Target Practice

It’s the season of targets and am I going to have a tough time meeting them or what?

There’s my sales target for the coming financial year that my boss has just shared with me and I don’t even have to be smart to know that I’m going to have a hell of a year trying to achieve those numbers. So much for my post Himalayan biking, inner peace achieving, work – life balancing mindset that was just about beginning to settle in comfortably. I’m sure everyone who told me that my bliss wouldn't last is grinning away to glory.

Then there is my book writing for which I need to set a target date if I want to send it to publishers. Its 99.99% done and I know that the finish line is in sight but something just keeps holding me back. All that is left is for me to spend a couple of days to polish the top 5 chapters before forwarding it and this will be followed by me keeping my fingers crossed.

Then there is my guitar work for which I need to set a target list of songs. My playing to be honest has been going good (pat on the back) except for my life long problem of not being able to remember the lyrics to songs so I am faced with the inglorious challenge of knowing how to play multiple songs but drawing a blank when it comes to singing them. So the only option left is to create a list of songs which will be my master set. If you ask for anything outside of it, I’ll be sure to tell you that I don’t know it. Now if you do have a special request, be sure to send them in while I am creating my master list and ladies, please don’t fight. One at a time.

Then there is my targeted bank balance which is nowhere near where I want it to be and is directly correlated to my work targets and my writing targets. Speaking of writing targets, once I do send the select chapters out, I need to start working on another idea that I have which is much more elaborate than anything I have ever attempted before. And that includes the 30,000 word masterpiece (did I just hear you say disaster piece?) on my Himalayan trip. This time I haven’t bounced the idea off my usual reliable pillars but that’s something I need to correct soon, assuming that they are interested in helping me that is.

To kick start that creative initiative I sat and started writing my initial draft on paper but the combined problems of my writing being too slow for my brain (it’s probably the only thing too slow for my brain) and the serious problem of content correction has made me realize I need to type that out as well, which is going to be another long exercise.

Which reminds me, the consistent (and understandable as well as expected feedback) that I received for my Himalayan travelogue was that it was too long. Well duh! But it turned out it was so long that even my occasional readers made an attempt and gave up while telling me that I needed to keep my posts shorter but with the same level of sweetness. With that in mind I had targeted 500 words for this post but I’m inching towards 600 instead. So much for meeting my targets!