be part of a 43T Success Team

When I first wrote about the goal I wanted to work toward, I wrote this : My ultimate dream is actually getting to a point, financially and otherwise, where I could entertain all of my interests without any of them taking up 8 or more hours of my day. But then I hemmed and hawed, and thought about how that would mean changing careers or jobs or something. So I decided to make fitness my goal.

Well, that turned out to be a lie. The fitness goal, I mean. It wasn’t intentional. It just happened that I read the book by B. Sher, and had some ideas, and tried them out… And realized that a “school life model”, where I schedule my interests/activities/hobbies into regular time slots, works for me very well. I get to entertain (most of) my interests, and although my job is still taking up a lot of my time, I use down time to write (my progress on NoHuWriMo is almost entirely due to lunch-break writing), to do research and to brainstorm ideas for my personal projects. I feel much better knowing that all of my interests will “get a chance”, next week at the latest, when it’s their turn again. Or in a month or 6, thanks to a long-term schedule (actually it’s just a list of things I want to try, in case any non-Virgos are reading this in horror). So in a way, I have found a way to my dream goal.

Considering this goal, how does it fit into a “Success Team”? I’m not quite sure just yet. I might try some formal tracking and report to the team about my progress. But it seems to work better without any tracking. OTOH, if it weren’t for the public reporting, I’d never gotten as far as I have with NoHuWriMo. (Thanks, Calypte!)

Ah well, I’ll post any insights if/when I have them. :)

Reading some of Calypte’s entries reminded me that I have a copy of B. Sher’s book “Refuse to Choose”. It’s written for Scanners, people who mostly love the experience of learning and discovering, not the actual things they’re learning about, so they end up with a gazillion different interests and projects that they seemingly can’t ever finish. Googling will probably give you a better summary of the book, but that’s my short intro. :)

Anyway, this is the quote I wanted to share with you:

Start small, start now

So the moral is: Start small… but start now. Move back to the first steps, contact a buddy or set up a team, and start taking your first, small steps. That’s the hardest part. Once you become unstuck, no matter how slowly you move at first, the hard part is over. With the support and accountability you’ll get from a buddy or a team, you’ll be able to take bigger actions: Make a call, show up at a meeting, write a letter, even make a speech. Once you get into motion, everything changes.

Wait, who’s on the team here? I only see Calypte, Todd and Abs as my team members. :?

PS. It’s because if we’re all on the team together, we’re getting email notifications for each other’s posts and it’s easier to check who’s doing what and who needs a little help and support. :)