Big Goals and an Invitation

I've been a fan of setting goals for many years.  My goals aren't always conventional, and more often than not, I utterly fail to meet my goals, but I've discovered that even when I fall short of a goal, I wind up accomplishing much more in the process than I would have if I'd set the goal lower.

For the past several Novembers, I've done National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), where participants are asked to write a 50,000 word rough draft of a novel in 30 days, all while (at least here in America) dealing with things such as Thanksgiving and early Christmas shopping.  Many people make the goal, but a far greater number don't.  Even those who don't make the 50,000 word goal, however, wind up writing more than they would have otherwise.

During the years I was an elementary school librarian, I had about half my students do NaNoWriMo, too, but with goals they set themselves.  Some of them would go for very simple, easy-to-achieve goals, while others would shoot for goals that, on the surface, bordered on the insane.  Some of the kids, I could tell by looking at them that there was no way they were going to make their goal.  Others, I thought, would try hard, fall short, but still put in a good effort.  Then there were some ... well, you could just tell by looking at them that when they told you they were going for a goal, they were going to make it, end of story. 

I've come to realize that meeting goals is great, but striving to meet them is far better.  It's in the effort we put forth that we come to realize who we really are.  We come to realize what matters to us, what makes us tick, and what we're really capable of if only we give ourselves the chance.  As we continue toward our goals, as success builds upon success, we come to believe ourselves capable of far more than we initially imagined. 

I say all of this as a prelude to next week.  I have a Big Goal I'm working on making, one that will start a week from Sunday and last a whole year.  That's right ... it's

THE YEAR OF INSANITY 2

For those of you who don't remember the Year of Insanity, it was a 12-month project wherein I tried to compose and average of four new pieces every month, or a total of 48 pieces over the course of a year.  I met that goal with about 2 weeks to spare.  One of the huge upshots to that goal was that I greatly increased the speed at which I compose, and I greatly increased the number of pieces I had accepted for publication.

The Year of Insanity 2 will be a similar sort of challenge, but with a few key differences.  I'll outline the whole plan next Wednesday, but in the meantime, if you have anything you've been wanting to accomplish creatively, I invite you to join me in my Year of Insanity.  Think about what you'd like to do, think about how much of it you can do in a year's time, and make the goal concrete.

I'll look for you all back here next week, and hopefully some of you will have your goals in hand and will be willing to share them with the world.