goals – Page 4 – Bucket List Journey

August 8, 2013August 2, 2013

What are you logging your 10,000 hours on?

I’m on vacation this week and taking a break from the internets. These are scheduled posts. Forgive me for not responding in the comments until next week.

I finally pulled out Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers last Saturday and made my way through the first half of it. It’s definitely not a new book, but I still keep hearing about it and so I decided to pick it up.

If you’re unfamiliar with the book, he talks at length about how (generally speaking) 10,000 hours of practice will bring you near to being a master in the area of practice.

Although the 10,000 hour rule is getting some negative press lately (see here, here, and here) the general idea is still helpful. Here’s why:

It gives us a minimum goal (ie: a lot of work) to help us aim for
Helps us see what we’re maybe wasting our time on
Reminds us of our youth

Let me explain. As I was reading the book, I couldn’t help but try to estimate how many hours I have spent writing.

1h, every day = 27.4 years
2h, every day = 13.6 years

Writing is obviously a hard one to gauge. I can write so much faster and more efficiently than I could as a teenager. I counted hours spent blogging (12 years, people!), an undergrad degree in arts (lots of essays), and three novels. It’s definitely not a perfectly accurate number, but I think it’s close to 5,000 hours over 12 years.

You’re logging hours

Most of us are 20somethings, which means that most of us still have time to work really hard at something and become good. Sure, it would be more like a second career, where our “prime” is in our 40s, but people! this is still good news! It means we can still do cool things. If you’re anything like me, you have probably wondered if you’re going to make something of yourself, like, ever. If you haven’t “made it” already, then is it even still possible?

So what are you logging your hours on? Video games? The gym? A bunch of things, but nothing really seriously? Consider picking that one thing. Start logging hours.

August 5, 2013August 2, 2013

Give up or Keep going?

I’m on vacation this week and taking a break from the internets. These are scheduled posts. Forgive me for not responding in the comments until next week.

I think about this question every time I make pastry. I am so bad it it. The process looks something like this:

This time will be different
See? It’s going well!
Ugh. Stop tearing and separating.
OK. Moment of truth. The part where I transfer it to the pie plate.
GOOD LORD, HAVE MERCY.

That last part, is where my blood starts to boil up, adrenaline shoots through my body. A string of rather vulgar swearwords come to mind and sometimes I even say them. Out loud. Because I’m just that angry at myself and the blasted pie crust that it just wont do what I want it to. Despite all the practice, I just can’t make it work. (Sure, I might be using non-traditional flours like spelt and gluten free stuff. Yes, that does make it harder. I have confirmed this as I watched my mother-in-law — the Patron Saint of Pretty Pies — struggle to make the spelt/gluten free crust work for her).

Penelope wishes she had quit:

“I was a figure skater growing up. I skated three days a week at 5am and most days after school as well. But I couldn’t do double-rotation jumps. I’m simply too large. I am tall and big-boned. I am too heavy to rotate in the air twice, even as a very skinny fifth-grader. I wish someone had told me to stop focusing on figure skating because it would never work for me. I wish someone had helped me find what I’d be great at.”

So how do I know whether in this case Practice-Makes-Perfect or Girlfriend,-Give-Up-and-Spend-Your-Time-on-Things-You’ll-Actually-Improve-On?

A Few Principles:

Is your ambition leading you to neglect valuable parts of your life? I haven’t gotten to the point where I have a singular focus on making pie crust. I am not neglecting my family or values so that I can get this frigging crust to submit. It is possible that this could happen in other areas of our lives. Certain goals require a huge time commitment. That’s not necessarily bad. But if it is negatively affecting things you really value, that might be your cue to quit.
Are you afraid of success? Do you want to quit because you’re afraid of the unknown associated with success? Your life might change a lot if you get published. What if you do become a hugely successful lawyer and speaker? What then? That can be scary.
Consider your commitment. Why did you say you would do this thing? Who did you commit to doing it with? What does breaking the commitment mean for you and them? If you have a physical injury that prevents you from continuing, that’s one thing. It’s another if you’re just being flaky.
Do you (like me) struggle to finish everything you start? Maybe you’ve never really figured out how to coach/motivate yourself into finishing something. You’re easily distracted and can always find something newer, trendier or more interesting (for a time) to focus on. This one is a big one I’m trying to learn.
Does the payoff of quitting outweigh the investment you’ve put in? You’ve put a lot of money and time into achieving your goal and you’re considering giving it all up. Sometimes it’s good to quit but we fall subject to commitment bias and think “I can’t quit now, look how much I’ve invested!” Sometimes we should give up anyways. Sometimes we should keep going. If you have invested a lot and still want to quit, consider why that is? (Is it fear of success? Reality sinking in that you just aren’t capable like you thought you were?)

I don’t think there’s an easy answer. I have thought my response was common sense, only to have people think I made the wrong choice. We don’t all want the exact same things from life, and we’re not all going to approach everything the same way.

How do you decide whether to quit or keep going?

June 13, 2013June 13, 2013

Update on my New Years’ Resolution to Read

So this morning it occurred to me, I don’t think I’ve read any books since the beginning of May. So I sat down to think about it. I was doing so well up until our regular routine was interrupted by leaving Montreal for the month of May. I managed to do tons of reading in April. Reading became easier and easier and as I picked books that interested me more and more, I was reading more and more. If you take a look at my Books in 2013 page, you’ll see that I went above and beyond my 2 books a month/a book every 2 weeks goal. I read 5 books in April!

Actually, now that I see the list again, I did read 2 books in May. It just didn’t feel like it because I read one book in one day and another book another day. They weren’t spread over a few weeks. Also they were both short novels, but that still counts as reading!

I need to get reading back on my list of things to do. I’ve been more into fiction lately which is a switch from almost everything I’ve read in the last year and a half.

I’m just a better person when I read. I’m nicer, happier, a better conversationalist. I’m all around better. Yet, sometimes, I still need to coach myself to make reading a priority, and this month that is what has to happen.

May 22, 2013

Your turn: What do you count as a goal completed?

I barely made it out for a run today. If it weren’t for the Get The File Out principle, there’s no way I would have gone. “I’ll just put my running clothes on” was how it started and it ended when I wanted to barf cause I was running too much!

As I was running and struggling to keep going (it was a hard run!) I wondered something about goal completion. I wanted to ask you because I’m pretty confident what my response is.

When you have a goal in mind, is it enough to complete the goal (say a 1/2 marathon, no matter what your time is) or do you need to complete the goal on your terms (it doesn’t matter if I completed my first 1/2 marathon unless I get in at the average time or better than average time)?

May 6, 2013May 5, 2013

“Keep Your Goals To Yourself”

“What are your goals for your summer?” a group of us were asked with regards to this summer. A coworker replied, “I’m not telling,” and shared this video. I wanted to share it with you for the sake of discussion.

While I see where he’s coming from (research and science do have sway, that’s for sure), I’m naive enough to believe that I’ve averted this problem by sharing extensively about the journey of getting to my goals. I can see how this is probably true for a lot of people, though.

What did you think? I’d love to hear if you agree, mostly agree, disagree and why. Share in the comments.

April 6, 2013April 2, 2013

Giving up before we start

Near the end of season four of How I Met Your Mother, Ted and Robyn have an honest conversation about his fears about starting his own architecture business. As I was watching this dialogue go down I knew I needed to blog about it: Ted says what so many of us haven’t been able to put into words about our dreams. I can’t seem to find a clip online so you’ll have to read the transcript.

Robin arrives home to find Ted looking extra-glum and staring off into space. She asks if he’s okay, and he says, “What if I don’t think of the books?” Robin says, “Excuse me?” Ted explains. “There’s this famous architecture story about an architect who designed this library. It was perfect. But every year, the whole thing would sink a couple inches into the ground. Eventually, the building was condemned. He forgot to account for the weight of the books. This company — it’s just me. What if I don’t think of the books?” Robin replies: “Okay, first of all, nobody goes to libraries anymore, so who cares about that guy? Secondly, you need to get on the phone and start calling clients.”

Ted explains, “The longer I put off starting my own firm, the longer it can remain a dream and not something I screwed up at. It’s like I’m giving up before I started.”

Robin laughs. “You want to talk about giving up? I used to describe my ideal guy as ‘funny, smart, passionate, challenging’, and now, apparently, I will settle for ‘in my apartment’. Didn’t you think you’d have it all more figured out by now?”

We do this, right? We sabotage our dreams by letting them stay dreams, rather than taking a step in their direction.

After this conversation with Robyn, Ted picks up the phone and makes his first try on a sales call. We learn quickly that he has actually just called Robyn’s cell phone and he was practicing his pitch on her. We laugh because he’s putting it off again except that he isn’t quite: it’s one step closer to making the real pitch.

What’s one step – even if seemingly insignificant – you can take towards your big dream, your exciting Bucket List goal? I’d love to hear about it here in the comments.