Photo Wednesday

First Image of Summer

(c) Dillon Bailey Photography

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Guest Post: Elizabeth

Today I’m participating in the Ultimate Blog Swap. You’ll find me posting over at Blogging with Amy about The Journey of Becoming, and I’m excited to welcome Elizabeth from Adventures in Life, Love, and Librarianship  to Dillon Bailey:

People who are into personal and/or career development (or have to attend a lot of workshops like me) know a lot about goal setting.  Leaders, managers, and other general advice-givers tell us that goal setting is the best way to get what we want and if we set goals and work towards them, we should, eventually, achieve those goals.  

Sounds easy, right?

Except when it's totally not.

Saying you'll do something or work towards something, whether it's getting a promotion or simply getting to work on time, isn't enough.  You need to do more than just say (or write) "I'm going to do X".  You need a plan.  You need to lay out a way for you to achieve your goal so that you can actually achieve it.  You need to set a SMART goal.

What is a SMART goal?  A SMART goal is a goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.  Pretty fun acronym right?  So not only is your goal smart, it's SMART. 

Okay, enough with my cheesy puns.  What does setting a SMART goal really mean?  Let's take a look at one of my most recent goalsand decide if it is SMART or not.  One of my May goals was to organize my office; it's a big project and I've been dreading taking it on so I set it as one of my May goals.  Let's take it letter by letter and see if I set a SMART goal.

Is the goal specific? Probably not as specific as it needs to be.  I didn't lay out how I was going to clean my office or what I meant by "organize".  I admitted that I had a problem (that's always the first step, right?), but I didn't create a plan on how to attack it.  This part needs work.

Is the goal measurable?  No, it's not.  I didn't say how I would determine if I organized my office or not.  What counts as organized?  I need to write down more specifics about how I would measure my success.

Is the goal attainable?  This is not a huge project and it's definitely something I can do in a month.  I would say this is something I can achieve if I work at it.

Is it realistic?  Yes, this is a realistic goal.  I have all the resources I need (or the ability to buy what I need) and organizing my office is something that I know I can realistically do alone.

Is it timely?  Yes, I have set a time frame to when I need to achieve this goal (by the end of the month).

So this is this a SMART goal?  I would say yes and no.  It is attainable, realistic, and timely, but it is not specific or measurable.  I should have laid out a better plan on how I would organize my office and how I would measure when I was done.  So rather than simply saying one of my May goals was to organize my office, I should have said, "during the month of May, I would like to organize my office by filing all loose paperwork and decluttering my desk".  

This new goal is specific because I laid out what I meant by organizing, it's measurable because I know I will have completed the task when I've decluttered my desk and filed all my loose paperwork, and we've already determined the goals was attainable, realistic, and timely.  

Setting SMART goals can be applied to both your personal and professional life and it can be applied to both short and long term goals.  Want to get a raise; great!  Lay out a goal that will specifically guide you there and make sure to set a time frame.  You can achieve your goals, you just need a little planning to get started.

Have you ever set a SMART goal?  How did it go?  If you haven't, do you think you will now?

Elizabeth blogs about her cat, love, food, and occasionally libraries at Adventures in Life, Love, and Librarianship.  She is also tweeting all the randomness that doesn't make it on her blog as LibrarianLizy.

Visit Life...Your Way to see all of the Ultimate Blog Swap participants!

Planning

All the websites I've read about blogging have said that one of the most important things to do is to plan out what you are going to blog about.

I've been blogging since 2003 and have never sat down and thought about what I was going to say. 

Not that I'm disagreeing with them, that's not it at all, rather, I've always seen my blogs as a source to update what's going on in my life or my head, or to post interesting articles... it's always been something that just occurs. 

But I like the idea of planning, I like the idea of setting a goal and working towards it. 

Consistent posts, preplanned ideas, focusing enough to figure out what I want to say when -

Sounds like a good idea to me. 

Stay tuned: I'm having a guest blogger tomorrow!

Also, I will be guest posting at Blogging with Amy.  Feel free to stop over and read my reflections from Suzy Welch's talk at the Chick-fil-A Leadercast. 

Winding Down

The countdown is going - one week until my last day. They've hired a replacement, so I am tying up loose ends and getting things ready. It's a busy time. Beyond work, I am committed to two side projects, launching a third and am getting into the routine of grad school.

It's fun. And while I still am trying to figure out the next step, I am also realizing that too often we don't get that until we let go. Let go of pretending I can control any of this, let go of trying to make it all fit in my timeline. If it is not His will, then I don't want it. And while that might require a bit more patience than I have (given I have none), I know it will be worth it.

Off to the Chick-fil-A Leadercast today. Will bring back notes and insights for next week.


Have a good weekend, friends.

Reflection

I started this post a few days ago and let it slip, but I've decide to go ahead and post it.

What Easter Means to Me:

An empty cross, a barren tomb.
What once was no longer is.
Shattered dreams, relinquished promises
Things not yet understood remain.

Hope. New Hope. Better Hope. Complete Hope.
Resplendent dreams, Ultimate Promises.
Renewed Life. A New Creation.
Not just remade, but made new.

What once was sorrow is now joy.
No longer scared but empowered.
It was all true, and still carries on.

He defeated death to give me life.
I have nothing to offer but humility.
Careful obedience of a life in one direction.
I am alive because he first died to save me.


I sense Easter in a different way this year. I am coming off of three years of almost dead faith. Even before Rwanda I was hollow and sad. The walls keeping me from God too tall for me to even see. They blended into the landscape, they had become permanent to me.

But God does not leave us. It is the one constant I always have - I am never alone.

I am walking back, coming home. I will not bow like the prodigal son, though I do not deserve the fatten calf any more than he did. I am embraced and held by a Father who loves me, who whispered truth to me in my time away, who managed to beat down the wall that kept us apart, and give me instead a place of safety, intimacy and rest.

I am a new creation - new! Not just cleaned up, or rebuilt, or fixed-up, but new. It's an amazing gift, a life-sustaining promise, one I am just starting to understand.

So what does Easter mean to me? Everything.

Dreams and Goals

What is the difference between a dream and a goal?

Dictionary.com defines them as follows:

Dream: noun. an aspiration; goal; aim; a wild or vain fancy; something of an unreal beauty, charm, or excellence.

Goal: noun. the result or achievement toward which effort is directed; aim; end.

One is fanciful, the other an achievement.


We tell our kids to pursue their dreams, but what if those only become tangible when they become goals?

To perform on Broadway is a dream. Taking ballet, dance, singing lessons, performing everywhere you can, acting in community theater, applying at Juilliard - those are goals.


Maybe it's not that dreams are unattainable, but we can't always keep our focus on them. We have to look to our goals, the steps we will take to get where we want to go.

I had a discussion with someone this weekend to that effect. Where do I want to be in ten years? This is sometimes referred to as "the sweet spot," when you are doing something that gives you bliss.

Identify your sweet spot and then set markers to get there. Invest in education, get your name out there, build your blog readership, read everything you can, get a mentor... All of those build up to what you really want to do.


I am honing in on my list. Narrowing down to my sweet spot. It's ok to have more than one passion, more than one thing I long to pursue. Someday my writing, photography, drive towards ending injustice and education will mold into something quite lovely. For now, they are being developed separately so they can be used together to do something bold.

My dream is to have an impact and to make a difference through awareness, education and advocacy.

The goals are the journey that lead to something only we were made for. 

What are your dreams and goals?

Peace

DC - Cathedral TG, originally uploaded by mana1024.

This is one of my favorite pictures ever. It was Thanksgiving, and I took this picture from the roof of my apartment building. I love fall in DC. It's days like this I am nostalgic and ready to be back in the city I love.

It took a lot for me to move there. I went with an internship and a place to live. But God was with me. Within a week I had a paid job and fell in with a group of friends. It was incredible.

Each day to the day I got on the airplane was a challenge, full of preparation. I bought a one-way ticket, unsure when (if) I would return to CO. It was faith - and so is this transition.

It's a good thing to remember when all that I have to do overwhelms me. But it's coming... Slowly - it's coming.