Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

2013 Goals

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Since we’re already into the middle of January I thought it might be a good time to lay out my goals for the upcoming year.

I’m calling them goals, but in essence they’re more like guidelines, because this year I’m allowing my goals to be flexible and I’m not beating myself up if I don’t meet them.

You may need to remind me of this at some point if I start to have a melt down.

Blogging

I think my blogging goals will always be to post every day.  Granted some posts may be longer than others, but for me I need the discipline of posting every day.

I’d like to have more of my sense of humor show in my posts. Most of you don’t know this, but I’m actually fairly funny in real life.  For some reason I can’t seem to let it shine through in my posts.

A person can be serious AND funny right?  Or would that just be seriously funny?

Twitter

Oh Twitter, I want to love you, I really do.  I want to be able to use you, but what do you say on Twitter?  My niece who is quite the Twitterer, says it’s just like having a conversation, you think of something and you tweet it.

Yes, it’s true I do occasionally retweet a blog post, but for the most part, I don’t use it.

This year (like last year) I hope to learn how to tweet effectively.

I think for now, I might just stalk a couple of you on Twitter.

Other social media platforms.

There are so many social media platforms out there right now, that I honestly cannot keep up.  So for now what I intend on doing is I will strive to post at least once a week on Pinterest, I’ll check in on Triberr and see if I can figure that out.

Is there anything else that you are using that you think i need to know about?  If so, please let me know.

Writing

I still have a goal to get paid for writing, this is something I’ll be working on.

I’d also like to finish at least one of the two books I’ve started.  I actually like the book I wrote in November (during the NaNoWriMo challenge) better than I like the first one.  The problem is I over-dosed on it in November so once the challenge was over, I pulled the thumb drive and haven’t touched it since.

This year, I’d like to work on it a bit more, maybe get it to the stage where I can submit it.

Sampson and Delilah

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My goals for them will never change.  It will always be to give them the very best life I possibly can, to love and cherish them and enjoy the time we’ve been given.

Do you set goals for your blog, or yourself?  How do you measure whether they are successful or not?  Do you have any tips or goals you’d like to share?

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Comments

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Comments

  2. Hi Jodi;
    Seems our goals are somewhat similar, (I’d like to write a book or two and also get paid), although posting every single day would be difficult. I haven’t quite mastered Twitter either and Triberr, which I joined some time ago is a big mystery. Let me know if you figure that one out. One thing about Triberr, they are excellent at sharing posts. Another important social media outlet is Google+. That one has really caught fire lately. Can’t say I fully understand it yet, but, am getting there.
    Wishing you much success for 2013 and beyond!
    Cheers,
    Debbie

    • Thanks Debbie, if I can help you with your goals, please let me know.

      Yeah, G+ is one of those things I just don’t get, I find it very confusing. I will however put that on my list (after Twitter, Pinterest and Triberr) LOL.

  3. I have some goals. Mom and I are going to try blogging 3 posts a week starting this week, and I am going to try my paws at writing a book but that is going to be a tough one that may not get finished in 2013. As always, mom will put us pets first and give us the best life she can.

    • The important thing Emma is to try. You’ll never know if you can unless you try.

      Your mom is wise, fur babies should always come first. 🙂

  4. Your goals are kind of the same as mine as far as using social media. I got some great tips on making them work on my Pet Blogger challenge post. 🙂 Good luck in 2013. Looking forward to it. 🙂

    • Maybe we can help each other? I know I sure could use someone to help me figure some of these things out! LOL I remember seeing something helpful in your responses, I’ll have to go back and read them.

  5. “For some reason I can’t seem to let it shine through in my posts.” I have to disagree Jodi. I think a lot of your posts reflect your sense of humor. 🙂

    Yesterday was the first time I touched my NaNoWriMo novel too. I stared at the thing for three hours, fiddled with it a bit, and still am having a hard time figuring out how to make the damn thing novel length. 🙂

    Good luck meeting all your goals. Can’t help you with the twitter thing, closed out my own account as I didn’t know what to say. I’m just not a one-liner, witty person. 🙂

    • Thanks Donna, I can’t see the humor shining through, but then I’m so damn hard on myself. 🙁

      I get what you’re saying about the novel, I’ve written almost 40,000 words had the heroine in about four different perils and I’m not sure how much more I can add. I mean how many times can she get herself out of a scrape?

      Good luck with your goals too! I’m sure you’ll be discovered this year.

    • Yes it can Frankie and YOU are very good at doing it! I’m not quite sure how you manage, if you have any tips please share. 🙂

  7. Good Morning! I like your decision to “not beat myself up if I don’t live up to [my goals]”! That is the most important, and nicest, thing you can do for yourself!

    I’m not setting any actual goals for my blog yet, nor am I planning to ever do so. My real goal is to become an Animal Behavior College certified dog obedience training instructor, to complete my CEP units, and then become a certified vet assistant. My blogs are a much lower priority for me right now. I don’t have any desire to get paid for my writing — I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on myself.

    Our goals for our dogs are identical — give them the best life possible and enjoy the time we have together. How we accomplish that may differ, but the love behind it is equal. Callie, Shadow, Ducky, and I all wish you the very best as you pursue your goals/guidelines.

    • Thanks Sue.

      Wow I had no idea you were working on your certification! I hope you get that this year.

      I think we all have different priorities for our blogs and that’s okay, that’s what makes the world go round, diversity right?

      I wish everyone’s dog goals were the same as ours. 🙂

      Best of luck in meeting all your goals this year!

  8. My goal for 2013 is to be more disciplined! Right now the only thing I’m disciplined in is getting up, walking dogs, feeding dogs and making myself coffee. After that it all falls apart! LOLOLOL

  9. Hi Jodi. I just wanted to let you know that I have tried to follow your blog via rss feed, but it doesn’t appear to be working. In case you are not aware of how this is done, I copy the website address into my wordpress reader edit list. Usually there is a follow button on wordpress sites that I can just click on and it will show up in my reader, but your blog does not appear to have a follow button at the top of the page either. I copied your address, and a prompt followed that said, “rss feed not working for this site.” Just in case you run out of things on your to do list, I thought you might like to add this project also! Ha! I feel like I have not been a very faithful follower because I like to go to my reader to follow blogs. I will try to catch up in my usual manner which is typing your blog name in on the Internet. I am not a fan of following posts via email notification. It bogs down my already junk mail laden email box!

    I find that you are a very funny person and that your humor does shine through on your blog posts. Keep up the good work!

    Unfortunately, I haven’t made many goals this year. I am more of a one-day-at-a-time type person. I don’t like to stress myself out. I’m stressed out enough already. 🙂

    • Thanks Mary Ann, I thought I had the feed issue resolved. It shows up in my google reader. I also have a subscribe to feed button on the right hand side, upper area of the page. Is that not showing up for you? I wonder if it has anything to do with the browser? I had so many problems with IE that I switched to firefox. I have one blog in my reader that will not connect if I am using a particular browser.

      Can you let me know if you see the subscribe to feed button at the top of the page?

      Aw, you’re a great and faithful follower, 🙂 Best of luck in whatever goals you set for yourself and your blog and please let me know if the subscribe button is there.

  11. Great goals, really. I admire you for setting some really concrete plans and think it will help you use your time wisely. I haven’t managed to think this far ahead yet and will probably end up taking it all day by day. It’s been a crazy start to the year for us in many ways.

    I actually really like Twitter and use it more than Facebook. It’s fast and I feel like I can say whatever I want and reply to whomever I want without worrying too much about it. Facebook is a lot more cliquey in my opinion, if that makes sense. Twitter is all-inclusive. Good luck in sorting it out!

    • I’m sure if I sat and played with it, I’d figure it out, the trouble is I’m not good with it on my phone, which is where I need to learn to be good with it. I’m still old school with FB. 🙂

  12. Your goals sound great and we hope you achieve them all. As we’re almost accidental bloggers (we started out to let the owners of the animals we transport know how a trip was going) we’ve had to learn about the community. It’s been a blast but never a conscious decision how it has evolved 😉

    • The blogging community is great, it’s just trying to learn the other medias that I struggle with. 🙂 Blogging is addicting to me.

  13. Your goals are good, reasonable, and doable. Good luck. My writing goals kind of set themselves throughout the year, but my New Years resolutions are to meditate for 10 minutes a day, stop biting my nails (actually my cuticles – FILTHY habit!), and teach Cupcake to fetch a ball for crying out loud!!

    • Meditation is good, I’d like to figure out how to add that in too. I come and go with the nail biting, I go a long time without doing it and then BAM I start up again. Good luck trying to break it!

      Some dogs just don’t like fetching balls. 🙂

  14. Let me know when you figure out Twitter. I took a shot at it a couple years ago and just couldn’t get in the rhythm. Over the past year and a half I concentrated and worked hard on Facebook and found my groove there.

    The last couple days I’ve been writing down my to do list and goals on the whiteboard so I can look at them everyday. I don’t think I’m going to write a goal post this year I’m satisfied with the list I created on my PBC post.

    Good luck reaching your goals this year!

    • I definitely will let you know when I figure out Twitter. I’ll give you a lesson at BlogPaws. 😉 A white board might work, that’s a great idea Colby, I was thinking of a planning book.

      Thanks for all your help Colby!

  15. Reasonable goals you’ve set…nothing that you won’t be able to make progress on…I love twitter…I’ve made friends there, and it does bring folks to the blog…I’d suggest you follow some hashtag chats…there’s weekly #petchat on Monday nights at 8 EST…and blogpaws has a monthly (or biweekly? – i forget) hashtag chat…it’s a great way to get to know folks on twitter and introduce yourself…

    • I’ll have to try it Gizmo, the trouble is I rarely have the time, but maybe tomorrow night.

  16. You have some really nice goals, for your great sight. Thanks for visiting our blog, its nice to find a fellow dog lover who likes Tolkien. Mom hasn’t read anything really besides the hobbit and the lord of the rings, though she tried the Silmirallion in high school

    urban hounds

    • Thank you and thank you for stopping by! Yes, I love Tolkien. I read the Hobbit and the Ring series right after high school and then I re-read the ring books after the LOTR trilogy came out. (I did not want to compare the movie to the books like I did with Harry Potter.) LOL Despite all of that, I still loved the movies and when I’m bored, sick or looking for something to watch, one of them gets plugged into the dvd player. 🙂

  17. I think you’ve set some great goals! I have set a few for myself and my blogging is one of them. I’d like to be better at it because as you know there’s lots of room for improvement. So we’ll see!

    I hope you’ve enjoyed your Sunday!

    • That’s exciting Kim! As you know, I love your blog! Are you sharing your goals or keeping them secret?

  18. Thank-you for reminding me about Triberr… I need to go back there…

    For Twitter, I just post links on Twitter… I don’t know if I’m doing it wrong, but it’s something I can keep up with, and I get a few responses and retweets, so it’s not a total flop…