DreamWard Bound- Tracking Goals

Last DreamWard Bound I talked about how I organized and separated my goals and dreams. This helped me easily see my priorities and make a plan to reach my ideal life.

I know being organized does not fit every personality. Some people thrive in doing work as it comes along or as they are inspired. Some people do not like making lists or tracking their goals in detail.

I am not one of those people. More and more I love organizing my goals and tracking them. I have spreadsheets with formulas and charts. I have index cards and notebooks.

These things help me track my goals, so when I feel discouraged and forget my past achievements I can look back. I can see where I started and how far I’ve come.

Having my time and goals tracked also helps me plan for my future. I can see that I only consistently write for about 4 hours a week and draw for about 3. I can see that I can increase my prayer and Bible study time by 0.1 hours a week, because I know how much I’ve spent on godly things in the previous week.

By seeing my patterns with time I can see where I can improve. I can also see how long it takes to complete a project, book, or activity.

I do want to clarify that although I have 5 sheets with a lot of charts for visual tracking I did not start with that many.

I started with a notebook and only tracked time I spent reading the Bible and my television watching. After a few weeks I added other goals and then I moved it to one sheet on my computer. Little by little I added things I tracked and organized the sheets more. I can now see the following:

  • How many hours I put into a certain category each week (writing, blog posts, church, Bible reading, prayer, painting/ drawing, reading, etc).
  • On average how much time I put into creative work, writing, or spending time with God.
  • What percentage I spend in my different categories.
  • How long it takes me to read a book.
  • If my physical endurance is increasing.
  • How many hours I’m spending on promotion and revenue for my creative life.

The take away from all of this is to start small with your goals and tracking, but let both grow. This will help you to continually be improving and moving towards your goals and dreams.

The Storm Outside (A Poem)

poetry

Shh the only sound you hear
is the crashing of the waves.
The only wind near
is a breeze saying a storm will come.
Wake up today
no danger really awaits.
Get ready and start
there is no reason to wait.

As you shower the winds may pick up
the breeze will turn.
The storm is still brewing.
The weather is still ramping.
The outside should be safe.

Get ready and go,
the storm is still safe.
Drive to work,
it is only wind.
I, the weather, will wait.
I will wait until you do drive.

Now that you are in your car,
now that you think you will drive far,
I will come with an angry gust
and throw my tears your way.
Now the storm is raging on,
so turn around and stay inside.

I, the weather, will wait no longer.
You are awake and ready
but can go no further.
Turn around and watch all that I am,
as I hit your home with angry gusts of wind.

Yeah, that was my morning.

Goal Getters Channel

Hello readers,

For a while now I’ve been writing and telling you about my goal focused channel. Well, I decided that I would share everything I’ve done with it all right here. Before I do that though, how about I tell you why I am making these videos.

I am recording steps and tips to help people reach their goals for that purpose. I want to help people reach their goals. I know that some goals are hard and others just take time. I also know that one of my biggest done falls is when I feel like I am all alone in my struggle to achieve my goals. My hope is that by showing random people there is some one out there who is willing to help them and show them my journey to reaching my goals, I will be able to support them.

Now one to the videos. First are the individual steps. Each of these videos are one out of the seven steps I follow to achieve my goals.

Step1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Now, that those are done I am going to be doing a bunch of tip videos and one longer video of all the steps in one video, which should be easier to watch to get the audience started.

Here are the Tip videos that I have up so far.
Tip: Focus on your behavior

Tip: Plan you week

Tip: Know Why

Okay that’s a lot of videos. I hope you readers enjoy them. I am now off to see how many creative writing posts I can do before my mind completely melts.

DreamWard Bound (November 22, 2014)

success

I want to start this post off with some sort of creative and intriguing statement that will almost force you to continue reading. However, I am already writing this late and have a bunch of other things to do. I mostly am just excited to be editing today. I am putting aside all my excuses and reasons not to edit my novel. I am just going to sit down and edit it, once my to do list is done.

That being said, let’s get into what I did this week. First I revised my goals. I took off the painting goal and the Goal Getters goal. I took off the painting goal, because like I said in another post I want painting to be unforced and from my heart. I don’t want to have any pressure to paint.

I took off the Goal Getters goal, because I finished the steps and realized I was not getting the reaction I wanted. I will continue to post short videos on that and redo the steps. I am planning on recording another version of my steps and having it all be one video. I also took it off so that I can feel comfortable either adding more videos each week or less. If I don’t have a tip I won’t need to come up with it.

I also revised my reading and instead of reading the Bible in a year I am going to focus on just reading the Bible. Basically, I broke down this goal and made the “I will read the Bible in a year” goal the end goal. I realized I needed to take other steps to achieve that. The first step will be to read a book in the Bible in a month. That is more manageable for me now.

My goal about getting better family communication is still there. It is exactly the same, except I added a weekly reminder. Also, my acting goal is the same. I am almost there and I am excited to be almost to the point where I can schedule an acting coach. I will be really happy to figure out where I can go from here and what a professional thinks.

I did change-up my creative writing goal. One thing I changed is that it is now officially all creative writing posts, not just poems. I also made an end goal. After 85 posts with 5 likes or more I will start to make another book focused on poetry, but with short stories thrown in there too. I do have one poetry book out there already. It is on the shorter side and I found with publishing it you need at least 85 pages in order for it to be available to publish in a hard copy with Lulu. Once I have the 85 creative writing things I will edit, polish, and basically create even better poems from them. I will also try to add more content that explains the poetry or short stories, so you will not just be buying my blog. I do want it to be different and worth your money.

As for my other goals, I changed the deadline for my weight loss and moved it down the list of importance. I still want to lose weight and reach that goal, but it’s not as important as my creative career.

My last goal is my novel which is exactly the same. I just freed up a few goal slots so should actually be able to do it, now.

Other stuff I did this week was write five posts, publish 2 tip videos, and a reading video to my creative channel. Here is the list of all that stuff.

Tip: Plan your week (video)

Tip: focus on your behavior (video)

Reading of Proverbs 31 (video)

Bring Down The Storm (poem)

If I See You (poem)

To The Beach 

Here I Stand (monologue)

Timed (poem)

I love when I post more than one thing a day. Also stay tuned because I will be posting more tips on my Goal Getters channel, today.

October 4, 2014's DreamWard Bound

success

This week was crazy at work. I was in the role called support, so I had to deal with people all week, client and co-workers. I can tell already that I will not like the weeks when I am on support. This week was a roller coaster and had to stay late most nights, because although some days were slow it seemed like the questions came at the end of the day.

This week just further proves the point that there is no typical week. Every week and every day is going to be different. All I can do, all any one can do, is be their best during that day or week.

All that being said, I did not do well on my goals. I just had no energy, brain power, or will power to do anything besides living after work. I did not read my Bible at all, which is supposed to be my #1 goal. I did talk to my family members a bit, but not as much as I would have liked.

My weight loss and healthy living style was a joke, but I did realize something about it. I am a stress eater. When I am overly stress or tired I just don’t care and will eat more. I also need to make sure I at least walk every day, because even if I have no energy for the gym I can do little things.

I did get the third Goal Getters video up. This week was step 3. I almost want to post more than one a week, but I don’t want to run out tips. I also don’t want to start something extra when I know I wouldn’t be able to continue it long-term. I  at least don’t want to do that with this channel.

I did not write five poems this week, but I did write four. One of my poems from this week was really received well. I got a bunch of likes on the blog and on the Facebook link. The link was even shared. The poem was I’ll wait and I will be doing a poetry reading of it for YouTube later on.

I do have a monologue that I will also be recording soon. I did not practice it yet, but it is shorter than the other ones.

This is the off week for painting, so I will not be doing that. I am also thinking about reevaluating the goal. Painting is my most artistic form, at least I feel like it is the most artistic  form I do. I like the freedom in it and how each painting is saying something. If I have to do it for 2 hours every other week, than it turns into a chore I have to do and not an expression that I love doing.

Lastly my novel is still on the back burner. I am hoping to start taking notes and working through it in the next few weeks. I know once I start I will not be able to stop and will fall back into that world. I can not wait for that to happen, but life is getting in the way.

Now, that I write all the goals out it seems like I did do a lot more than I realized this week, which makes me glad that I wrote this post. It also pushes me to wanting to do more this next week. We will have to wait and see how the week goes though.

 

Here is what I did this week.

I Will Wait (A Poem)

One Day Of Crazy. (A Poem)

Are You My Dream? (A Poem)

Brain Melt ( A Poem)

Goal Getters (video)

Mabel Chiltern’s Monologue (Video)

 

That is 6 things from the last 7 days (I think I am going to start to keep track of the number of things I post each week).

DreamWard Bound as of September 27, 2014

success

It may be because I just was at the gym for 1 1/2 hours, but I am really feeling great. I feel accomplished this week, like the sun is shining brighter and my main future goals are achievable. Plus I don’t feel like I want to just rush through this post this week, like I sometimes do. Some weeks I just don’t want to admit I could have done more or I am not focused on my goals.

I posted my goals next to my desk this week, so that I can actually see them and be reminded of where I am and what I want to do.  I really feel smart about how I did them. I numbered them and wrote what class or level of importance they are in. I also gave each goal a title, so that at a quick glance I can be reminded of the goals. I am also happy, because on those 3×5 cards I wrote how often I will reevaluate them. They have been really helpful for me this week and with writing this post I can just go down the list and write about each goal.

Let’s start with goal 1A which is reading the Bible in a year. I did not do well with this one. I actually did not do anything with it. I wanted to, but I have fallen behind, so I’m a bit discouraged. I do have today and tomorrow to catch back up or at the very least see how much I can read in two days. Maybe I will even read more than intended and get further ahead.

Goal 2A is my family goal and although I have talked a bit to some of I have not talked or texted all of them. The week is not over though and I am planning on communicating with the ones that I have not.

The next goal, 3A, is my weight loss goal. I am very happy about this. After a week of almost only cardio work-outs and counting calories I am happy to announce that I have finally started to lose weight. I lost 3 lb.s this week. It may not seem like a lot to some and over all it is only 1/10th of what I want to lose, but it is a start. I am finally losing the weight that I want to lose. That may be why I am so willing to share all my goals this week, because I am finally seeing progress in one that I had not yet seen any progress in.

The last A class goal is my  Goal Getters goal. I did post Step 1 video. I noticed that I now have 2 subscribers to my new channel, which I did not expect. I thought it would take longer to get any type of notice. I also have all 7 steps recorded along with some tip videos recorded. I am really excited about this new adventure.

Now on to my B class goals. 1B or my #5 is writing my poems. I labeled it my poem goal, but my reasoning and thoughts behind it does not limit it to just poems. I want to grow my writing skills and poetic voice. Since I believe you can you poetry in any type of writing I have realized that anything really can be poetry. This being said this goal was met. I wanted to write 5 creative writing posts, with poetry in them every week. I have written and posted this week’s five earlier in the week and there will be a list at the end of this post.

My next goal is my acting goal. I have only thought about this one. I do have a monologue picked out. I have written it out and read it over a couple of times, but have not practiced it yet. I will be doing that later in the day. It is not exactly the best monologue for me and is far less bubbly than my ideal. Still it is a good monologue for an actress around my age. I just want to find more modern monologues in the future.

This next goal is the start of my C class goals. The first one is my painting goal. I want to paint for 2 hrs every other week. I wish I could afford to paint for longer or more often, but with every other goal that I have this one is taking the back seat. It does help me relax and is therapy for me, but it is not my main focus. This is the week that I will be painting. I plan to paint tomorrow after I hit the gym. It will nice to paint for the first time since the move. It seems crazy that I have been in this house for almost two months and have not yet painted. I am looking forward to doing so on my roof.

My last goal, is one that I will be moving up at some point. Maybe I will move it up when I finally lose all the weight I want to lose, or maybe if I finish saying all I have to say about goal achieving. Right now though my last goal is my novel. I am trying to get through my second draft by May 3rd and so far I only have notes on three chapters. I did not do anything with it this week, but that is not to say that I won’t work on it next week. I just hope my life doesn’t get in the way of editing this novel. It is my last goal, which means that it gets pushed aside first. One day I will finish it though.

That finishes off what happened with my goals this week. I want to tell you more and continue writing, but now I can only think about my goals. I guess they are really my main focus of my week. I did hang out with friends two nights this week and went to work every day. I even started to do the work that my new position calls for.

I guess the only thing left to do is give you the list of things I did this week.

Step 1 (Goal Getters video) 

Talking to My Gym

Sleep (A Poem)

Double sided 

A Poem About Zucchini Bread

Free Lobster