This is the year I aim to go far, together. 

“If you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together.” -African Proverb

This is the year I aim to go far, together.  Not that I ever want to stay put … it’s just that I’m quite comfortable operating solo.  It seems I always start a new year with a hefty set of goals and often a vision board to go with it. Then I hide my journal in a drawer, my vision
board on my computer lock screen, and no one knows they exist, except of course, for me.

Goal setting in this way is something I’ve always enjoyed.  It gives me a boost of motivation in January, allows me to see how far I’ve come since the year before, and after decades of creating “New Year Goals”, it’s moderately entertaining to look back and see how my priorities have changed from “get an internship” to “win an Emmy”.

I feel like 2021, however, calls for a change.  After the year we’ve just had, starting a brand new 365 feels monumental.   Starting it in the same way as the previous 20, okay 30, okay 40-something years, feels not quite right.  It’s not only a new year.  It’s a new era.  The post-COVID era (okay, I realize I’m being VERY optimistic here).

So, I joined an accountability group.  It’s similar to goal setting, but with partners who can call you on your …eh, stuff … when you don’t follow through.   More than that, there’s the collective brainpower of people who have the same desire to grow and learn and succeed, despite being in different places.  There’s also the support.  We are not competing for the same projects, we are collaborating to make sure we all go farther this year than we have in the past.

To be honest, I might not be writing this blog if it wasn’t for the fact that I have an accountability meeting coming up … and this was weekly goal #3.   Whether being a part of an accountability group leads me to win an Emmy, doesn’t really matter.  It is leading me to get stuff done, to meet some awesome people in the process, and to find the motivation to start a new year in a much better headspace than I ended the last.   Perhaps come December I’ll find a few of those goals from last years’ list have been accomplished as well!

Side note:  I didn’t know my accountability partners before this year.  We came together through a Facebook group for voiceover artists, and found a plethora of information and ideas on how to operate an accountability group, courtesy of the world wide web.