Small victories
In my experience, goals feel much clearer when you set them than when you come to tick them off. Writing a children’s book, for example. When is that goal complete? When you finish writing it? When you mail it off? When an agent agrees to try to sell it? When a publisher agrees to publish it? When you sign the contract? When you see the finished product? When it appears in a bookshop? When a child picks it up and reads it? I’m still somewhere in the middle of all that and I definitely don’t feel I can tick the goal off just yet.
But recently I did have a small victory that was complete in itself. I finished a Sudoku puzzle. I have tried hundreds of times before (they come free on trains here) and I’ve never been able to. Of course I don’t do it in that nice neat way of my fellow passengers, who nonchalantly jot the numbers down one-at-a-time while having conversations on their mobile phones and eating an orange. I work with more of a scribbling on, crossing off, drawing arrows and concentrating very hard method. But here it is, my completed Sudoku. Please note that the level of difficulty is ‘expert’.
ps. If you spot a mistake, no need to burst my bubble.
