On writing things down…

Back in 2007, at another big juncture in my life, I came across an article that encouraged writing your goals down — that there was magic in that simple act of codifying what you wanted. The author made no distinction between “worthy” goals, needs, or wants. Just write it down.

I was more than skeptical — I’ve made to do lists compulsively since I was 12 and they always made me feel more out of control than in it. This wasn’t a to do list, though. This was just a list to let you know what you wanted in life, and I decided to try it.

My first, unprioritized list looked like this:

• travel
• get fit
• blog
• design one of a kind art to wear
• have kids
• paint
• dance
• spend time with friends and family
• teach
• help other women
• work at home for myself

At the beginning of last year I went through the list and was surprised to see how much I’d actually
done, but also disappointed in some of the results. I did another list for last year, but it was shorter and more vague. I’ve accomplished four out of five of the items on it, as well.

This year I reviewed both lists and started another. I decided that I’m probably not completely happy with the outcomes because I wasn’t specific enough — let me recap that first ist, with annotations:

• Travel – yes, though not as much as I’d like, nor with my husband (but notice I left HIM out of the goal!)
• Get fit – I found a doctor that got me off of almost all my meds, put me on supplements instead and gave me a new lease on life that I had been told was mortgaged as far as it would go!
• Blog – this getting more fun and easy to keep up with every day.
• Design one of a kind Art to Wear – well, I’ve designed a bunch of them, but haven’t created any! Bad choice of wording in my list again, I think.
• Design Knitwear and needlework – see above point!
• Have kids – well, we had our godson living with us for two years! and I never said they had to be MINE.
• Paint – I’ve done a little.
• Dance – our troupe is thriving, and I’m teaching regularly.
• Spend time with friends and family – My heart sister moved in with us for a while (with her son) andmy father moved across country and I get to see him much more often!
• Teach – I’m teaching dance consistently now and last weekend was asked to teach bead embroidery.
• Help other women – I’d like to think that my teaching does just that.
• Work at home for myself – Well, I’m definitely doing this now! (I think I left out the obvious part of this statement, though.)

Maybe next week I’ll post this year’s amended list — it’s time to get that developed. I think I’m going to be more ambitious as to what I put on it this year. Since it’s not resolutions, not a to do list, just a definition of what I want out of life, and it seems to work like the magic it was made out to be… yeah. I’ll keep trying it!