I’ve been stuck. I want to get back into writing, but I don’t know how. I rack my brain for ideas, but can’t seem to come up with one just to get the ball rolling. Even worse, when I do come up with an idea, I can’t motivate myself to jump in and write something. For the past year, one of the contributing factors to my motivation issues was my struggle to manage my schedule accordingly. In 2021, I was a college student taking online classes while working a full-time job for a marketing company that allowed me to work from home and I was planning my wedding that happened towards the end of the year. However, two days before my wedding, I lost my job. So I decided to dedicate my time to finishing my online classes so I could get my second bachelor’s degree in communications. Because of this, I couldn’t find a balance between my homework schedule, my free time schedule where I could destress from the homework and my writing schedule. All of my efforts would go into working on homework and having time to destress from the homework, so my writing schedule would end up falling by the wayside. On top of that, I lost the passion to write creatively because I would spend a significant amount of time writing for educational purposes rather than for my brand. Which, on the one hand, is great, but on the other hand, it’s not because it leaves me feeling lost. I want to bring back the creative writer that I was.
So how can I motivate myself to get back into doing what I love the most? This is something I have thought about on the surface but never took the time to dive into it to understand it properly. I remember discussing this with my therapist, and we were able to come up with some action-based ideas. But I needed to know more. This is where some research and self-reflection came in. From what I discovered, I was able to come up with a few ideas in my mind.
The first I found is to create a goal. I read a few articles discussing this, and that was when it occurred to me. Back when I was going through the induction process for the National Society of Leadership and Success honor society, I remembered creating SMART goals. These were specific, measurable, relevant, and time-based goals (S.M.A.R.T.). I learned more about the meaning of SMART goals from my classes at Southern New Hampshire University. The purpose of creating SMART goals is to not only help a business plan its strategy but to measure the success of the strategy by setting milestones for achieving your main goal. However, this can apply to personal goals as well, which is what I learned from the NSLS induction training program. They not only can help you stay organized, but they give your actions a stronger sense of purpose.
One of the points of a SMART goal, is time-based, which means having a deadline for achieving the goal. I read an article that talked about having a target date for your goal and how it can help you stay motivated and it got me thinking of a method that I have implemented over the past few months. This idea was inspired by a method that my husband was using. He had created various reminder lists on his phone for things like meal ideas for each week, music ideas that he could look into, etc. This led me to create my own reminder lists, but my lists would be priority based and contain items that ranged from weekly chores like cleaning my pet rabbit’s pen, to important time-sensitive items like submitting my application to graduate a week before the deadline. I also set up alerts on these tasks that will go off to remind me at specific days and times. This not only helps with my memory on certain tasks that need to be completed, but it also establishes a specific target date for each task so I can hold myself accountable for each item that gets completed and doesn’t get completed.
While this method helps with my time management skills, the main thing I need to keep in mind is to have simple goals. Another point to SMART goals is specificity, which means the goal needs to be specific to a certain point. For example, one of the SMART goals that I had created during my training in the NSLS program was to graduate with a 3.5 GPA by the end of my last class. This is a specific goal because I wanted to graduate at the end of my school term with a specific grade point average in mind, which also makes it measurable. However, I simplified the goal to make it more specific which means it doesn’t have to be a large goal. This can be a big problem of mine as I tend to try and come up with large goals even if it’s not necessary. This would result in me not coming up with any goals as I would hold myself to these high standards. But sometimes it helps to start small and then expand on the goals as you complete each one. In a video game, you always start with the smaller tasks at the beginning and eventually work your way up to more challenging tasks. This is how I needed to approach creating these goals. Keep them simple and specific. That way I can achieve them in the allotted time frame. And as for the SMART goal that I had created for the NSLS program, I achieved it because I graduated Cum Laude.
So to kick things off for this blog, I am going back to my film roots. And my first SMART goal is to post a film review of a film I am revisiting after watching it for the first time three years ago. That post will go up by the end of this week. So stay tuned.
Nicole Rousseau 