Power of One, week 2: more goals

This week's project is once again all about goals:

We’ve asked you during the beginning of the challenge to sort of outline your goals for the challenge, but here, we want you to really sit down and outline your goals in life, for the short-term and long-term and make a sort of blue print for how you want this year to go and beyond.

I'm bad with goals. I mean, there are plenty of things I'd like to do (or, more often, to have done), but picking ones to pursue is always the stickler. I want to fill up this one particular sketchbook, for example, but I also want to finish reading this book and publish that comic book and try out this new hobby and run that race. Picking a day and declaring it to be, say, Sketchbook Day has no effect on my actions. After spending the day at work doing the things I'm supposed to do, when I get home I just want to follow my whims, not assign more tasks on myself. When I give myself hard deadlines, I inevitably fail and use that as another excuse to feel sorry for myself. In fact, 2011 was the first year in several that I did not make a general list of resolutions, mostly because I looked at my 2010 list in late November and found I didn't care if I met them or not. So why make goals if I'm only going to end up either apathetic or depressed?

I know I'm being all wishy-washy about this (my husband calls me Wembley), but I've spent years honing my ability to not get my hopes up about anything, including myself. It's a useful skill for avoiding disappointment. I try to live in the moment. But I guess I'll give this whole goal thing a shot.

1. Get my to-be-read pile down to a manageable number. Like, under 50. Ideally, I'd like to get it down to under ten so I feel a bit more free about adding to it, but - baby steps. All I can do for this is to read, read, read - and learn to say no more often when people offer me books.
   
2. Finish and publish the S&R Comic. It's dumb that this isn't done, since it's all written and storyboarded. I just need to sit down and finish drawing it. The biggest part of this is thinking about it more often, so when I find myself with the time and inclination to draw, the comic is at the forefront of my mind. Often I just kinda forget it exists, y'know?
   
3. Get my weight down to something a little more reasonable, such that my doctor doesn't shake her head when I go in for my annual physical. Right now I'm doing fairly well with keeping track of my food victories (far more effective than having to report everything I eat) and going to the gym. I think blogging about it is really helping. I thought a personal journal would be good, but (1) I type faster than I write, and (2) I can do this from anywhere, not just at home. Also, since it's public, it keeps me a little more honest. Sure, I don't know of anyone who's actually reading it, but there may come a day.
   
4. Finish snarfing the rest of my home county. I have almost a hundred markers to go (out of almost 450), most of which are closer to DC where it really sucks to drive. I just need to make some more snarf maps and actually use them rather than wandering out in the opposite direction (where it's quieter and has better scenery).

Anyway, I guess that's all for now. I don't have a calendar with a schedule all mapped out: like I said before, I don't do so well with that kind of structure. If it starts feeling too much like work, I start resisting. And the point of this is to accomplish things I want to accomplish, right? So we'll start with this. It's certainly far more detailed than I've ever done before. Will it all end in cheers or tears? Only time will tell.

Speaking of disappointment, I'm also trying not to take it too personally that @shrinkingjeans stopped following me on Twitter. I'd been enjoying the support in the form of @replies. Oh well; I guess I was too chatty.