![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptChallenge #4 asks us to be S.M.A.R.T..
It's been a regular part of my workplace to insist that our goals for the coming year follow the S.M.A.R.T. form - goals must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Which is a decent format for making sure that someone isn't setting themselves up for failure or is trying to do things that can't be used for charting progress or for evaluations later on. For fannish endeavours, they're more useful as restraints and checks on both ambitions and on brainweasels, to keep us from thinking that we'll be able to channel our inner Allie Brosh and do ALL THE THINGS, but also to find ways of grabbing hold of the things offering to pull us out of the muck.
At a different place on the Internet, I mentioned that I don't generally do things such as New Year's Resolutions, because resolutions and goal-setting is often a free invitation for brainweasel bites about either not completing a thing or not completing a thing in the way that I wanted to. Beyond that, I also know that without the external support structure I have in place for building habits and reminding me of upcoming deadlines, my variable attention makes it hard to work on things steadily over time. So I want things that are either quickly doable or things that won't matter until their time appears. Keeping things circulating in my head as stuff that needs doing over time is cognitively taxing, and those things are likely to be shoved out by whatever new things need my attention and completion. Goals are not impossible for me, but I need a lot more external memory and scaffolding to complete them or to engage in regular practice toward them.
All of which is to say, even with a framework like S.M.A.R.T., I have a hard time with goals, and I don't make very ambitious ones when I do have to make goals. I would much rather be surprised about what I can accomplish, coming from a baseline of "nothing gets done, no ambition is realized" rather than having the temerity to believe that I will do things and disappointing myself that I didn't. As I said, free brainweasel bites. I know that the professionals in my life have said that self-worth is not an earned thing, is not tied to achievements or accomplishments, and is not controlled by the actions or opinions of other people, but I think they assume there's a core there that is unshakeably me, and that I can tap into that core at will to build a healthy self-image that can withstand the world outside. That core exists, certainly, but I see it most consistently when in moments of danger or panic, staring something in the face with the certainty that doing that, or allowing it to happen, would be crossing a line. (Sometimes I didn't realize I had a line drawn until something threatened to step over it.) It's much easier to make myself smaller and downplay the skills and successes that I've had, or otherwise get focus away from me, because I'm still too used to the idea where being Seen is the prerequisite to being Cut Down or made fun of when there's some falling away from a perfection or the perception thereof.
Which is to say that in our current envrionments, it's possible that most, if not all, of our energy, time, and resources are being taken up by the basics of surviving in a hostile world. If you're somewhere unstable, or you have a disfavored identity in your nation-state, or your own personal situation is in a rough spot, or you have disabilities that are not accommodated for, or are routinely rebuffed or challenged, you have significantly less to devote toward fannish pursuits or any other exercises outside of such things as "eat, sleep, temperature regulate, survive, repeat." It can look like you're failing at the basics, or that you're failing at fandom if you have a significantly limited energy, time, or ability budget to interact with the fandom at large. I know that I can feel that way when my brain chemistry gets in the way of doing things that other people would find easy or automatic, or someone else has to remind me of a thing I said I would do, or when I grumble about having to put reminders in external memory because I know full well that my internal memory won't be able to hold on to it at the point that it needs doing.
Even with acceptance of my limitations, it's still galling that I have them at times, because I was raised with the understanding that I would not have physical, mental, or social limitations, and would be able to do whatever it was I wanted to do with my life. And that I could expect society, and possibly reality, to bend itself to my will so that I wouldn't have to accept "no" as a permanent answer. It's hard to unlearn that message, especially when it's still being propagated and the examples of people who don't have those limitations are being waved around with the implicit or explicit message of "You aren't like him because you're not trying hard enough to be him." (Of course it's a him. He's also white, able-bodied, cisgender, has never had anything but affluence in his life, and has never faced any major adversity on his way to a prestigious degree and a cushy executive job that was waiting for him once he went through the motions of going through learning. He can fail at his job and be unqualified for it, and all that will happen is that he'll be given a golden parachute and sent on to the next job waiting for him.) The political situation in the United States is really rife with people who think they're the shit parading around and telling the rest of us that we're jealous of them and want to be them, when the reality is much closer to Nelson Muntz laughing at them for believing their own hype, or telling them that they have one too many words when they describe themselves as being "the shit." And yet, there's still enough energy, money, and rubes who think these guys are the peak of masculinity or of humanity that the rest of us still have to deal with them, even if it's having to make the effort to block/ban them every time they and their sycophants appear.
Past that point, I was talking with a coworker yesterday who was feeling internal pressure that we weren't putting on enough activities and programming for our location. I did my best to point out that we haven't been getting external pressure about it, that we'd talked with our manager about how to approach the idea of programming for maximal impact, and that low-key programming was a good idea for our area, because we don't have lots of hangout places where coming in and socializing or chilling was on the menu, and the school system around seems to handle a lot of after-school enrichment things. I also pointed out that we're actually doing a lot more than we recognize, but because we've backgrounded tasks like time spent on the help desk, or the story time sequence, or our collection responsibilities, we aren't fully aware of the amount of time we're actually spending on doing things that are either programming to the public or internal tasks that also take up our time. There's a tendency in our professional lives to chase novelty and to measure our successes or failures by the amount of things we're doing in addition to all of the things that we are already doing with our time. The novelty is also sometimes how we convince our funders that they should give us enough money, and sometimes how we convince the population that the library is still worth using, or has something for a population that thinks they have no need for a library. There's always interest (and often funding) in novel things, and very little interest (or funding) in ongoing maintenance and operations, or in refinement and optimization of the things that have been there already to make them better. This is personally and professionally true.
So, when it comes to goals, I think I will continue to mostly set them as "things I am already doing" rather than "things that are new for me," as many of the things I do will provide me will all kinds of novel situations in pursuit of continuing to do what I already do.
Since this is the start of a new year, this challenge will be to set your own goals! Of course, we can all make large or ambitious goals, remember that small and/or short goals are also good!
[…]
But a good rule of thumb when creating goals most people can complete is to keep in mind your own limits, give measurable end points & remember to not beat yourself up if you don't complete them how you expected them to. Be kind to yourselves <3
It's been a regular part of my workplace to insist that our goals for the coming year follow the S.M.A.R.T. form - goals must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Which is a decent format for making sure that someone isn't setting themselves up for failure or is trying to do things that can't be used for charting progress or for evaluations later on. For fannish endeavours, they're more useful as restraints and checks on both ambitions and on brainweasels, to keep us from thinking that we'll be able to channel our inner Allie Brosh and do ALL THE THINGS, but also to find ways of grabbing hold of the things offering to pull us out of the muck.
At a different place on the Internet, I mentioned that I don't generally do things such as New Year's Resolutions, because resolutions and goal-setting is often a free invitation for brainweasel bites about either not completing a thing or not completing a thing in the way that I wanted to. Beyond that, I also know that without the external support structure I have in place for building habits and reminding me of upcoming deadlines, my variable attention makes it hard to work on things steadily over time. So I want things that are either quickly doable or things that won't matter until their time appears. Keeping things circulating in my head as stuff that needs doing over time is cognitively taxing, and those things are likely to be shoved out by whatever new things need my attention and completion. Goals are not impossible for me, but I need a lot more external memory and scaffolding to complete them or to engage in regular practice toward them.
All of which is to say, even with a framework like S.M.A.R.T., I have a hard time with goals, and I don't make very ambitious ones when I do have to make goals. I would much rather be surprised about what I can accomplish, coming from a baseline of "nothing gets done, no ambition is realized" rather than having the temerity to believe that I will do things and disappointing myself that I didn't. As I said, free brainweasel bites. I know that the professionals in my life have said that self-worth is not an earned thing, is not tied to achievements or accomplishments, and is not controlled by the actions or opinions of other people, but I think they assume there's a core there that is unshakeably me, and that I can tap into that core at will to build a healthy self-image that can withstand the world outside. That core exists, certainly, but I see it most consistently when in moments of danger or panic, staring something in the face with the certainty that doing that, or allowing it to happen, would be crossing a line. (Sometimes I didn't realize I had a line drawn until something threatened to step over it.) It's much easier to make myself smaller and downplay the skills and successes that I've had, or otherwise get focus away from me, because I'm still too used to the idea where being Seen is the prerequisite to being Cut Down or made fun of when there's some falling away from a perfection or the perception thereof.
Which is to say that in our current envrionments, it's possible that most, if not all, of our energy, time, and resources are being taken up by the basics of surviving in a hostile world. If you're somewhere unstable, or you have a disfavored identity in your nation-state, or your own personal situation is in a rough spot, or you have disabilities that are not accommodated for, or are routinely rebuffed or challenged, you have significantly less to devote toward fannish pursuits or any other exercises outside of such things as "eat, sleep, temperature regulate, survive, repeat." It can look like you're failing at the basics, or that you're failing at fandom if you have a significantly limited energy, time, or ability budget to interact with the fandom at large. I know that I can feel that way when my brain chemistry gets in the way of doing things that other people would find easy or automatic, or someone else has to remind me of a thing I said I would do, or when I grumble about having to put reminders in external memory because I know full well that my internal memory won't be able to hold on to it at the point that it needs doing.
Even with acceptance of my limitations, it's still galling that I have them at times, because I was raised with the understanding that I would not have physical, mental, or social limitations, and would be able to do whatever it was I wanted to do with my life. And that I could expect society, and possibly reality, to bend itself to my will so that I wouldn't have to accept "no" as a permanent answer. It's hard to unlearn that message, especially when it's still being propagated and the examples of people who don't have those limitations are being waved around with the implicit or explicit message of "You aren't like him because you're not trying hard enough to be him." (Of course it's a him. He's also white, able-bodied, cisgender, has never had anything but affluence in his life, and has never faced any major adversity on his way to a prestigious degree and a cushy executive job that was waiting for him once he went through the motions of going through learning. He can fail at his job and be unqualified for it, and all that will happen is that he'll be given a golden parachute and sent on to the next job waiting for him.) The political situation in the United States is really rife with people who think they're the shit parading around and telling the rest of us that we're jealous of them and want to be them, when the reality is much closer to Nelson Muntz laughing at them for believing their own hype, or telling them that they have one too many words when they describe themselves as being "the shit." And yet, there's still enough energy, money, and rubes who think these guys are the peak of masculinity or of humanity that the rest of us still have to deal with them, even if it's having to make the effort to block/ban them every time they and their sycophants appear.
Past that point, I was talking with a coworker yesterday who was feeling internal pressure that we weren't putting on enough activities and programming for our location. I did my best to point out that we haven't been getting external pressure about it, that we'd talked with our manager about how to approach the idea of programming for maximal impact, and that low-key programming was a good idea for our area, because we don't have lots of hangout places where coming in and socializing or chilling was on the menu, and the school system around seems to handle a lot of after-school enrichment things. I also pointed out that we're actually doing a lot more than we recognize, but because we've backgrounded tasks like time spent on the help desk, or the story time sequence, or our collection responsibilities, we aren't fully aware of the amount of time we're actually spending on doing things that are either programming to the public or internal tasks that also take up our time. There's a tendency in our professional lives to chase novelty and to measure our successes or failures by the amount of things we're doing in addition to all of the things that we are already doing with our time. The novelty is also sometimes how we convince our funders that they should give us enough money, and sometimes how we convince the population that the library is still worth using, or has something for a population that thinks they have no need for a library. There's always interest (and often funding) in novel things, and very little interest (or funding) in ongoing maintenance and operations, or in refinement and optimization of the things that have been there already to make them better. This is personally and professionally true.
So, when it comes to goals, I think I will continue to mostly set them as "things I am already doing" rather than "things that are new for me," as many of the things I do will provide me will all kinds of novel situations in pursuit of continuing to do what I already do.
- Finish all the exchange works and/or prompt works I sign up for on time.
- Keep the book commentary project going for as long as there's an audience for it. (And then possibly change venues if the original one ever dries up.)
- Connect with other fans online and in person at events.
- Continue to share my hoard of links to those who are interested in delving into them.
- Survive the year.
- And, as a stretch goal, try to find that elusive thing that is "unconditional self-worth," which may or may not be as elusive as enlightenment.
