Goalposts, Guilt, and Grace
Image Description: A figure walking on a desolate field in front of goalposts with a cityscape in the background. The sun is setting, making everything in the image have a yellow and orange tone. Photo by Rowan Freeman on Unsplash.
When I first started this blog, my goal was to write something every month. Even though I know of bloggers and vloggers who featured incredible fresh content every week for years, I thought it would be more realistic to go monthly. Only it wasn’t that realistic, so I quickly changed my goal to every other month. I kept up with that schedule for 1 ½ years. Then I fell short of my goal. It has been five months since my last blog entry. Gulp.
In the back of my mind, I thought nobody will notice except myself, but someone mentioned to me recently that they missed seeing the blog. I would start every morning, staring blankly at the “Write Blog” entry on my whiteboard To-Do list that has been there for so long that I am not sure it will easily erase. Below that entry, I had written “Slow and Steady Wins the Race.” That was meant to inspire me when I originally wrote it, but now it was only a guilt-inducing reminder that I was slow and anything but steady.
Part of the reason I have not been working on the blog is that I have been focused on the book, a deeper dive into creative resilience. I even met a personal deadline to finish a second draft by the end of August. It was a timeline I originally planned out as part of a grant application. I didn't get the grant, but I decided to keep the timeline. As I completed my edits on the second draft, I realized there were still some new chapters that needed to be written. I cheerfully announced a new goal on my personal social media account to get four new chapters written by the end of October.
Here I was practicing what I preach. I had taken something negative (not getting the grant) and parlayed it into a form of accountability (keeping to the deadline I had proposed). I had also proposed a new form of accountability by announcing my next goal semi-publicly. When a friend commented “Only two months for a rewrite of a book whilst you work full time ?!?!” I responded with fervor, “It's ambitious but not impossible. I am trying to beat the clock since last year the winter months were a bust when it came to work on the book. And, if I don't make the deadline, I'll forgive myself.”
By mid-October, I had three of the four chapters written and was just starting the fourth when the old adage Life Happens While You Are Making Other Plans decided to pay me a personal visit. I had to focus on other things and had neither the time nor the mental space to write anything for a while - not the book and certainly not the blog.
While I was able to talk the talk of celebrating a smaller goal as part of a bigger goal, I wasn’t necessarily able to walk the walk. Even though I was 75% done with my goal on the chapters, all I could focus on was the 100% of not having completed it by the deadline. And that darn whiteboard reminder that I still had to write the blog stared me in the face every morning.
Which is why this particular blog entry is about grace.
Grace is one of those words that has many definitions: An elegant way of behaving. A form of address for a holy person or noble. A short prayer before a meal. A time period allowed to pay a debt or comply with a rule or law. The unmerited gift of divine favor in the salvation of sinners. This religious definition speaks to me even though I don’t count myself among the devout. In the context of creative goals (or any goals really), we must take on both the role of the divine and the sinner in forgiving ourselves. We must give ourselves grace…
…if we don’t make a self-imposed deadline.
…if we are facing creative blocks.
…if our work doesn’t meet our high standards.
…if we are not sure how to do something.
…if life’s realities stop us in our tracks.
Saying this is far easier than doing it, but even saying it out loud to yourself can be a way to make giving grace a new goal.
Another way to give ourselves grace is to remember that goals are guidelines, not fixed entities. If you are consistently not able to meet a goal, one of the questions you may want to ask yourself is whether the goal is too ambitious – not just in and of itself, but given the other factors in your life. Is it too amorphous? Or too specific? Could it be framed in another way? You do have the power to move or bend the goalposts.
In my case, perhaps saying I would write four chapters in two months could have been reframed. Perhaps I could have committed to working an average of four hours a week on my creative resilience project. That could be four hours at one sitting once a week. It could have been 20-30 minutes every day that added up to a total of four hours that week. It also could have been working on the project rather than those specific chapters. That could encompass the book or the blog. It could include time for research or getting feedback from others, not only just writing the chapters. As much as goals benefit from being specific, they also can be flexible. Setting myself up for flexibility would have allowed for the possibility of exceeding the goal and making progress in any case without tying it to something that might be unrealistic. Grace triumphs over guilt!
While I initially wallowed in guilt about not meeting my stated goal, by giving myself grace, I was able to get back on track and realize how much I was able to achieve in that timeframe. Once I was able to settle in to my new normal, I was able to return to the book, not only completing the four new chapters, but starting on a fifth one. Some days I work on the chapter for a grand total of five minutes, but I still feel like that is moving it forward because I am working on it at all.
I have given myself grace on the blog as well. While a blog every two months would be nice, I want each entry to be something that will truly engage my readers rather than just conform to a self-imposed schedule. I am also proud that I have kept up with this blog (which turns exactly two years old today!)
What are you proud of at this moment? What are some ways you give yourself grace?
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