self-starter

My friend blogged about feeling "resolutionary." I like that. I'm feeling it too and feel like rambling more about it. Sorry in advance to everyone besides "future Tiffany" reading this.

My sister just read my "The Entitlement Trap" book by the Eyres. She had the same reaction that I had, that we like it and the ideas but mostly b/c it's the way our parents raised us. There were differences of course, but the core of the book was the same. It seems so smart. Our parents are smart. My mom told my sister that she had read books by that family when raising us. They did Joy School with me, which was founded by that family. I'm going to re-read that book. I had planned on starting some of the things when Dylan turned 8, which is in about a month!! So I need to refresh. Reading it over a year ago when it first came out (I think I was on a waiting list b/c I followed one of their daughters' blog), I was a little frustrated that my kids were not old enough for me to implement the ideas. They recommend middle school age for many of them. But I think it's time for my kids to have real chores and/or Saturday jobs. They help with things now, and even occasionally do things without asking like putting the silverware away. Anyway, it's time to get a solid plan. My sister bought the book for my brother for his birthday today, and he bought it for her for her birthday last week. :) The next generation will be blessed.

I just posted the first sentence of this to Facebook and realized that the rest should go on my blog. Too much for a status update!

I'd like to "read" books on tape while editing/procrastinating at night. Do you suggest I buy on iTunes or is there a free way that's not all spammy? I don't need new books, mostly self-help oldies. I have been thinking about the "sharpen the saw" part of the 7 Habits book right now, for example.
There are a lot of new articles that catch my attention, but for example, the whole "process is more important than focusing on the goal" thing isn't doing it for me. It's debatable alright, but I think goals are still important b/c if we always do what we've always done, even if it's good, we'll always get what we've always gotten, and nothing amazingly awesome like a family trip to Hawaii. (Yeah, that's my 20th anniversary goal.)

I was talking about an article that mentioned that if we focus on the process of working out daily instead of a goal of lifting so many reps, for example, we could save our knee if it starts to hurt b/c it's okay if we do not get to that total, what matters is that we're getting stronger. And that's really what matters. The author also mentioned that he could have had a goal to write 2 books, but since he already writes two articles/week, he just so happened to have written the equivalent of two books just by the number of published words he has written in the articles. Um, so he's successful with the articles and happy about it, that's great, but it's still not two books. And he won't ever write a single book unless he plans it! So good for him for the articles and the word count, but for me, I think one SHOULD have goals. He pointed out that once a person achieves his goal, he immediately hits a low after that high b/c now what. A marathoner will run a marathon and the training is great, the achievement is amazing, but then what. Will he take a break? Why would he ever run again? He should just run a lot every day and not go for the marathon goal. Um, I think that the achievement makes the running have purpose, and in the process - yes there has to be a process - the person develops good habits, is healthy, etc. So I do see how the "process over goals" mentality is a good one. It's absolutely debatable, but it's just not for me. I like having the accountability and quantifiable achievements. I also agree that people should be generally good and have daily healthy processes with or without goals in mind. Like helping a neighbor does not need to be because one has the goal of helping 3 people a week or something.

Along those lines, I have a patient who sees me once/month. He must pay a lot for dental insurance b/c there's no frequency limit. We have good talks, partly b/c there's not much for me to clean of course! He has his own businesses and likes new technology and new ideas and knows that I do Dr. Brayer's marketing and we talk about Dr. Brayer's new lasers and medicaments and branding and social media and post card mailings but also about other things. He went to church to hear me give a talk last year. Or maybe the year before, I don't know. He since joined a church, or at least attends one, I don't know if there's a joining process or what. It's the church Corrie and Darren go to. I have a lot of friends there actually. We play soccer with that church's youth sports ministry and the kids went to their Vacation Bible School. I think he goes partly for the networking potential there - it's a huge church! But he talked to me yesterday about how he felt the Christmas Spirit and was truly loving Christmas time. Then we talked about our New Year's Resolutions. He always does "PMS" goals which stands for Physical, Mental, and Spiritual. I am similar in that I do goals in various categories too. Later that day, I read an article on the "Normans" blog about resolutions naturally springing forth after people catch the Christ-like Christmas Spirit. http://www.normons.com/quick-thought-new-years-resolutions/ It had a talk by Uchdorf, a member of the Frist Presidency of our church. I sent the article to that patient. He said he liked the talk.

So I can seem to talk the talk, but am not as able to walk the walk. I do some, but feel like I have writer's block. No, it's more of a procrastination thing, dancing around in "almost there" land. Like I have started editing a couple sessions, have 3 to-do lists started, washed the dishes but didn't clean the floors, etc. I can easily listen to conference sessions but instead turned on the TV today and started watching some dumb old movie with the older Men In Black guy, I don't know his name, maybe Tommy something??? Anyway. My patient and I talked about needing an accountability partner. I know that writing down goals makes them way more achievable, but that having a person to whom I can report my progress is way more effective. Especially for me. That's why I stay up late editing photos instead of cleaning. Nobody is coming over to check my floors but clients are waiting up for photos.

I want to be better with blogging sessions on my photography blog. I just realized that I hadn't even verified my Google listing. That's crazy since I am so on top of blogging, newsletters, facebook games, promoting posts, in-office games, post card mailings etc with my dental office. But that's b/c I have a boss. In my business, I don't report to anyone so I don't get excited about posting to Scribed or youTube or getting reviews or SEO. I need to figure out goals b/c my process is steady yet lacking. I already blogged about that.