The power of writing it down

At this time of year I find myself thinking about the year ahead and what may come from it. It spreads out before me, an unknown, and I want to put some shape to it. By the end of it I want to be different in some way from what I am now, to feel that I am progressing in some way and not stagnating. I think about my desires, what I want to have and to do and I think a little of who I want to be.

Resolutions don't work for me; they smack of regimentation and discipline - of things that must be done, otherwise I fail, and when I don't achieve them I feel worse than if I hadn't made them at all. I don't do so well either with goals with schedules and deadlines - I feel pressured and overwhelmed by them. However it is easy for me to drift, to put off and then to feel bad for not getting things done, and now I am at an age (mid-fifties) where I feel I'm running out of time for drifting.

I stumbled across a way to get around this last year, and it is in The power of writing it down. A way to have goals without them becoming a burden. I had some main areas in my life that I wanted to improve, so I wrote them down in my journal, and then I didn't do an awful lot about them. I didn't draw up a schedule, or plan a list of actions with dates. I wrote them down and roughly every couple of months I would think Oh, I haven't done anything about those goals. Instead of revving myself into high gear with much anxiety and making myself generally a little crazy I would write them down again.

One of them was to be stronger and fitter so that I could be more active when I went on holiday with my family - I didn't want to be the one that had to be pushed from behind to get up the path off the beach because I wasn't strong enough to make it up by myself like I had been the previous year. ( I know, appalling isn't it?). So I wrote it down, and I thought that I would walk five times a week in the winter (too hot for me in the summer). Well I made it about five times in the whole of winter, and I thought how am I going to get fitter in time? Well spring came and I went on holiday, and to my surprise I got onto the beach and back up just fine and went for two half hour walks every day, which I had been completely incapable of the year before! So how does that work? I wrote it down and then I wrote it down again and again, and somehow without all the fussing and worrying and calling myself names, it happened.

So goals for me have become about writing it down and letting it unfold. It's a gentler and calmer way and it works for me - how? I don't know. It's a mystery - but it does. I love it and I'm doing it again this year.