40 Things to do before I reach 40

This week I've had my 39th birthday.

I'm a great believer in the power of setting goals and have written about this in the past:

In January 2015 I published a post Ten Reasons to Train Yourself to be Goal Orientated

and followed it up with a blog on How Do You Decide What Goals to Set.

I'm also a big fan of lists.

Anyone who regularly followers this blog on Tom Cat's Mewsings or my Authorpreneur Blog will know I'm fond of writing list posts.

I've completed 3 consecutive 365 projects in the past 3 years, the first being Project Book 365, the second being Operation Author and the third, this year, was less prescriptive but nevertheless I have completed 'Authorpreneur Almanac 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship'.

I talk about my 365 projects on this blog entry: Ideas Are Powerful, Ideas Change Your World

The culmination of this project will be the publication of my first non fiction book 'Authorpreneur Almanac' next year in which I'll share 26 features on writing and 26 features on entrepreneurship.

This year, I'm not doing a 365 project, as such. I have 2 projects planned instead:

1. Read 12 books in 12 months - I'll leave that for next week...

2. 40 things to do before I'm 40

I put a call out on Facebook and with the help of Pinterest I've compiled a list of 40 things to do before my 40th birthday on December 29th 2016.

It was challenging to come up with 40 things. There is so much I'd like to do, in fact, I started a 'Bucket List' Pinterest board as I was finding ideas for my 40 things.

  Follow Amy Morse - Authorpreneur's board My Bucket List on Pinterest. 

Most of the things on the bucket list involve lots of money or being in another country - so choosing small, inexpensive, achievable yet worthwhile things to do - was harder than I expected.

Here are a couple of examples:

I lived up trees as a kid, but haven't done this for years. I think I'll head to Victoria Park in the summer, take a notebook and pen, select a suitable tree then sit up there and write.

I like the idea of going out with some pre-written post it notes of inspiring quotes or messages then randomly leaving them for people to find.

Any excuse to catch some rays this summer...



Here goes, these are my 40 things:

Less is More - Be Accountable for the Goals You've Set

Every year I set new year’s resolutions. Sometimes I do them, sometimes I don't. 

This year I decided to be more realistic about what I wanted to achieve in 2015.

 I published a couple of posts on goal setting at the start of the year:

Ideas are powerful, ideas change your world

Ten Reasons to Train Yourself to be Goal Orientated 

How Do You Decide What Goals To Set? 

My New Year’s Resolution was a theme: Less is more

I broke this vision down into longer term objectives:

I broke this down further into more specific tasks:

At the end of the first quarter of this year I'm taking stock...

When you set goals it's important to monitor your progress. 

Here are the specific things I have achieved so far and the progress I have made towards the objectives:

More: Writing. Fiction and Non-Fiction:

• Finish first draft of Gabriel's Game, Part 1: The White Queen by end Feb - completed
• Finish proofing process by end April - in progress
• Complete re-writes by mid-May
• Publish June 

• Complete first draft of Gabriel's Game, Part 2: The Black Knight by end June - in progress

 

 

• Publish 1 non-fiction book by the end of the year - I've now almost completed the first draft of 'Operation Author: So You've Published a Book, Now What?' so I'm bringing this forward by 6 months

More: Marketing activities for my writing:

I need to do more here and be more organised. 

I have seen an increase in book sales this quarter so what ever I've been doing is working. I need to set some goals around monitoring my marketing efforts.

More: Relationship development, online & offline:

In the first three months of this year I've been to more events and made more connections than I have for a while. This is related to marketing activities and undoubtedly has led to increased sales. I've also picked up contacts for other opportunities to build into my authorpreneur business.

2015 is Authorpreneur Almanac year. 

Join me in my 365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship...

More: Exercise and Less: Food and booze:

I have to confess, I've done badly here. I've been so focused on work and writing that I've not made time to exercise and being busy and stressed always leads to me eating and drinking more.

The first step to setting goals is to acknowledge them. I need to plan my meals better and take my physical health more seriously.

The first step; myself and a friend are considering Race for Life in the summer so I need to put a training regime into place.

Less days at work:

I had a conversation with my boss about reducing my hours back in January. At the time, the business I work with as a day job couldn't accommodate. However, a change in business circumstances has opened up an opportunity for me to reduce my hours. This starts in April. - Completed

Less Distractions:

I have spoken to a friend of mine that I was involved with writing network with and bowed out gracefully. I found that I haven't had the time to dedicate to the network and it was a distraction - completed

Here's my 5 Top Tips to stay motivated to achieve those goals:

1. Regularly evaluate your practice - What's going well? What's not going well?
2. Review your goals - Have I allowed enough time? Have I been realistic about what I am able to achieve? Do I need  extra help?
3. Priorities will change - keep on top of them by looking at your list of goals strategically and asking yourself what you should be doing next. It could be different to what you anticipated a few weeks ago as other opportunities or challenges have arisen
4. Remind yourself what you have achieved instead of fixating on the things you haven't done yet. This is only the first quarter of the year, now I can see how much I've done and remind myself of the steps long forgotten, I feel like I'm making progress
5. Break down the goals further into smaller sub-goals to make them more achievable

 Have you stuck to your New Year's Resolutions?

How do you decide what goals to set?

For my next installment of 

The Authorpreneur Almanac:

365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship

I'm still on the subject of goal setting. 

How do you decide what goals to set for yourself?

The Vision: 

Ask yourself where you'd like to be in future. What does success mean to you? What does it look and feel like? It will be different for everyone. Allow yourself to daydream for a moment. Think big but not massive, the point is to change your own reality, not the world.

For me it's about freedom. It's about using my writing as a gateway to travel, live wherever I like and not be tied to someone else's schedule (except perhaps the airline's). It's about exploring my creativity, sharing it and enabling others, through those experiences, while still able to have a few luxuries and not to worry about comfortable shelter and good food.

Ask yourself what you are passionate about? If you didn't have to think about money or responsibilities, what would you do with your life? This is a great starting point to establish a clear vision. For you it could be music, or art, or games, or food etc.

Don't burden yourself with questions of why, or how, just imagine it and focus on it. However it is important to be practical and pragmatic and to accept that it will never be what you expect or what you want right now. 

It will change as you grow, develop and learn but that in no way diminishes having a vision for the visions own sake.

Themes:

Are there different elements to the vision? Are there multiple routes to get there? Identify the possible paths that could take you there, but be sensible and realistic - winning the lottery is not allowed to be on your list. Only pick one theme, you can choose another one once you finish the first.

This Way:

Choose a path that you can break down into lots of small tasks. You can't do all of them and shouldn't beat yourself up about it, the point is regular, focused, action. Sweat the small stuff in this case, less is more and one last cliché just to slam the point home (see what I did there) it reminds me of the old adage; 'Look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves.'

 

Daily actions:

Here are some examples of small, simple actions that I completed during Operation Author:

·   Scheduled plenty of tweets up to the New Year so I don't have to think about it over the Christmas break.

I also completed NaNoWriMo

My third action was to order copies of the book - they'll be delivered mid October.


How do you decide what to prioritise?

Ten Reasons to Train Yourself to be Goal Orientated

The first installment for my brand new shiny 365 daily project:

The Authorpreneur Almanac:

365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship 

It's the start of a new year and a great time to be thinking about what you want from your future.  

Why you should start setting goals now...

 

Ten Reasons to Train Yourself to be Goal Orientated

For the past two years I have done 365-day projects. Through the experience of completing daily goals I am training myself to be goal orientated, breaking down big projects into baby action steps.

This approach takes discipline, but doesn't have to take a lot of time, perhaps less than an hour a day. It takes 21 days to make something a habit so once you establish that routine, completing daily actions becomes as natural as having regular meals.

Here are my ten reasons to train yourself to be goal orientated:

1) To take control of your life rather than letting circumstances control you

There will always be circumstances that are beyond our control but equally there are things we can control. Focus on the things you can change and take steps to make them happen. Accept the things you cannot change and don't let them rule you. You are in the driving seat of your life and if you want to change only you can make that happen.

2) Focus on the important things

What's important to you? Setting goals will help you to focus your energy on the things you want to achieve rather than wasting energy on things that aren't important.

3) Efficiency

We all have finite resources such as time, money, energy and capability. By setting goals you can use these resources in the most efficient way, getting more done with less.

4) Making progress

If you plot your path ahead and take it one step at a time, you will always move forwards. Every now and then, look back on what you have achieved and reward yourself for small successes.

5) Motivation

If you know where and why you are going somewhere, it's much easier to stay motivated. There are few things as demoralising as drifting about aimlessly.

6) Confidence and self belief

When you move forwards and stretch your comfort zone you realise what you can achieve rather than being crippled by self limiting beliefs about what you can't do. It's easy to underestimate ourselves and our capacity to learn and grow.

7) You move closer to success

Whatever success means to you, with every goal you set and achieve you are one step closer.

8) Developing a positive attitude

Positive thinking is powerful. It gives us the confidence to try new things, grow, develop and learn. Look for the positives in everything and life becomes so much more enjoyable. We are hardwired to recognise patterns and when you focus on something, you see more of it. If you always look for the bad pretty soon that's all you'll see.

9) Making better decisions

Goals help you identify and establish your priorities and when you take a long-term view your decisions will be better informed. You will be focusing on what you want rather than being controlled by things you don't want.

10) Challenging yourself

It’s easy to stay in our comfort zones, the clue's in the name, they are comfortable. It’s natural to fear change, but change doesn’t have to be big, dramatic and scary. Small changes are manageable and lots of small changes add up to a big change. Stretch your comfort zone, but not so far that fear and panic takeover. Only by setting ourselves small challenges can we enjoy the satisfaction of achieving something new.

What do you think?

Do you have any goal setting tips?

Ideas are powerful, ideas change your world

What is Idea'ism?

It's the place where I put my ideas and invite 
others to share their perspective.

Ideas are powerful, ideas change your world.

For the past two years I have done 365 day projects. 

Through the experience of completing daily goals I am training myself to be goal orientated, breaking down big projects into baby action steps. 

This approach takes discipline, but doesn't have to take a lot of time, perhaps less than an hour a day. 

It takes 21 days to make something a habit so once you establish that routine, completing daily actions becomes as natural as having regular meals.

A year is a long time to commit to one thing, so I have kept my projects deliberately vague to give myself some scope and variety to fuel creativity, but at the same time, everything must hang from a single over arching theme so that there is something specific to achieve.

The projects so far have been related to books and writing. My dream is to make a living from writing so it is important to me that I keep my projects relevant.

In 2013 it was 'Project Book 365' where I did something creative every day on the theme of books. Here's the Facebook page for the project: https://www.facebook.com/ProjectBook365

And a couple of my most notable daily projects. 

 

Day 363 - a raggy book with part finished projects, and failed experiments

Day 214 - publishing my first book

In 2014 I completed 'Operation Author: 365 Actions to Becoming a Successful Author'. I did a weekly blog update of 7 actions, many being marketing actions, to inspire other writers.

In 2015 I'm going to build on this foundation and my next project will be...

The Authorpreneur Almanac:

365 Adventures in Writing and Entrepreneurship

Throughout the year I'll be doing weekly updates of tips, ideas, inspiration and features for writers who are also entrepreneurs aka Authorpreneur's

At the end of the year I'll tie it all together to produce an almanac. In 2016 I will then have a comprehensive book to share that I hope will inspire and enable others to follow their own writing dreams. 

Happy New Year everyone - 

Here's to a successful and productive 2015