Thinking aloud, I'm thinking of when I used to be employed. There would be the annual end of year appraisal where I had to reflect on my goals and targets for the year and set new ones for the coming year. I’d have to measure each achievement or failure against the greater good of the company more than against my own professional development. Then for the coming year I’d shift the unachieved goals forward and ask for the resources I’d need to finally achieve them and of course set more unachievable goals, knowing I wont get the resources I need so they'd be shifted forward again and again.
Now however I've reached the end of my first self employed year. I didn't even set myself goals, I just decided:
- to see what works and what doesn't,
- to see what doors open or close,
- to take what opportunities I want and to give myself the right to turn down opportunities I don't want,
- to only work with people I vibe with,
- to write when inspired to and to rest when I need to.
So I guess I could call that list a list of goals and I could say I've achieved them all. Now I need to transfer those same goals to next year and do it all again.
By doing it my way, I've:
- found some wonderful students,
- created interesting English courses,
- written some songs I care about,
- written three new plays,
- seen one of my song lyrics performed in Connected The Musical in the USA.
- reached semifinals for two of my songs in the UK Songwriting Competition,
- worked with an innovative producer and talented musical director for my musical Sea Shanty Shanti
- translated an interesting French book about the history of surfing.
I think that by doing it my way, I've managed to touch people through my lyrics, collaborated with some great artists and helped my students achieve their goals more than I could when employed….. And doing it my way feels good for me too.
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