Making plans... Setting Goals

 As Friday's post about last week might have made obvious, my default setting is 'do all the things', or at least, 'do enough things to keep your brain and creativity and body and sense of self happy - and then cram in all the practical life-admin stuff where you can'... Sustainable as this may have (not) been before Pumpkin arrived, the sheer fact of having to have fed and dressed and changed and played with a small person (and not, therefore, being able to lock yourself in a room and sew for 12 hours straight in order to meet a deadline, or stay at the office until 7 because it's then quiet and you can get the work done) has forced a re-evaluation of priorities, and in the process, a number of my habits have been exposed as... less than ideal.

So, after a long walk on the hills, and some honest conversation with a good friend, we came up with a plan: given that I want to achieve things, and need to keep various elements in regular play to keep myself in balance; I should stop trying to make progress on all fronts at all times. 

It may not seem like much, but that's a revolutionary thought in my world. Simply declare that something is not a priority at the moment? How? By having a record of what my global 'areas' of activity are, recognising that some (household, family) are key and recurring priorities, and that to use my time effectively, the focus for the rest of my time should be in one or two of them.

From that starting point, we identified writing and yoga as two focuses for November: so, I'm writing a blog post every weekday in solidarity with those embarking on #NaNoWriMo but without the time or mental preparedness to be creating anything so continuous as a novel, and I'm working my way through Home from Yoga with Adriene again.

The goal of this process is to know where my energy should be being put, not to devote all my energy to those things - to know that if I'm having a rubbish day, or Pumpkin is refusing to sleep, or I'm just tired, the only things I need to do to feel that I am 'achieving' are to draft a blog post, and to complete a yoga session. So far, this has felt surprisingly freeing - the mental list of many things I'm not making progress with has disappeared in favour of this list of two. And when those are done, any progress I make on other projects becomes a bonus, not expected behaviour.

I need to start planning my months and goals ahead - December will be I think mostly crafting and music, so that I can ensure Christmas crafting is complete, and bring some carols at the piano to the restricted festivities ahead. That pushes running, which I want to get back in, to January, which lets me ask for bits of kit for Christmas, and means I'm working towards lighter days, even if only by tiny increments... and perhaps I pair that with some coding / career progression consideration? Who knows. Time will tell, and the challenge of changing gears while keeping elements of what has worked is one I've not yet established how to grapple with.

One final note: his only works if there's also a space to say 'not today' - yesterday, Pumpkin woke up as I hit publish on the blog post about quilting, and refused to go back to his own bed until midnight. So no yoga was undertaken. Yes, that means I'm behind; no, I'm not letting that be a sign I should give up on the whole endeavour (as I may have done in the past). Failure is an option, and recognising my limits is not failing... or so I'm retraining myself to realise.