Does Goal Setting Work?



Becoming a Writer

 It’s time again for the New Year’s Resolutions, so I thought I’d look at last year’s blog post where I made a mighty list of (unlucky?) thirteen resolutions! How did the year pan out?


1) Set Realistic Goals. I broke this resolution already when I made a list of 13 goals! I began this blog by writing that our mission was to be boaters, travellers, writers and parents, but I didn’t know if it was realistic to be all of those things, as well as a medical secretary, a hypnotherapist, a home-maker and a wife. In 2011 we were boaters, travellers, writers and parents, but I dropped the hypnotherapist and medical secretary parts of my life. I’m quite pleased with that!

2) Enjoy my children, every day. Spend quality time together. Life is short. I think I do this, but I still need to be reminded of it.

3) Put some TLC into my marriage; recognise thoughtfulness, make time for each other, listen, and focus on the positives. I did do this and we are in a much better place than we were last year. We happily enjoyed our five year wedding anniversary on 11/11/11.

4) Get a bigger home, more storage space, a washing machine. I’m really pleased about achieving this one. Our gorgeous new boat is my dream home, and it has a washing machine.

5) Sell a freelance article. I’ve had articles published, but this year I am going to be paid for writing something! I have bought a book about it. Ok so I didn’t read the book, but I have been published in Towpath Talk and Waterways World, with more writing work coming up! A dream come true. And I’ve set up my freelance website http://peggymelmoth.wordpress.com/writing/

6) Finish writing one of the three books I’ve started writing. Now I can’t remember what one of these books was! But the other two are still unfinished. But I am really going to finish the Narrowboat Wife book soon. And I did write an ebook, Narrowboat Families.

7) Keep on top of the housework/ boat chores. Not so good at this. But what mother of two pre-school kids has a pristine home? I’m better at not giving myself a hard time over this.

8) Settle in a community. Get some neighbours and a local pub. I’m happily enjoying our new winter mooring at The Grand Junction Arms and we’ve got to know a few local boaters, and even some house people!

9) Exercise – swimming or yoga? I failed miserably on finding the time for this. But now that we don’t live in London I walk a lot more – there’s not even a bus route to the Grand Junction Arms. I’m in The Countryside without a driving licence. I walk up hills pushing a heavy pushchair with two children in it; that’s got to count for something! I also pull mooring ropes and push lock gate balance beams.

10) Be more calm and confident – use self-hypnosis more often! I did not manage this one. I hardly listened to my lovely, relaxing self-hypnosis mp3 and have been waaay too anxious this year. But it did lead to some great creative writing about my imaginary friend Mick Jagger.

11) Promote my blog. I did pretty well at this and now have about 2000 page views a month. I’m not promoting it any more though – no time! And I’ve had about 24,000 page views in total. Amazin! Although I heard on BritMums that it’s not cool to count.

12) Get a job related to writing. So, I’m doing a bit of feature writing and a bit of business blogging and I’m really enjoying it. I’m also doing some medical audio-transcription, being a virtual assistant and starting a temp job as a part time library assistant. I know I sound busy but I do actually need more clients. Please visit my website to see how I can help your business.

13) Long term goal – make writing my career. I have definitely made some good steps towards this.

Overall Score: 7/13

I’m really happy with that, and quite surprised! But I heard it’s not cool to count.

Next week: The Best Goal is No Goal