My Goals for Early 2013 and a Great Goal Infographic

Well, now that I've let the cat out of the bag with my big self-publishing/Kickstarter announcement, I'm excited to share my rough overview for the year. It's always interesting to post these things publicly, and then to come back and see how time and work reshape them.

Without further ado, here are my Goals for 2013:

1. Get better at recognizing (and accepting) failure. In the past, I've been scared to admit when something doesn't work out according to my plan, instead hoping that no one will notice. But you can learn a lot by owning up. I've already got a start on this - last summer, my ambitious Prancing Laggard video game humor project fizzled unceremoniously, and I'm working on passing on the reins.

2. Get better at celebrating (and rewarding) victory! Success is great, and sharing it with the world makes it just a little bit sweeter. The people in my life WANT to be a part of my big wins. I should let them!

3. Give - and accept - help. I've been pretty good at lending a hand when asked, but when it comes to my own projects I sometimes try to go it alone when working with a team would make things so much better. I want to not only accept offers of assistance where it makes sense, but also take initiative and ask for a hand.

4. Crowdfund and self-publish my first novel, Mechalarum. This one will involve a billion and one mini-goals and mini-steps to achieve. It's daunting to even try and keep the whole thing in my brain at one time. But as long as I keep focusing on one little piece at a time (like, say, this blog post), I'll continue to make progress.

5. Make wonderful products with the Knodes team. Writing fiction is awesome, and I'm excited that I'll be bringing my novel into the world soon. But that doesn't mean that I want to give up my inspirational, new day job. I have a sneaking suspicion that I'll always have more than one big thing going on in my life. It's invigorating - and overwhelming - to have so much going on at one time.

6. Figure out how to maintain a healthy lifestyle while living in the city. This might be the hardest resolution of all to keep. I do get some exercise just by walking around the city, but it doesn't quite balance out all of the time I sit staring at a computer screen. I'd love to multitask some of my socialization time to make sure this gets done.

7. Have fun!

I like that I have a mix of concrete tasks and conceptual goals to work towards. However, this only covers what's going to happen until around June - after that, I have no idea where my life will take me.

And finally, here by way of OnlineEducation.net, is a great infographic for helping you work on your goals. It's a great representation of why writing your future vision down is so important.