Welcome, 2011!

From all the chatter on the Interwebs-Facebook thingy, it seems a lot of people are glad to see 2010 go bye-bye. In my family, it’s a mix. The Wild One would probably consider this the best year of her life; The Director, who felt a bit stalled this year–not so much. For me, I’m right in the middle–not all bad, not all good–but overall, I felt the past year was good for me, even if it didn’t always feel so good. I spent most of last year in the struggle to find my place and get established in a new land–a year of deep transition, with both great victories and great disappointments. (Let’s just say I wasn’t bored.) But as long as I see forward movement, I’m okay with it, even if the pace of that movement tests my patience. I look back, and I see I moved in the right direction. Definitely more than I can say for the last place I lived. So I’m good. 🙂
All of that said, part of this past year was an inner thing for me–a time when I felt outward hindrances were not so much an issue, so I was left to deal with the inward ones, the barriers in my own soul that stop me from being who I am meant to be. Part of that soul-searching has included a painful realization that I make an awful lot of excuses for the things I still dream of doing that I haven’t done. All those dreams stay safely tucked into the future as long as I can say, “Someday soon” without making definite plans. I think I get subtly afraid of those dreams, because once I start bringing them closer to the present, I become somehow responsible for their success or failure. I can’t conveniently blame everything else for why they aren’t being fulfilled. 🙂 It’s always a risk. On one hand, I seem to be fully capable of taking risks (moving to Denver was a doozy, for example), but when it comes to your personal dreams, there’s more emotion and even identity tied to it. A bit harder to make the leap. But leap I must.
One reason The Wild One had such a good year is that she had a life coach who made her set goals and kept her accountable for her progress. She didn’t reach all her goals, but certainly made more progress than she would have done otherwise. Life coaching isn’t cheap, and we can’t all afford it (in fact, the life coach actually bartered with The Wild One for her services, which made it a real blessing). But the principles are applicable, and we’re all trying to learn from them. The Director has already set some very reachable goals for this year, which I think has already lifted his spirits a bit. And now it’s my turn.
So all that rambling on to say that this week, I’m going to be doing two very specific things: Setting goals and creating focus. What those very yuppie-like words mean is that I’m going to try to boil down my desires into some very tangible goals, share them with my family (and possibly some other trusted individuals), and let myself be accountable. I find that I move forward much more purposefully when I have a tangible goal to reach. The other thing I need to do is create focus, particularly with my time. For the first time in many years, I feel I have more to do than time in which to do it. If I’m going to make any progress toward those goals, I’m going to have to practice some time management. That means setting some time frames dedicated to doing certain things, which I will coordinate and synchronize with The Wild One’s also-full schedule. (Thank you, Google Calendar.)
I don’t know yet how much detail I’ll be sharing here about the goals I’m setting (no offense, but I don’t know most of you)–but for now, I can say that my desires and dreams center around two basic things: music and mission (with some overlapping between the two). And since I’ve gone to the trouble of telling you that I’m going to be setting goals and creating focus, I’ll report back here next week and let you know (just in case you’re interested) how I did. (How’s that for accountability?) 🙂
2010 is in the can. 2011 is here. What are we going to do this year to make the most of it?

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Musician. Composer. Recovering perfectionist. Minister-in-transition. Lover of puns. Hijacker of rock song references. Questioner of the status quo. I'm not really a rebel. Just a sincere Christ-follower with a thirst for significance that gets me into trouble. My quest has taken me over the fence of institutional Christianity. Here are some of my random thoughts along the way. Read along, join in the conversation. Just be nice.