Yet again …

I’m at it again. My class, Blogging 201: Branding & Growth began yesterday and our first assignment was to consider what I want to accomplish with my blog and write down three concrete goals.

Hmmm … it’s writing concrete goals that has become a struggle for me. To my great chagrin, experience has shown me that setting goals falls into the same category as new years resolutions and to-do lists. It’s the kiss of death. I’m actually very good at setting goals … it’s the follow through that is the tricky part. It feels like setting goals is tantamount to setting myself up for failure. What is it we say? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.

I stopped setting goals; but, clearly I need to learn a more sophisticated dance. One has to live her life some kind of intention. I was grappling with this challenge when Rilke’s words about living in the question floated into my consciousness.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to live the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. –Rainer Maria Rilke

Last night as I lay in bed waiting for sleep to take me I posed only questions. What if I believed in myself and this process? What if I took this seriously and treated my blog as if it were my job and my life’s calling? What if I give myself permission to fail and to not know the answers? What if I gave myself permission to struggle openly with the process?

This morning I woke energized and inspired. I spent the better part of the morning cleaning, organizing and rearranging furniture in home office. It was painfully clear that I need a workspace that better supports me on my journey of becoming. What do you think of my efforts?