{"id":124,"date":"2021-03-31T00:50:31","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T00:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/?p=124"},"modified":"2021-03-31T00:50:31","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T00:50:31","slug":"not-dreams-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/2021\/03\/31\/not-dreams-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Not dreams. GOALS."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It\u2019s easy to say, \u201cI want to do that.\u201d Follow through can be hard, though. Adversities pop up and remind me I can\u2019t pull off all the things I want. Adversities like work, family, health, and time. There\u2019s plenty of stuff I want<\/em> to do. I want to learn how to play the drums. I want to go to Bora Bora, and travel the Blue Danube to look at old castles on craggy cliffs. I want to learn to paint, and how to make stained glass, and I want to know more than a handful of phrases in German. And I want to write. Above all else, I want to write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m lucky that I know the thing I want more than anything else, but even I had to make tough choices. I can learn to write, or I can learn to paint. Not both. Not right now. I can\u2019t give the right attention to drum lessons when there\u2019s writing to do. Travel can\u2019t compete. Nothing can. Not when one of the options is writing. So, I\u2019ve chosen. I\u2019ve chosen to stop calling my heart\u2019s desire a dream, and start calling it a goal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know myself. There are requirements to keeping me engaged, even in my own interests. One requirement is plenty of projects that aren\u2019t necessarily writing, but support my effort. I need <\/em>to be updating the website and revising the newsletter and posting on Facebook and keeping up with industry news and researching scientific details. My brain despises being fed tasks one at a time and loves to plan and prioritize. Which is the next requirement. I like lists, I like plans, and I like calendars. Requirement three goes on that calendar, and it\u2019s a long-term commitment of some kind. A story deadline. A contest entry deadline. Anything that keeps my eye on the horizon instead of my bellybutton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The long-term commitment on my calendar now is the SuperStars Writing Conference being held in Colorado Springs next February. I\u2019ve already registered and booked my hotel, so it\u2019s definitely happening. I couldn\u2019t be more excited or pleased with myself. I researched conferences, found one that meets my needs and looks like fun, and I\u2019m doing it. My eye is set on 2022, and I have a lot to do to prepare. If things go the way I want, I\u2019ll find my next exciting long-term goal while I\u2019m there. <\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s easy to say, \u201cI want to do that.\u201d Follow through can be hard, though. Adversities pop up and remind me I can\u2019t pull…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":129,"href":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gator3153.temp.domains\/~julienes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}