Hey, it’s February already! Scratch that, it’s almost a week into February! Where – (I know it’s a terrible cliché but still!) – where oh where does the time go? The third week of Switzerland is coming to an end, and it doesn’t feel like more than a few days have gone by. Do you get that feeling? 2010 started just a little while ago, right? We had the big New Years’ celebrations? Anyone make any resolutions? (I didn’t! Mwahaha!)
But speaking of resolutions, and goal-setting, and such. I’m reminded again how very quickly the time goes. If you’re on “autopilot”, just going through the motions every day, letting it all pass in a blur of sleeping and eating and playing and working, the time will fly. Really, it will catch a jetplane away from you. Worse – it’ll go back on itself and catch a Concorde – haha – ok, so I’m reminded again that because it’s so easy to let the days go by without any control or input from you, one has to take control. Right? Set some goals, prioritise a little, activate some new habits. Imagine what you want your life to look like in a year’s time: because before you know it it WILL be a year’ time! February 2011? You think that sounds like it’s far away? It’s closer than February 2111, but even that time will come quicker than you’d guess.
Time flies, and it scares me a little.
It’s taken a while for me to settle in and get this year started. As you might know, I moved continents three weeks ago (hemisphere, even!) and have since then just trying my best to fit in the household of this new family. With jet-lag and general travel exhaustion I hardly did anything in my free time the first week but sleep, anyway. It feels like … imagine being a dog-walker, and going for a walk with about a dozen dogs. You have all their leashes in your hands, under control, and you feel fine and on top of things. Suddenly, you trip – your feet slip beneath you and you drop ALL the leashes and the dogs run all over the place, in a flurry of chaotic barking. Now, it’s impossible to go straight to order again; you can’t jump straight back to where you were; you have to take it one leash at a time. Concentrate on one dog, chase after it, then once that one is under control, go for the next until eventually all the leashes are back in your hands. Can you imagine that? That’s what it feels like, right now; my life has changed so much I can’t blame myself for letting the weeks pass without taking control, setting some goals … but, I have more of the dogs under control now. I’m sorted. I’ve unpacked my bags, exchanged my money, bought train passes and phone credit; I feel like I can begin again now, set some little goals for the next few weeks.
Most of the things I want to do, the things I want to set goals about, is creative things like writing and drawing. Mainly drawing. I’ve fallen out of practice for at least the past couple of years and it’s frustrating because I WANT to draw, but what I want to appear on the page is not what appears. I need to practice more. Now, I’m terrible at practicing. It bores me, the repetitiveness of it, the lack of excitement; especially when you reach ‘plateaus’ in learning, I mean rapid improvement is fantastic and feels great, but after it’s not quite so rapid anymore…? But I want to practice. I want to improve. And, it seems the only real way to do it is to create habits, to set implementation intentions (more on that later), to set goals, so that it’s not a struggle with procrastination every time, but it becomes routine, to practice a little every week.
Not sure how often, or when, I should set this goal. I have to think about it. (yes, yes, I’m terrible at procrastination too, you’ll discover- I’m working on that as well (or rather, I’ll work on that tomorrow, mm?)) And I have to remember that it IS tough to change habits, it’s always going to be ‘two steps forward, one step back’ and all that. To remember it, and not get disheartened.
Aah I feel motivated right now! I wish it would last, these little moments of motivation and inspiration. Though I suppose you’d get exhausted from such a permanent state…
Thanks for reading, oh visitor! See you soon again?




