A new year is upon us. What will your goals be? Will you write them down and commit to them? I set several goals in a few areas including the typical to eat healthier and exercise more. I wrote them down which increases the likelihood that I will be successful. Now let’s get to my organ related goals.
Back in March 2012 I announced my goal to practice 10 hours a week. I have not yet come close to 10 hours in a week. Since mid October 2012 I have been recording a few notes, the date, day of week, and amount of time spent practicing in Evernote. Upon review, I have only been practicing 3 or 4 days a week. I had intended to practice at my church on the way to work but discovered that I am afraid to go there in the dark.
I learned from Jon Acuff that we will accomplish more if we schedule time to work on our goals. Writing out a schedule feels scary. Then I will be committed and can be held accountable. I am afraid of not sticking to the schedule. Should I let fear stand in my way? Should I let fear convince me that I should not try it because I am going to fail? What if I did it? What if each Sunday I wrote on a calendar practice times for the week? Even if some weeks I could not stick to it I’m sure my overall practice time would increase which is the ultimate goal.
Scheduling practice times could change my life!
Heidi Bender writes about her experiences of learning to play the organ. She started on the adventure in 2009.
She also writes on her website Tons of Thanks, which helps people write thank-you notes. Heidi is also a cat lady who writes at The Joy of Cats.
I find that if a schedule is not made with committment then some things just get done. Don’t give up when practice time is missed. Tomorrow is a new day.Look ahaed not back. See what can be done for that day. what if’s only if… don’t count. Mom
Heidi,
One of the things that I do is that I teach Franklin Covey’s time management course every once in a while so I am into goal setting and planning in a large way. I think you get a lot of benefit to think about each of your roles that you have such as a father, friend, spouse or whatever and ask yourself what you want to do achieve within those roles in a certain time period. Once you do that you work on those dreams and put together a plan of how you can make it happen… the steps required. After that you can on a weekly basis take some of those steps from your different plans and work on them. I firmly believe that you achieve great things by working a little on them on a consistent basis. The effort is in the discipline to plan, to schedule, and then to work your schedule.
I think I am going to try the 30 challenge idea I got from one of your earlier post. I am doing 4 bottles of water a day for January.
Mark – just saw this comment today!
how is your water challenge going?
I have been able to do 6 most days with a couple of 5 and 7 bottle days. Thanks for asking
You can not fail unless you try. You also cannot succeed if you don’t let failure play the game too. Failure is nothing to be ashamed of. I would be more concerned that I did not stick my neck out to see what would be possible if I did. Dare to Fail!!
Daring to fail is the scary part! I will do it and see what happens. I have a calendar coming that will help with this.