It’s part two. Tony’s crazy excited about his cruise, so he won’t shut up about that. Trish tries on a lot of new clothes — LIVE — and then William is very William-ish. Also, help in goal setting. Enjoy!
(Note. Trish came up with a title for this, but I can’t remember, and am too lazy to look it up. But it involved her butt, so there ya go.)
QUESTIONS:
Would you rather have completely white/grey hair or be bald? –Anonymous
What is the best (or best type) of New Year’s resolution to make? –Beth
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I think I maybe didn’t mess it up…
Hmm, that was an interesting discussion about the failure to choose, and I think you guys are right about the whole identity thing.
There’s something else though that I think has to do with William not being that into fiction.
Wow, yeah that one strike thing on resolutions (or any strikes) is such a mind set problem. I’ve definitely struggled with it and I see other folks failing because of that–oops failed today so that’s the end of that.
You know one reason why the whole thing about resolutions or goals is hard is the way people measure themselves against some imaginary norm. I was reminded of something I was reading about depression that was saying that there’s a vicious cycle when someone who is depressed thinks they have to get up, get out of bed, and get on with their life. Instead the person needs to think of something more like, sit up and sit on the edge of the bed for 5 minutes–or whatever can be accomplished.
I think you’re right that incremental goals are far more likely to be achieved. However, it can be hard to turn that into a clear “achievement.” I agree with Tony, that one is better off to start with 3 10 minute walks a week and when that becomes habit, add a fourth day, or increase to 12 minutes per walk. But unless that in itself is your goal, it’s hard to know if you’ve achieved it (and if that IS your goal and you miss a day, then you’ve failed).
William, as for your analogy for writing a book, I am working on my oft resolved, though not yet achieved, dissertation. Last April, I came up with a “payment” system in which I pay myself $1 for every 15 minutes of dissertation work (bonus to $5 if I work for a whole hour). The payment itself wasn’t as motivating as the disincentive: for every day I don’t work on my dissertation for at least 15 minutes, I have to pay my husband’s retirement account $5. This was a good choice because he helped to keep me accountable, and although the money was going to a cause I wanted to be funded, it was not a cause that I wanted to spend “my” money on. I’m pleased to report that in the past 11 months, I’ve only had to pay $15 – and I can tell you exactly what happened each of those 3 days that resulted in my not managing to write my dissertation. I can clearly see that the disincentive is working beautifully, although the incentive isn’t quite as perfect. In the past 315 days (I took most of my European vacation off), I’ve “earned” only $452. Not quite the hour a day I was striving for. So, have I been a success? Or am I a failure?
This hits on an interesting point. I think people also focus on the “end” of goals too much.
My health and fitness goal, as I’ve said before, is “Don’t die. For as long as possible.” I’m working on it. It’ll never be done. But I’m doing things to improve it all the time. My satisfaction with my work varies… I have bad days and good days, bad weeks and good weeks. But I’m forming habits, I’m moving forward.
In your case, your real “goal” is to write your dissertation. And you are doing it. Now, are you doing it fast enough? Probably not as fast as you’d wish, but you are moving in the write direction. Only you can judge the pace. If you think it’s too slow, maybe adjust your incentive system somehow.
Have you failed? Not if you’re still moving forward? Have you succeeded? Probably not until you’re done with it. Remember, your systems of “an hour a day” or whatever aren’t the real goal. They’re the tool. You can’t fail a tool. You use it. If it’s not the right tool, you find another.
Yep… that’s pretty-much what I was going to say. 🙂
Our culture focuses too much on the concepts of “success” and “failure”, and then inevitably defines those concepts in impossibly narrow ways. It’s easy to get bogged down by all of it. I certainly struggle with it daily.
But then I remember… well, the stuff Tony just said. 🙂
For me it often comes down to two things: determining if the thing is even something I really want to do, and, if so, resolving not to quit doing it. If it turns out I don’t even really want to do it… well, then stopping is a success, not a failure. And it could be that it used to be something I really wanted to do. But times change and I change and it’s perfectly valid for me to no longer be interested in the thing, especially if I can see I’m now more interested in something else. Or, if it turns out I really do want to do the thing, then I only fail if I quit. Doing it really slowly or doing it not quite as well as I’d hoped… that’s not failing. Though if the progress is slow or poor quality because I don’t really want to do it, then, again, success would be to find something to do that I’m more interested in doing. In the end, I try to sidestep any notion that there’s some objective measure of what success or failure is in relation to what I’m doing. There’s really just what I’m doing and whether or not I still want to keep doing it.
Given something you really want to do, though, the difference between the people who achieve what they’re after and those who don’t is often simply perseverance. It’s not the time it takes you to finish the marathon or the pace or grace of your stride. Just finishing is the thing.
I’m in agreement with both of the above. 🙂
I’ll just add as my 2 cents, what I found helpful in that whole dissertation experience. It was really difficult to do other things at the same time for me, so it helped to set aside time when the dissertation was the priority, and that was really my only goal–not number of pages, or books read, or anything, just X amount of time/day (or week or whatever makes sense) is dissertation time. Sometimes what this meant was that I lay on my back for 30 minutes or an hour and stared at the ceiling, and told myself the ideas were cooking away there somewhere in my unconscious.
I also found it was a good idea to have that time set aside because I was really not good at communicating with other human beings in the middle of working through some idea. I think people might have tried speaking to me only to get a delayed response of …ahhh. what? Were you saying something?
I see you didn’t subcome to the Producer’s request to title this episode “I Guess That’s Not Where My Crack Is”. Though to be fair the title you chose is perhaps more succinct and evocative.
WOOO, FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!
Life Force/All The Good People: Wow, does that make me one of the Good People? If so that’d be a first. :p
High School Reunions: I’ve never gone to one and have no intention of doing so. Are there people that I’d like to know how they’re doing these days? Sure, but not enough to go back. The very few people that I was good friends with back during my high school years, I have friended on Facebook and can keep up with them that way. Though to be honest we’re not as close now as we were back then. My family moved after my freshman year of high school. My first high school was larger (graduating class would’ve been ~600). William’s description of Melcher Dallas reminds me of my second high school (graduating class of ~120, most kids had lived their entire lives in the same small town). That was FUN to move into.
Hair: Grey/White, never been a fan of baldness.
Best/best type of New Year Resolutions: One that you don’t mind not keeping?