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:

Housework
Friends
Family
Guitar
Sports
Philosophy
Social Butterfly Radar (my meetup group)
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?

Behind the scenes

Be my parent

This week I announced on my Instagram that I am starting a new life. Again!

But since the last new life was started more than 5 years ago I think it’s fair to do it again. I got stuck in the windmills of the daily repetitions. I neglected my ambitions. I failed in so many ways to achieve my goals. But now that will change! I will document my goals and my work towards it. I will not hide my failures any longer.

And eventually I will succeed! Or not. Who knows?

But I want to invite you to be part of my journey.

What’s the deal?

I have neglected my passions and my talents. I have not done any performances for a long time and this needs to change! It will be difficult because I am still working full time, but I need to put in the effort and try my best to develop new skills and expand my horizon.

I am going to learn, rehearse, practise and eventually perform. I will see you as my accountability buddy. I will not hide anything from you. I will show you the good days and the bad days. Maybe not all the bad days and maybe not my worst moments, but you get the point. Please do call out on me!

I think it’s beautiful how many people challenge my guitar learning. Yes, I haven’t done much so far, but every question is reminding me and a motivation to sit down and practise.

So that is the deal: I work hard and you watch!

I want to live a new life. I want to be an artist. But I need some parenting from your side! It is too hard to pull everything out of me. I need the reminders, I need the pushes and I need your love and support. Please be there for me!

Life as a princess

Dare to give up

It’s been a while, since we talked the last time. I hope you still remember me. I am the girl who tried to be a professional bellydancer and from what I can tell you now, I failed miserably and I am not going to recover in that domain. But wait. How did I get here?

The last year has been VERY bad for me. I had a nervous breakdown and spent the whole summer in hospital. I had to give up on my self-employment. I gave up all my hope and lived in total despair for quite a while. Now I am getting better and start dreaming again and have a vision of a better future for me.

I am not sure where my life will go, but one thing is sure: I don’t want to be a belly dancer anymore. I am completely done with that topic. Fed up. I have been disappointed so many times, that I cannot enjoy this anymore. I need to find something new to work on.

Long story short: I quit. I give up. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t enjoy dancing anymore and I can’t pretend that I do.

I am still interested in Arabic culture and I am still learning the Arabic language. I am starting to enjoy my life again and I feel better without the dance. Maybe it was never a true passion of mine, maybe I just did it, because it became a routine. It gave my ambitions a way to be embraced. It gave me something to be completely absorbed in. It gave me something to work on, something that I thought about most of the time.

But that is over. I can’t hear it anymore. I don’t want to see it anymore and I don’t want to do it anymore.

Please don’t tell me, that I need to try harder, that one should never give up on dreams, cause maybe that dream wasn’t mine. Maybe sometimes you change and you don’t want to pursue something that you liked before.

I feel that there is a big pressure on people to be successful with something and to keep going no matter what happens. Believe me, I am the Queen of not-giving-up. I tried it for so many years. I worked so hard. I pushed myself to the limits. And I didn’t see that there is no perspective and I am heading nowhere.

I will be happy to say, that I was an ambitious belly dancer in my youth. Of course I am still young. But I will work on other projects now. Weekly blog posts intended.

Song of the day