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.