When You Don't Hit Your Goals For the Year

First published on December 18, 2019

I have a confession to make. I'm not going to hit one of my goals for 2019. Not only that, but it's one that I swore to myself I wouldn't let appear on my list of goals for 2020. I made a point of saying that - that the 2019 list was the last list it would be on - to as many people as possible to try and ramp up the pressure on myself. And I'm not going to get there, at least, not in the way I imagined.

In 2016, my coach Joel asked me, 'If we spoke at Christmas, what would you be thrilled to tell me?'

From nowhere, I said, 'That I'd written a book.' I hadn't considered or thought about this before, or at least recently. But it felt true. A little from ego (wouldn't that be cool?!) but when Joel asked, 'What are you curious about at the moment?' The answer came, 'Is this new worldview I am evolving valid?'

And that became the topic of a book which until this year was called 'Possibility Writing' or 'Possibility Book'. The first draft I finished in Costa Rica in 2017; it was about 20,000 words. Then I sent it to people and got feedback. It was mixed. I've got to say, looking back, I'm a bit embarrassed by the quality of what I sent them. But they were incredibly kind and encouraging. As part of that process, my friend Steve - a professional copy editor - got involved. With his help I broke the Resistance that almost left the book hidden on my laptop to never see the light of day. What if I shared it with some test readers, and used their feedback (requested in a specific format) as a way to improve my writing? Several people agreed to help and one even read every section, giving feedback on each one (Alex, if we do one day have beers in Sheffield, I will buy them). And the book grew, over that and subsequent drafts, to over 80,000 words, a comprehensive telling of the worldview that has changed my life, first as principles and then applied to our relationships, our work and the divided modern political world.

And, when I played out Warren Buffett's 25 things exercise (see Number 2 here) at the start of this year, 'Publish Possibility Writing' made the top 5: those things that I would say No to everything else for so that I could get them done. And yet it's the 18th December, and the book isn't done.

My God, it's close. It has been worked on be me and by an editor, it has been proof-read and received feedback. It has been taken to the Yorkshire countryside for a weekend of intensive work. And it's so much better than it was.

But it's not done. By the end of the year, my plan is to publish, at least, the current version of the introduction, as a sign of what's to come, but I haven't finished the book. I can't publish it all. There are always excuses and good reasons not to get things done, but I don't really believe in that. I believe in taking responsibility for our lives. Even with all the personal things that have happened this year, from deaths in the family to work and beyond, I could have done this. But I didn't.

I completed two training courses which weren't on my top 5 things for the year. That was part of it.

I took family time. That was part of it.

I took time for myself. That was part of it.

I had meetings and coffees and calls with people I didn't have to. That was part of it.

I didn't always hold my discipline on the days I have dedicated to creativity. That was part of it.

I'm not going to let completing this goal at all costs take over my Christmas and distract me from my loved ones. That will be part of it.

I completed my other four goals. That was part of it. And that's interesting, isn't it? Why did the other four get done, and why is this one - which has been present on my top 5 since the first time I did the Warren Buffett exercise in 2017 - still incomplete?

I know what The War of Art says. It says the place we feel the greatest Resistance is the place that is most important to our soul's evolution.

Resistance gets ingeniuous. Maybe all the reasons above are Resistance's way of stopping me completing this book.

Or maybe I made sensible, strategic choices and got dealt a hand by fate that disrupted me at just the wrong moments.

How will we ever know?