Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Temper Tantrum Tuesday: Aiming higher


It’s a weird thing actually hitting all my goals for the year. I think the secret is to be so far down that any movement is an improvement.

I started 2009 in a pretty rough shape, my only income was $55 a week from giving blood minus the $10 the trip took. Creditors had raided my bank account wiping what little money I had, and at interviews I was asked why a former Securities Broker/ Insurance Agent would want the job they were offering and they weren’t impressed with the answer, “I need to eat.”

The place that I had been turning to for both emotional support and to post some of my writing was a site called thisisby.us TIBU and it shut down, and no agent would look at my book.

With a start like that it was pretty easy to set some goals to reach in 2009.

1) Survive – Done I’m still here.
2) Write another book – Wrote 2 so I blew that goal out of the water.
3) Get a job that pays the bills – My current job pays the bills even if I don’t have anything left to play with, and I found out that working 40 hours a week doesn’t have to leave me mentally exhausted. Without being mentally exhausted I can spend 30 to 40 hours a week writing.
4) Get some short stories published – Done
5) Not become a crazy cat person – This has been the hardest of my goals, every time I go outside and see the evil minions I want to bring them inside and take care of them, but I know I can’t. I make sure that I feed them less than their daily requirement so they still need to hunt and give them places to rest that marginally better than sleeping outside, but I make sure they don’t get totally dependant on me.
6) Get bill collectors to stop calling – I tape my calls with them so if they dare to sue me I can play tapes of them saying things like “No, we don’t honor our agreements” and “Yes, I was lying before”. It’s amazing how few of them want to talk to me knowing their ridiculous lies will be recorded. I also get a chuckle listening to one of them saying he will call the people across the street and let them know a debt collector is calling, I live across from a cemetery.
7) Start a blog and get over 100 hits a day (more than any other website I’ve had) – Done, since joining Entrecard my hits are nearly always in the triple digits, and more importantly I’ve got a steady 35 to 40 people that check on this site regularly. It’s you guys that keep coming back that make this blog worthwhile. Just know that if you leave a comment it makes my day, if you don’t that’s cool too.
8) Lose the last lingering 5 lbs – I guess this was a sort of hit goal, I lost the 5 lbs I wanted to lose, plus 10 I didn’t, in February, when I didn’t have the money to eat properly. Once I had the money to eat regular meals I gained back that 15 pounds and plus 5 so I’ll have to be more specific for 2010.
9) Get my book published – “Invasive Thoughts” comes out this summer.
10) Be happy – Even though I’m making a tenth of what I made 3 years ago I’m much happier now. I feel the end of 2008 beginning of 2009 threw enough crap at me to knock anyone down and I survived, barely. I just have to remember how bad the beginning of 2009 was and how much better a place I’m in now.


So my Temper Tantrum today is that I didn’t set my goals high enough last year, and I need to up the ante for 2010. I’ll post those goals before the end of the year.

7 comments:

Stephanie Barr said...

Given where you were last year, I think your goals were damn ambitious. Kudos to you for pulling them off.

Okay, now I really DO need to talk to you about marketing short stories.

I've managed to pull of writing goals, but not marketing.

Unknown said...

Great to hear you're in a better place now, it's been a struggle for all of us these past couple years, you're not alone. Have a wonderful new year!

Darrell B. Nelson said...

Thanks for the support.
It really does help.

Doctor Blackjack Faustroll said...

I am reminded of my old pal Jim Bob Browning who used to say: "Little Faustroll, you know a man's goals should exceed his grasp else what the hell is all this liquor good for?"

I subscribe to the Earl Butz school of goal setting and careering which I have yet to match. Check out wikipedia for a summary of Butzian highlights.

Good luck in 2010. Death Valley Days. Straight ahead.

Unknown said...

Project,
You are doing a bang up job on your site. Congrats on your book!!!
Also overcoming the crazy cat person may be a bit hard, but it is not a bad lunacy to have.
Grant

Unknown said...

One other thing I wanted to mention is that your work is consistently the among the most popular on my own site.
So not only are you getting some fantastic response at your own site, but your talent is being enjoyed over at Bodhi Thunder by lots and lots of people.
So good luck and good writing in 2010. I really appreciate your talent, not to mention your allowing me to post it.
Grant

Darrell B. Nelson said...

I'm glad people at Bodhi Thunder like my posts because I've got a little project in mind for 2010 that should get people worked up.