Goals, goals, goals…

Did the goals meeting last night. My gang, six other writing friends, and i meet monthly.

Goals group? Really?

Yeah, whatever. I feel goofy, but i do it anyway. Make fun of me all you like, but it’s working. Anything that breaks my habit of trying to tough-out everything by myself is a good thing. These folks support me and each other. We check-in a couple times a month and i even write daily check-ins to a few of them. How can it be a bad thing to remind ourselves daily where we want to be in our lives and careers, right?

We’ve been doing it for a while. It was a little rocky at first, none of us were feeling satisfied with the meetings. Then we lay some ground rules. Pretty basic stuff like: We have social time and goals time, the two don’t bleed into each other. (Heh, we even light a candle to remind ourselves we’re in focused goals mode.) When someone is reporting last month’s goals and working out next month’s, they get 100% of our focus. We support, cheerlead, offer suggestions and, most importantly, encourage each other to not be so damn hard on ourselves. It rules.

All of us have had some really rough months since January, the meetings have been one of the things pulling me through. And, yeah, they can get pretty emotional. Last night’s was the first in a while without someone crying.

Hell, why not have a themed party about how rockin’ the future is going to be? Last night J brought out some shmancy paper and we each made gaudy lists to hang off our computers.

Even though i take this stuff seriously, i can’t help but be irreverent about it too. My list needed a title that showed the dignity and power of the moment. So i went with:

Heh, anyway…

As i start on the novel again today, my list hanging off my monitor, i’m glad to be focusing what makes my life more full of awesome.

Take care,
G