Goals that conflict with each other
For most of my adult life I have had two major goals: 1, get down to and maintain a healthy weight and 2, become a print-published novelist.
You wouldn’t think that these two goals clashed with each other. One requires a healthy diet and exercise, the other, writing and submitting manuscripts. How on earth do they conflict?
They do.
It took me a long time to discover this, and a little longer to decide if it was just a silly excuse for my lack of progress on either front. It seemed like I would make headway on one goal and completely stop at the other. Working towards both these goals simultaneously is a challenge.
When you add in the rest of my life, which is happily crowded full of two kids, a husband, a dog, a house to run, friends, interests, a full-time job, a love of tv and a tendency to waste time on the internet writing self-reflection blogs, you can see how I’ve set myself up for problems.
I can’t plan for one goal in isolation, and I can’t just expect time, motivation and energy to just come out of nowhere. I have to make a life plan that incorporates both aspirations in a realistic way, anticipating many obstacles, both expected and unexpected. I have to use all the tools and techniques I have learned together in concert, not one at a time.
It would be so much easier to throw my hands up in the air and say it’s too hard, to give up on both and just continue along, obese and unaccomplished, but I can’t, not for more than a few weeks. Then I see myself standing sideways in a mirror or skim a horribly written book that somehow got published, and I need to try again.
Am I the only one who struggles with this kind of stuff?
I guess there is a reason some great authors (female of course) didn’t really get going till later in life, once they were empty nesters. Even the men – thinking of my friend Phil Craig who didn’t get published till after he retired. What his wife considers his best work, which he wrote while still a college professor, is still only in manuscript since he never had time to polish it up. Hang in there!
Gah. Well, you could always give us your children one day (or weekend) and then spend half of it exercising and half writing. Not very often, but it’s something! And then when I get kids, maybe we could take turns 🙂
Is there such a thing as a pedal-powered laptop?
MM
I know how much you LOVE to cook, but maybe you could make ready-made meals to freeze on Sunday for the week. Then you could have that time through the rest of the week to write.
Try exercising while watching your fave TV show. Even if you just do some basic strength training during the commercials.
I realize you may just be venting & not looking for actual suggestions. Just know, I understand!