Every fall
our school staff members set professional goals, and I usually come up with
five or more projects on my list that I absolutely must do, regardless of
whether or not I will have time in my schedule to work on them. The past two years as I’ve met with the
assistant principal in October, she has reviewed my list and said, “Too many
goals. Pick three.” So I pick three.
At first, I
am stunned that the other items may not be done and may have to wait until next
year.
Unthinkable! But then I am
relieved. It is so nice to have someone
force me to have a schedule with room to breathe! And as a bonus, having well-defined, do-able goals
makes it easy to prepare my required professional goal “reflections” six months
later in the spring.
I have been
carrying this over into my personal life, too, and what a life-changing
experience. Spurred on by Gordon
MacDonald in his 1985 book Ordering Your
Private World, slowly but surely I am able to realistically assess my available time and energy, review my plans
and commitments, and define my spiritual priorities. I can’t describe how much this one huge
revelation is affecting all the other facets of my life, and I am convinced it
is an answer to years of prayer. My
inner slave driver is less demanding and I am much calmer these days!
So here are
my simple writing goals for 2016:
#1. Pray for direction on my own blog. Just pray.
Until I get direction.
#2. Spruce up 5 finished pieces and find homes
for them.
#3. (The hardest one) Listen to what is deep down
in my heart, and write about that. I
usually listen to my head, instead of my heart, but because I am an artist—a
word artist, and a
creative child of our creative God—I believe I have deeper things inside to
share with the world, which are unique and valuable. It’s my responsibility to discover what they
are and I’m thinking of using free writing as one way to help do that. (Do you
have any thoughts or suggestions?)
With these
goals, I eagerly await finding out what this writing year has in store!
Posted by
Ramona
Photo
courtesy of stevepb at pixabay
