Some Thoughts on Motivation

Lately I've been shamefully neglecting my blogging goals. Which was basically to blog all the time. Have to say though that I blog when I'm creating and excited to share what I've been working on or I blog as a way to explore ideas through writing. Neither of which motivations have been happening the last week. I hit the deadlines I'd been working towards and kind of just stopped everything. I did that thing that we did in college after exams. You know push and push and push and then CRASH!!!

I would feel horribly guilty about it, knowing the next deadline IS just around the corner, BUT I think I needed the time to seperate. Get back to life a little and relate to the other people who live in my house (husband and son).

A couple nights ago I had a friend staying with me and we got to talking about goals. How important are they? Do they just set you up for feeling badly when you can't meet them? There are the specific goals- like blog 3-4 days a week. And there are the unspecific goals like treat my self well. Then there are the really big too far a way to be sure of goals like "take art classes in Italy and paint in Provence". These are great dreams but as goals.... Yeah I'd like to work towards them but I'm fonder of my more specific and immediate "to do" lists. They make me feel good. I'm rather shameless when I make them too. When I sit down in the morning at breakfast and make it I put down things like, "take a shower, make breakfast, write to do list..." Then I can cross some things off right away and I feel like I'm off to a great start.

Although I argued for setting some mid term goals as well. When I started to play around with the wire and fabric I set a few goals. My first was to let myself learn without constantly critiquing my work. Another was to submit to a magazine within the next year. One was permission to play and the other was a challenge to work towards. I completely committed to both. For maybe the first time in my life I was determined to try for something real. Hard to kid yourself with the "someday" I'll make a difference in my life when you have a concrete timed deadline you've set for yourself. Hopefully, this makes sense to you all. I admit I'm trying to work through my thoughts on all of this myself. I've been trying to identify what was different about this time. I've tried things before but never gotten as far as this. Usually I'm a get excited and try, hit resistance, fear failure, and retreat sort of girl. But something has changed. Maybe it's a sense that the impossible is possible. Maybe it's a willingness to be gentle with myself. Maybe it's my newly found sense of discipline. I don't know. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks!