This has been in the planning stages way too long - I registered the domain name clear back in Sept 09. Anyway, I signed up with HostGator (affiliate link but not for me) for 3 years. Am I committed, or what? Then I chose Suffusion as my WordPress theme and am tweaking it to my liking. For me, moving this project forward from just an idea to something tangible is HUGE.

A third area of success is my online writing earnings. I’ve actually met my goal and raised it twice. What? That’s right - I met my initial earnings goal in the first week so bumped it up. Then I met it again, so raised it again. What was I thinking? Truth be known, my actual original goal was to take time away from writing for up-front pay and focus on other writing projects, so maybe this success is actually a failure - oops. Oh well, I guess we’re right back to my adult-onset ADD.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Crystal,

    I'd like to make the request that you change your blog to come with the complete post when it's delivered via email and RSS. I can't always leave my email or my reader to come to the Internet to read the full post and it's irritating to read just a few lines. This is done in Settings. If you're worried about not getting credit for ads, just go into the Ad Settings and select to have ads show up in emails/RSS. Then you're getting credit either way. Also, it'd be nice if you'd add a contact to your About Me page because I'd rather send something like this via email than as a comment. So please don't post this as a comment or please delete it. I'm not trying to be a bugger, I'm just trying to make things easier for all of us.

    Thank you,
    Victoria

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  2. Thanks, Victoria - your requests and accompanying how-tos are invaluable to me! This is at least the second or third time you've generously gone out of your way to help me improve my blog and I really appreciate it:)

    I changed the blog posts feed setting to full and and turned on my email contact in my profile. Not sure how I missed doing the latter. As for the former, I wondered why some posts come to my email whole and some not - I just didn't know this was something I could control.

    I'd like to leave your comment here because I think this may be helpful info for others. Do you mind if I don't delete?

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  3. Thanks for being so sweet and understanding. No, I don't mind; I just thought you'd think I was being a nag!

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  4. Heavens no, Victoria! I so appreciate you bringing these things to my attention. And I also appreciate you giving me the fix!

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  5. You've got plenty to be proud of Crystal. Keep focusing on the positive and don't worry about the every day blogging thing anyway, I think that 'suggestion' is a load of bull in most cases.

    Best of luck to you with the rest of your goals in 2011.

    Marcus

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  6. Thanks for your kind words and encouragement, Marcus. Taking part in the challenge conclusively showed that daily blogging just for the sake of blogging can be pretty dull - especially for the reader:) The good news is that now I will NEVER feel compelled to do it - I can just write when inspired and not otherwise. So less for me to think about and do, and better quality content - can't complain about that!

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