Weekly Goals, Reflections & Priorities

This year I started the habit of setting weekly goals for myself. I have identified some categories which are priorities for me and I am setting small goals in each of these categories. This should enable me to make at least a small progress in all areas that are important for me.

Monthly goals seem not to work so well for me. But a week is a good period of time to overlook. It is not too long and not too short and since I am doing weekly reflections anyways, it is not a big deal to add the habit of goal setting to the time I anyways use at the end of my week.

I also do monthly reflections but in a more focused way – there is just too much happening in a month! I focus on two categories: my artsy life and learning. I try to keep track of my progress in arts and learning, so that I could see at the end of a longer period what I have accomplished.

What I do see in both categories is that I jump around a lot, switching between projects and topics and not really moving forward in one direction. It would be nice to have something that I can stick to and I hope that playing the guitar could be such a thing. After all I am doing it for more than 6 months now.

I also hope that setting weekly goals in 8 priority categories will also help me to stick something. For now my priorities look like this:

1. Housework
2. Friends
3. Family
4. Guitar
5. Sports
6. Philosophy
7. Social Butterfly Radar (my meetup group)
8. Die Multipotentialistin (my primary blog)

So for each categories I put up 1-3 to-dos or goals that I should do during that week. So far it works well although I did not reach the goals in all categories: Philosophy and Sports are doing pretty bad. Whereas housework and guitar seem to see a good time.

I will follow these habits for a few more weeks and provide an update on how it goes. In the meantime I am curious to learn: What time frame works best for you to set goals? Do you think of my strategy as goal setting or to-do-list? And what is the difference between the two?

Revival of Daily Blogging – New Category – This Day

I have decided that I want to revive the habit of daily blogging. Not sure if I will do it in the morning or in the evenings, from the phone or from my laptop, but I definitely need to come out of my shell and share more with the world again.

Not that I do it for the world. I do it for myself primarily. I love to read my old blogposts, look at pictures and videos from past times. Maybe my life has become more boring or stable – as I like to call it, but there are still details that can be developed further. What I like most about blogging is that you can include different types of contents and make it a masterpiece.

I am struggling these days (and not for the first time) to establish some creative daily routines: playing the guitar, working on my philosophy project, and now daily blogging and vlogging, not to mention sport. But yeah eventually I will get there, starting with baby steps and one thing at a time. For today it’s mostly done. Of course not everything, only the new and fancy stuff.

Maybe I need an accountability buddy for every project. But how not to loose track of them if you have about 5 daily projects? Start with one, they say. Don’t pressure yourself, they say. Both is difficult for me and I guess what I need to practise most is humility and patience. But that’s something for another day.

A Single Shade of Grey – The best times are over?

It is not easy. It has never been. But this year came with so many bad surprises that I can hardly believe it really happened. I am grateful that those did not affect my personal life too much although I felt kind of involved in everything. I learned to distance myself from the bad news and it helped a great deal.

Of course I am not really a princess and I don’t even dream of it anymore. My visions and goals have changed so much over the past year. Emotionally I am not back where I used to be. But it does not help to live in the past.

I like to think that the past as we see it is shaped by our emotions. Bad memories and the day to day struggle fade and we see only the outstanding moments and the good times that are gone now. In our perception the past can be many things. I wish I could use it as inspiration.

But I am so afraid that my best times are already over. This is a real fear! I was so high and I fell so deep. How can I climb this mountain again? I was flying. I spread my wings fearlessly and jumped. The flight was short but very intense and I still nurture from it.

So many things hold me back from flying again. Rational thoughts mostly. I know it was not sustainable. But I loved the intensity of it and I hate the greyness of my life as it is now. I had so many feelings that got numbed. I had so many problems. Now I have just one.

It is time to bring the color back into my life. I don’t know how to do it. I will have to let go of many things. Of security and safety. Maybe the people close to me will not like this step. Like so many of my steps. But if I keep crawling I will never reach the heights that I was born to see. Maybe I will struggle many days and who knows if it will be worth it?

The only constant is change.

That has become a motto for me. It quietly slipped into my life and turned up again and again. I really enjoy an emotional roller coaster. More than a real roller coaster for sure. It makes me feel alive and I need this feeling back. I don’t want to be dying from inside.

But these both extremes can’t be the only options. I don’t know how many shades of grey exist but I am pretty confident that the number of colors is infinite. I can choose one tomorrow and another one the day after. I don’t have to stick with one version.

My favorite color is blue. But I also like orange and red and brown and so many other colors. Why do I feel like I have to choose one? There are many fish in the sea. And even more plastic. We have so many options and we drown between them sticking to what we know. After all we are just tiny little ants.

For me this thought is liberating. If it doesn’t matter what I do, I can choose what I want and what I love. That’s the theory. The practical application is much more difficult. But I choose to be gentle with me and go one step after the other.

I don’t want to be the best version of myself. Who defines what is a good version of me anyways? I don’t want to compare myself not even with myself. Because this brings me back to the good old days where everything was better and I know that I cannot go there.

I have to look forward, pull myself together and be brave again. Ups and downs come and go, what was important once will be irrelevant soon. Still the thought of decay is haunting me as well as the version that I used to be. I was so innocent. I was so full of it. I was naive and in good faith. Confident and bold.

How can I make peace with this best version of myself?

Wrapping up 2021 – Planning for 2022

This year was more or less a quiet year without many great changes. Artistically I made only very small progress. Yes, it was possible to perform again and I spent the first half of the year creating videos. I still have many that I didn’t publish yet. I kind of got back into dancing, at least a little bit.

What was my artistic highlight of the year?

There were many great things. First of all I enjoyed it a lot to record videos in my home. Secondly, I had two performances. After such a long time without performing this was amazing. Thirdly, I had a great Saree-Shooting and a demo session with a drummer.

Not so great were definitely my failed attempts to teach me play the guitar. I was absolutely unable to find motivation for it. Right now I am thinking that I need somebody sitting next to me while practicing. Since I could not convince any of my friends yet to do that I am going to start learning from a teacher.

A bit challenging was the fact that I produced so much material and I didn’t always find the time to edit it. It was also difficult for me to find a consisting posting schedule, so that I would post regularly on Instagram, TikTok and Youtube. If you haven’t followed me yet, please go over and do so.

Do I want to continue this journey?

Dancing will always be part of me or at least of my history, but I might stay on this level of creating videos and barely performing. I already made the decision that it will stay on a hobby level. With my blog back I might engage in conversations and return back to the scene. It is really interesting for me to hear how others went through these difficult times. But mostly I am working on other projects.

What I really want to do in 2022 is start learning to play the guitar with a teacher. I failed big style in learning it by myself and I need some support to accomplish my goals. But this will definitely be the first thing I’ll do.

Other than that I want to continue making videos and uploading them. I have been a bit lazy when it comes to uploading, but I should definitely try to catch up with it. Alltogether Instagram is not my favorite platform. This is also something the last year has shown.

Will Art be a Priority next year?

I’m afraid not. It will stay on the hobby level and will be a nice way to spend my free time, but I don’t want to pressure myself. It is always difficult for me to make art just for the sake of it, because I have big ambitions and I can’t stop myself from pursuing them. But this is actually a very bad habit.

I want to make music for the fun of it, even if I have to learn how to have fun with it first. The guitar should become my best friend and I better start treating her as such. When it comes to dance there is still a lot of material that needs editing which holds me back from creating new things. So I will do one step after the other, edit the existing material and then create new.

What about the Artist Date Challenge?

Believe me, I did not forget about it completely. Just a little bit. I want to continue with it every now and then, not every week for sure. But it was great fun doing it and it inspired me a lot. So I should not quit it.

I am still thinking about my Instagram strategy – maybe there will be none in the end and I just post whatever I want. But for now I really would like to have some fun artist dates.

What about you?

Please tell me about your highlights of 2021 and your plans for 2022.

I wish you the best holidays and a great new year!

The first 33 years of childhood are always the hardest

My birthday party was a total blast and a great success! I enjoyed it so much that I completely forgot to take pictures. Everything was perfect. All my friends were there. Everyone was talking, drinking and having fun.

Now I am starting into a new year of my life. I believe that this year will be full of change.

The past years I was working on getting back my old shape, but now I am ready for new adventures. I want to spread my arms and hug life. The times of misery are finally over.

I am working very hard and I am planning to tackle new projects and revive old ones. There is one I am especially excited about. But it is still too early to go into details.

Let’s just say I am seeing a bright future full of excitement ahead and I think this is the best way to start a new year of life.

Happy Birthday to me!