I have goals for 2017.
Not New Year’s resolutions. Goals.
I feel as if I have to delineate between the two this time around, mainly because I can’t think of a single New Year’s resolution I’ve ever kept before. Here’s a short list of my failures:
Bake or cook a real meal once a month… despite how salads, smoothies and Hot Pockets are so much more convenient
Write in my prayer journal once a month… even though I hate journaling
Paint my nails once a month… no matter how much time one has to set aside for said paint to dry properly.
Obviously, the reason why I failed at all those goals is because they were crazy unrealistic. I mean, who has time for that stuff that often?
(Any perfectionist first children out there, I don’t want to hear a single peep out of you.)
Then again, aren’t most New Year’s resolutions a little lofty? Or perhaps it’s our expectations behind those resolutions that make them unobtainable: the pressure we put on ourselves for a whole entire year to go as planned when we’re not even necessarily capable of predicting the next hour.
That’s why I’m not betting on anything for 2017. I’m just going to work as hard as I can to make the following happen:
Quit my job at the end of January
Turn my Innovative Editing side job into a thriving and sustainable business.
Find and utilize the marketing tools necessary to properly publicize my books.
Edit, polish and publish Faerietales book 5: Flights of Fancy.
Finish writing Founding America book 3: Proving America, edit it and publish it.
Start Way Back Home book 1: When Dignity Was a Crime.
Where 2017 will take me, I have no clue. I hope it involves me continuing to write my own books and help others write theirs, with smashing success all around.
But without the benefit of foresight, I’ll just have to work as hard as I can toward my goals with no expectations set and no bets made… just a whole lot of hope for a really great year.