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A Different Way to Set Goals for 2019

I’m tired of myself. At this time of year, when I’m usually so disgustingly perky and optimistic, I’m lethargic and cynical. It’s as if someone pulled out my spark plug.

I feel like a mule plowing the same row year after year. My goals are always the same. Finish book. Get agent. Be healthier. Be kinder. Keep a cleaner home. Ugh.

I’m exhausted with these same goals, but I don’t see one that I wish to abandon. Shall I allow myself to be an unhealthy slob eating lime/red pepper potato chips (my new Italian addiction) and binge watching Ozark? Ok, that does sound a little good, but I know I’d feel guilty.

So, for 2019, I have the same list of goals but a new way to approach them. Actually, I have combined them into one goal: Just show up.

The showing up is the goal.

Dan Blank pointed out to me that for many people who are getting fit, the goal is no more than to show up at the gym. And that, over time, gets the job done.

But what exactly does it mean to show up? I think it’s simply to keep the goal in mind and do something toward it. Then, celebrate that you did something. Which is always better than being overwhelmed and then doing nothing because you can’t do it all perfectly.

Here’s my new approach for 2019.

I took a medium notebook with a fun cover. I listed my 2019 goals on the first page.

My Goal Notebook celebrates my love of history.

Then I divided the notebook into twelve sections, one for each month. I looked at my yearly goals and then set a January goal for each. I listed these on the first page of the January section. I deliberately kept these pretty easy for January.

The March page will list goals for March that are small bites of the yearly goals. I won’t fill this in until the end of February.

Then I divided the January section into smaller sections, one for each goal. I titled each subsection with that monthly goal. I will use that space to note where I showed up and did something toward the goal—even though I didn’t necessarily achieve the entire thing.

The number of pages in my notebook dictated that each subsection took up 1/3 page. Room for notes on what I accomplish on that goal when I show up.

Example:
Yearly Goal—Be Healthier
January Goals: Buy air cleaner, take vitamins every day, cut coffee down to one cup daily.
In that goal’s section, I can note that I bought herbal tea and substituted it for my many cups of coffee. Or I can make a check mark when I take my vitamins.

In February, I might have new health goals—take Prose for a walk five days a week or whatever.

But the goal is not the goal (ha!). The goal is to have something written in that box that proves I showed up.

Another of my goals is to find an agent for my novel. I have to tell you that the submission process crushes my soul. You feel like the beggar standing at the bakery shop window.

Yearly Goal: Find agent
January Goal: Query 30 agents
Maybe I won’t make 30. But I want to have something to write in that section, so I will show up and query some.

I see at least three advantages to this system.

  1. I cannot work on every goal every day. I have 12 goals. In the past, I would feel frustrated and guilty through January and then the goals would fall off my radar because I wasn’t doing them. This notebook will keep all those goals in front of me without making me feel pressure to work on every one every day.
  2. I will celebrate my successes. By writing down what I DID instead of focusing on what I need to do, I will remind myself that I am not solely eating lime/red pepper potato chips. I am working toward my worthy goals even if my steps are slow and faltering.
  3. It will make better use of small pieces of time, which I often waste. If I’m supposed to meet someone in an hour, I may just diddle until then. But with my goals in front of me, I can show up and review my Italian lesson or dust the bedroom. And I get to write those things down in my notebook to celebrate that I showed up.

And that was the goal.

Not all my goals are arduous. I have a goal to enjoy Italy. Therefore, my goal for January is to rent a car for a day trip and make sure I connect with my friends in Florence.

I have a goal to extend small kindnesses. The goal is just to be open to the opportunities. When I see one and respond to it, I get to write it down. Goal met. Yay!

Life should be a mosaic of tiny celebrations, not a monster to-do list.

Surveys show that most people who set goals on New Year’s do not keep them. Surveys also show that people who set goals accomplish more than people who never do. There’s something about the goal-setter’s approach to life that makes him more successful, even if he can’t live up to his New Year’s resolutions.

What do we really want for our New Year?

To do satisfying creative work, to find success as we measure it, to live a life that balances joy with duty and peace with productivity. We want true connection with others. We want to feel that each day has meaning. I wish all these things for each of you.

The greatest act of creation is to fashion a beautiful life. I’m hoping my new approach to goals will help me do that.

Do you set goals or flee them? Are you excited about the New Year or feeling a little blah? Maybe changing your goal to the simple Just Show Up will reboot your resolve as it has mine.

Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.
All my love,
Alison

Choose Strength

One year ago today, I arrived in Italy with my mom and Prose in tow to begin . . . something. I really didn’t know if it would be a new life, a great adventure, or a total fiasco. In many ways, I still don’t.

Symbolically, we left Arkansas on September 19, my grandmother’s birthday. On the surface, my grandmother was a homebody whose greatest pleasure was going for walks in her beloved Ozarks, strolling around her yard and garden, or reading any book within reach. But she also loved to travel, and I am so happy that I was able to take her all over New England, a little of Canada, and even New York City. And it was there that she made a statement that defines my desire to live in Italy.

As we were driving in NYC, the apartments looked pretty old and there was laundry hanging outside the windows (so Italian). Suddenly my grandmother said, “I’d like to move here and live like these people.”

 

The first flight. My mom lifts her champagne to our new adventure. 

 

Prose worries about her oxygen mask.

My ever-so-literal mother was also in the car, and she said, “Surely not. Why on earth would you say that? Look how dirty it is and crowded and unsafe.”

Now we all knew that my grandmother wouldn’t leave her beloved home in the mountains and her daughters who lived nearby. But she said, “Because I’d like to live a totally different life just to see what it’s like. To figure out how to get by in a whole other world.”

I have thought of that so much because that is exactly what brought me—and keeps me—in Italy. The moments when I feel the cultural difference most acutely (such as when my Italian friends take the 700-year-old skeleton of their holy woman out of the church and parade her through the street) is when I am most enchanted. I’ve always loved jigsaw puzzles, and now I am the odd piece, constantly trying to figure out how to fit myself into the bigger picture of my Tuscan village.

My grandma on one of a lifetime of great hikes in our Ozarks.

People who make a big move are running away or seeking something or probably both. I left the U.S. months after my father’s supposed suicide and my husband’s revelation, after thirty-three years together, that he wanted a divorce. Not to mention the death of my very good dog Traveler.

Certainly my feelings have evolved in the last year. When we came, I brought four suitcases in total for myself, my mom, and Prose (who is a very material girl). One of those suitcases was full of research for the novel I’m writing and hard copies of Sarah Ban Breathnach’s books, including Moving On. Besides clothes and other usual paraphernalia, I brought a huge beloved back pillow, in case I got sick and had to write in bed. I brought some kitchen stuff that I couldn’t bear to leave, favorite knives and a few gadgets. But it was all practical. I brought nothing sentimental except Traveler’s ashes. I wanted no reminders of the past, no loose ends of pain. I wanted a clean page for my new chapter, my new life, the new me.

When I returned to Arkansas six months later for a whirlwind ten days of appointments and tasks, I had a half year under my belt of learning new ways to do things, of figuring out challenges, of thinking about more than how the men I loved betrayed me. Now, coming back to Arkansas was almost like lifting up the bandage very carefully to see how the healing was progressing.

I discovered that I was ready to begin to join the fragmented pieces of myself back together. This time, when I boxed up my complete historical research library to bring to Italy, I allowed myself one box, maximum 70 pounds, for anything I wanted. I put in all Traveler’s little sweaters, hoping Prose could wear them. I put in some mementos of good moments with old friends. I put in pictures of my grandparents and dad. I tore all the written pages out of a lifetime of unfinished journals and brought the pages. I bought a second carry-on and allowed myself that many breakable items. A sculpture from Eureka Springs, more momentos, framed pictures. I unstretched a Jody Stephenson painting and rolled it up in a tube to carry it onto the plane.

I felt as if I were gluing myself back together, forging the new me and the old me into one stronger person.

The second trip. Boxes of books and some memories this time.

Sometimes, I am filled with wonder. Who is this woman who can find her way around foreign cities with no help, who can usually make herself understood in pidgin Italian, who has lost 30 pounds? I don’t know her.  Other times, I find I’m still the same insecure, easily embarrassed nerd I always was. The truth is, of course, I am all those things. It just depends on which side of myself I want to turn toward the light.

For years, I abdicated as much responsibility as I could because it was easier. It was easier to let my husband manage the finances or figure out the TV remote. When we traveled, it was easier to let him drive the rental car, read the walking map, convert kilometers to miles. I chose helplessness because it was so easy.

Now, I choose strength. I choose to turn that side of myself to the light. I can convert gallons to liters, euros to dollars, miles to kilometers and know how much it costs to drive a hundred miles. And then, I can drive it. I choose to be the person who can do the thing—whatever it might be—that needs to be done.

What is true for me is, of course, true for us all. If I know anything, I know that I am not special. “You’re so brave,” people say. “You’re so strong.” That is simply not true. I just try not to talk myself out of things because I know that any situation can be faced with this simple procedure: Show up. Take the next step. Solve today’s problem.

Last week. Just another day in the life.

You really don’t have to have it all figured out ahead of time. You can’t anyway. I had no idea how I would feel living in Italy. Maybe I would hate it. How could I know? But I did know this: nothing has to be permanent.

So, here I am, a year in. Who knows where we’ll be in another year. Maybe right here. Maybe not. I’m figuring it out as I go. Aren’t we all? But one thing I know. We all have a strong side. And that should be the one that we turn toward the light.

Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.

Alison

Religion in Memoir

Last Sunday, I visited Savonarola in Florence. I’m really not a fan of his, but I wanted to think about this whole topic of a change of faith. So I went to visit the plaque that marks the spot where Savonarola was burned by the Florentines on May 23, 1498.

Although I’m keeping this post light, I am, in fact, always moved by those who die for their beliefs, even if I disagree with them. Savonarola is a mystery. Was he a megalomaniac? A tragic figure? Did he die because of his true faith or his lust for power?

It was tough to get a picture of the plaque because thousands of tourists a day tromp over the spot.

Savonarola was a Domenican friar, a persuasive speaker who captured the Florentines’ imagination with his visions and prophecies. The upper class Florentines were living pretty well. Their banking and merchant economy gave a whole lot more of them money to spend on jewelry and art. Not to mention those great Renaissance clothes.

However, there were pesky problems. The recurring plague, unrest within the city, and that annoying Charles VIII of France who had invaded Italy and was threatening Florence. A lot to worry about.

The way to power and riches, my uncle used to say, is to “create a fear and provide the solution.” Savonarola did not have to create the fears—they already existed. But he did have the solution. If the Florentines wanted to stay safe, they needed God’s protection. The way to achieve that was to repent of their lavish lifestyles, their vanities like jewelry and mirrors and art. He began to encourage Florence’s citizens to bring their luxuries to the big public square known as the Piazza della Signoria and to throw them into a fire—a bonfire of the vanities.

This portrait was made the year he died. A dark guy with a dark story.

If they would do this, Savonarola promised, God would forgive the Florentines all their sins and bless the city as never before. Florence would be the New Jerusalem, the center of Christianity, “richer, more powerful, more glorious than ever”. Did anyone mark the irony that he asked them to burn their vanities so they could grow richer? It was the ultimate “Health and Wealth Gospel” combined with a puritanical asceticism.

Savonarola created what we call today a “cult.” His followers were called Piagnoni or “weepers.” (Probably, they were thinking about their lost stuff.) He indoctrinated Florence’s youth and organized boys and young men to patrol the streets to curb immodest dress and behavior. He himself assumed more and more power. A political party comprised of his followers controlled the city.

The purpose of this post is not to make any judgments about any form of religion or faith. (Well, okay, maybe I’m not too convinced by Savonarola.) But the truth is that many, many people have moved away from the doctrines in which they were raised or in which they once strongly believed. This is a powerful thread in many memoirs and an important part of many people’s journeys.

So I’m very happy that one of the speakers at our online Memoir Summit will be Ruth Wariner, author of the book The Sound of Gravel, a memoir about growing up as the thirty-ninth of her father’s forty-two children in a polygamist family in rural Mexico.

Maybe your story is not as dramatic as Ruth’s. But rethinking your faith as you grow up and older is a common thing to do. The Florentines did. They decided they didn’t believe Savonarola. Drunk on his own vision of himself as a great prophet, he began to hint that he could work miracles but never provided any. Plus the pope, who had tried at first to reign in Savonarola, finally excommunicated him and threatened all of Florence if they didn’t stop harboring him. Undoubtedly, this threw a lot of people into a moral dilemma.

Finally, in the great spirit of excess for which this period of time is known, if they weren’t going to burn their vanities, the Florentines decided they’d just burn Savonarola. (I am comforted to know that they hung him first.) Maybe they were annoyed more at themselves for falling for his line and tossing that original Botticelli into the flames. (It’s thought by some scholars that Botticelli, himself a follower of Savonarola’s, burned some of his own paintings.)

Savonarola’s execution in the same piazza where he had held his bonfires of the vanities.

A lot of Savonarola’s story is a cautionary tale about mass hysteria and the way people can get caught up in a crowd mentality and an emotional frenzy. Savonarola was hot at the height of his popularity and hot at the end of it, and there had to have been people who were part of the mob at both times. The thing about dogma is that it relieves you of any personal responsibility. You just do as you’re told.

But within that population, there must also have been some thoughtful people, struggling to find some truth that made sense. And doubtless among those children indoctrinated by Savonarola, there were some who grew up to see the inconsistency in his thinking and his actions, but who still carried that emotional baggage and the need to unpack it.

Ok, this is a little scary.

This is the stuff of memoir. In fact, when I first started the Village Writing School, this was the most popular topic among people coming to our workshops. Whether they were writing straight-up memoir or disguising their feelings in a novel, the evolution of faith in some direction or another, ran through many stories.

Faith is the perfect topic for a memoir because it is both highly personal and of universal concern. A memoir might reflect a faith journey (toward or away from), a crisis of faith, or even a bonfire of the vanities, for there are many ways to renounce our treasures. When you think about your story, what part, if any, does religion play?

Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.

–Alison

Do We Have The Courage?

Have you ever thought you’d like to tell your story? As I think about writing a memoir about the past year and the crazy change of course I took after the most ridiculous divorce in history, I find I have a lot of doubts. Do any of these feel familiar? Have similar doubts held you back?

1. Voice. Voice is everything. That’s why we read memoir because that’s what makes us care about that particular person. I want to be funny. I have tried to face my challenges with the awareness that we are a quirky species and Fortune’s curve balls are often comedies.

However, I’m not that funny. At least, not consistently. I’m only funny about once a month and then sometimes only to myself. I’m only funny when I’m desperate. Come to think of it, that’s most of the time. Maybe I am funny.

2. Deep down, I could still be furious. I could be bitter. I might be a whiner. If I write a memoir, is all that going to bubble up like lava on the Big Island? Am I going to discover that I really don’t like myself? Am I going to see my own flaws as I’ve never seen them before? Is that a good thing?

Know thyself. Do I want to?

3. Am I going to be tempted to justify? Basically, I feel misunderstood. (Don’t we all?) Can I tell my story without the need to explain myself?

4. Will I have to moralize? Draw some kind of conclusion? Find some “message”? That sounds like me, always needing to “teach”. Can I write a book that admits I don’t have a clue about anything? Is that a good idea when readers are reading to find meaning?

5. What if I write this thing to find “meaning” and discover that I can’t see any? What if, honestly, I can’t say everything happened for a reason? Or maybe it did, but the reason was that I made stupid choices.

6. Is this thing going to plunge me into depression and mental illness? Am I going to unpack baggage that is better left locked up in the attic? Will I be opening Pandora’s box?

7. Will I lose one or both of my two friends? When they see who I really am, will they be appalled?

8. Will I sound like a cliché? Woman of a certain age, runs off to Italy after the most ridiculous divorce in history. Tuscany, even. Does the world need yet another story about finding a new life in Tuscany? Isn’t that like asking: does the world need another hairball?

As I plan the Memoir Summit that the Village Writing School is hosting on October 10, I’m looking at popular memoir authors I’d like to interview, and you can bet these questions will be on my mind.

What about you? What’s the biggest challenge you would face if you decided to tell your story?

Do we actually have the courage to

Find our stories . . . and ourselves?

–Alison

Defend Yourself From Toxic Feedback

Toxic feedback. We have all suffered from it. Everyone has that friend or relative who undercuts you under the guise of “helping” you. I once had a roommate who critiqued my cooking. One day, the pecans in the pancakes were too close together. And sometimes, the food was too . . . warm.

Toxic feedback comes from people who feel that they must say something. Writers’ groups are Petri dishes for toxic feedback.

Toxic feedback withers our souls.

This is a story of toxic feedback and the consequence that spans centuries.

A picture I took this week of the Florence cathedral.

Florence’s cathedral was begun in 1296. Due to delays caused by interruptions like the Black Death, that killed over half Florence’s population, the work stretched on for centuries. By 1418, the cathedral was finished except for the dome.

In what had to be a leap of faith as large as the cathedral, the architect had designed a dome so big, no one knew how to build it. An octagonal dome higher and wider than any that had ever been built, with no external buttresses to keep it from spreading and falling under its own weight.

Because they didn’t want those ugly gothic buttresses sticking out like skeletal ribs. This was the Renaissance.

Not only were buttresses considered ugly and old-fashioned, but Florence’s enemies to the north favored that style.

Finally, a guy named Brunelleschi figured out how to build it, and so it’s world famous as Brunelleschi’s Dome. It was the first octagonal dome in history to be built without a temporary wooden frame (there was not enough timber in Tuscany to build the supports and scaffolding). It is one of the most impressive projects of the Renaissance.

But this story is not about Brunelleschi. It’s about an artist named Baccio D’Agnolo.

Sensitive guy. Too sensitive.

Baccio was commissioned to create a line of decoration just below the roof. He chose white marble to contrast with the red tiles. He created an ornamental design of columns and arches. He worked on it for nine years, and in that time, he completed one of the eight sides.

Then he made his big mistake. He decided he wanted feedback. He halted the work and asked the Florentines what they thought. And Michelangelo said, “It looks like a cage for crickets.”

Baccio was so heartbroken, he abandoned the work and it remains unfinished today.

Here you can clearly see the lovely completed side and the other sadly unfinished sides. A lasting monument to toxic feedback.

Was Michelangelo being a jerk? Or were they friends and he was just teasing? Either way, the result was the same. Millions and millions of people would have seen and appreciated Baccio’s design over the centuries. But he let one man shut him down.

So many writers have told me that they hired an editor who ripped up their manuscript, so they stopped writing. Or that so many rejection letters from agents convinced them that they weren’t any good. Or how a friend, a spouse, a mom made an offhand comment (remember, perhaps Michelangelo was teasing), but the writer was so hurt, he packed up his work and stuck it in the closet.

Speaking of toxic, how about all those people who make themselves feel smart by writing a nasty book review on the internet?

And, most tragically, we give ourselves toxic feedback. I’ve talked to several writers who burned everything they ever wrote in a fit of self-doubt. So:

  • Don’t be a source of toxic feedback.
  • Don’t seek random validation, as Baccio did. That’s asking for toxic feedback.
  • Be very careful what you say to yourself.
  • But, get a thicker skin.

Has someone given you toxic feedback that really stung, that you remember until now, that changed your direction?

From now on, whenever anyone gives you toxic feedback on your writing, your drawing, your meal: Remember Baccio.

Finding our stories . . . and ourselves.

–Alison