There is no question the past two months have been rough.  Change often is.  Even when it’s expected and ordinarily embraced, change can be the cause of unexpected outcomes and heartbreakingly painful realisations.  The damage to my ego and pride is still very new.  It’s taken it’s toll on my confidence and even on my physical and mental well being.  I have cried, despite not ‘doing’ crying.  And whilst I’ve never felt as though my despair was unfathomable, I have certainly been wallowing in a low and unfamiliar place – unfamiliar because ordinarily my resilience buffers any requirement to visit those lows.

The confidence in my own capacity and strength has never caused me to question who I am.  But recently, the feelings of humiliation and embarrassment and complete lack of unworthiness have been confronting and at times, I have honestly been unable to see a way forward in amongst the chaos and hurt.

But not today!  Today, for the first time in a quite a long while, I feel as though I’ve got a plan.  That I have come through the fog of confusion and can actually see a way forward.  And that is so freaking exciting. I feel like I’m back!

But this time I’m doing it differently.  I’m not normally one to set goals but one of the biggest ‘ah ha’ moments of this conference is the realisation that I need to.  Theoretically I get it, but in reality, goal setting does not come naturally to me… until today.  Today I could actually see what I need to do! So, what goals is this non-goalsetter planning to set?

Well, I’m going to play a big game here.  As I reflect upon seeing my fellow conference newbies receive first book ribbons and requests for manuscripts to be submitted after they pitched to editors and agents today I’ve decided that I’m just going to put it out there:

This time next year, I will have a publishing contract.

Yep, I just said that out loud and wrote it in real black and white words! Absolutely terrifying, right??!!! But deadlines and big goals are what I need to focus and to make space to make this happen.

And as it turns out, I’m not alone.  There have been a couple of women that I’ve really gelled with and tonight after the Awards Dinner, I made a pact with my new gal pal, whom we shall call MM (well at least until she becomes published too and we can promote the heck out of each other!) to exchange the first three chapters of our manuscripts by the end of October!! What have we done??!!  We’ve put it out there and are now accountable to each other.  But that’s not even the best part.  We’re also going to submit our chapters to some publishers as well – by the end of November! EEEEEK!!

Well, go hard or go home I say!

So, here’s to setting goals and taking risks… and looking forward that to the pay off in the future!

Do you throw caution to the wind and make big plans with pressing deadlines just to motivate yourself? What goals do you set to help you achieve your dreams?