Tuesday, January 10, 2012

The Challenge Begins...Moving Forward After Temporary Derailment

 This train captures how I felt towards the end of last year!
Photo by:  
Cian Ginty
Life gets in the way...and it's okay if the curve balls you are thrown derail you from your desired path.  I do believe that with each unplanned tangent, there are always things we can learn and grow from, that will help us when we have time and space to return to the charted path.

This is what I must believe for this is where I find myself.  Many of my goals were taken off line when family situations and grief derailed me.  As a Type A, it's been difficult to find myself at the end of my rope...to be unable to muster energy to be productive.  That is how I felt in the last quarter of 2011.  Exhausted with no creative energy to envision something else.

And then...2012 began with a great catalyst.  One that I happen to have the chance to champion on behalf of my work at the Songwriters Association of Canada.  I helped to launch the Canadian Songwriters Social Media Challenge (otherwise known as The Blogging Challenge), whereby I will be following the advice doled out generously by Ariel Hyatt in her book, "Music Success in 9 Weeks," alongside 60 songwriting peers across Canada who are also looking for a breakthrough.

To be honest, I even had to push through resistance just to crack the book open.  How many times have I set goals and been disheartened when I failed to bring them to completion.  At the same time, how many times did I achieve progress and negate it by focusing on all that I hadn't done.  Luckily, the book met me exactly where I am at.  It reminded me to celebrate my successes, recognizing that goal-setting can be an ever changing process.  My goals are not etched in stone, but they can serve as a compass to direct my time and efforts until they change, at which point, my compass will also readjust.

So I have a slew of goals on hand, some technical, some business, some personal...all of them, well most of them quite achievable if I can focus on taking action steps regularly - 6 of them in fact everyday.  That's the magic number Ariel says is achievable for most people.  So here I go...

Week 1 of the challenge wasn't so hard.  It was an invitation to spend some time with my heart to define where I want to go in the days, weeks and months ahead.  I am happy to say, "I did it!"  I celebrate the success of this, my first blog entry in the challenge.

5 comments:

Karyn Ellis said...

I'm glad you hopped back on the rails, Lily! Here's to exciting adventures ahead with the challenge!

Debra Alexander said...

Lily, we are all blessed to have you engineering this thing. Love your spirit.

SteveD said...

Way to go Lily - thanks for putting this challenge together and helping all of us to help ourselves.

Tracy Mills said...

Thanks for all your organizing efforts Lily. You are a tiger!

Jinral Tao said...

Funny you should mention life getting in the way.

That's exactly what's happened to me all this week. Couldn't take a breath.

Anyhow, made it through.
Keep up the great work.