{"id":15030,"date":"2022-07-21T20:26:22","date_gmt":"2022-07-22T00:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/?p=15030"},"modified":"2022-07-21T20:26:22","modified_gmt":"2022-07-22T00:26:22","slug":"dream-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/2022\/07\/21\/dream-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"Dream Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I love unfocused effort, particularly when I’m writing a book or designing a game. There’s nothing quite as liberating as sitting down to write a story with nothing more than a few ideas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point, though, I need a goal. There’s a moment in every project where it changes from “look at this cool thing” to “I’m making this specific cool thing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that moment never happens, and sometimes it doesn’t, the project gets shelved. I might come back to it from time to time, but, generally speaking, the odds of it going anywhere are small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over time, the projects that don’t get shelved end up having a series of goals which are typically variations of <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Finish it<\/li>
  2. Test it<\/li>
  3. Fix it<\/li>
  4. Publish it. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    I know, I know. For someone who thinks of himself as being creative, those aren’t very imaginative goals. What can I say? At heart, I’m a simple guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Also, I have found that I have to be careful with the goals that I set. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Non-specific goals are fine. I can handle those. For example, if I set a goal of “losing weight,” I usually lose at least some weight, and I don’t stress too much about it. On the other hand, if I set myself a goal to lose an exact number of pounds, I can’t get it out of my head. Everything I eat is considered against the target. Every time I relax with a book, a voice in the back of my head tells me to get my lazy self up and exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Yep, I know. It’s not healthy. It’s just me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Fortunately, my particular psychosis matches well with the “finish it, test it, fix it, publish it” goals. There’s nothing wrong with obsessing over finishing a project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What doesn’t make sense is obsessing over goals I can’t control. I’m never going to have a goal of “be a New York Times bestseller” because, as an indie author, I have no idea how to accomplish that. All I can do is focus on writing the best books that I can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    That doesn’t mean I don’t have loftier goals. I do. I just keep them in the “dream” category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I’d love to see New Zealand, for example, or take a motorcycle trip across the country. Those are both what I call “dream goals”. I’m not doing anything specific to them. I’m just hoping they happen. They lurk in the back of my head like optimistic little imps waiting for a chance to pounce. For example, the current round-trip airfare from Orlando to New Zealand is about $2,000. And yes, I know that because I just Googled it. I probably Google it about once a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What are my other dream goals? Probably the same as yours. Here’s a random list of five that leap to mind:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Receive a Kirkus Starred Review<\/li>
    2. Win a Spiel Des Jahre<\/li>
    3. Have humming birds nest in the butterfly garden<\/li>
    4. Learn enough about photography to justify purchasing a “real” camera<\/li>
    5. See New Zealand – hey, once it’s in your head, it’s hard to get it out. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      If you’re a writer, you probably nodded appreciatively at #1. If you’re a game designer, you snorted and muttered “yeah, right” at #2. If you’re a gardener or bird watcher, #3 may have resonated at a surprisingly deep level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Well… #1 just happened for me. Abigail’s Dragons<\/a> received a Kirkus Starred Review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Un-freaking-believable. I couldn’t be more excited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go check the prices on flights to New Zealand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

      Who knows? They may have changed. That’s the magic of dream goals. Sometimes, you reach them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      <\/p>\n\n\n

      \n
      \"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

      <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      At the intersection of dreams and goals lies… dream goals. Clever right? I made up the name myself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15034,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[78,96],"class_list":["post-15030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-writing","tag-review","tag-writing-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/GoalBlogPost.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DpYi-3Uq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15030"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15039,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15030\/revisions\/15039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}