Your commitment (lol) not to commit to things unless you know absolutely that you can follow through seems like one of those things that most of the time is a real asset (you're the opposite of flaky!) but do you ever find that it maybe holds you back from doing things you do want to do? Like, do you still move forward with things you want to do but can't absolutely commit to?
This is a very good question, and you're probably right that it holds me back a bit. I am very much not a risk-taker (I can think of only one time in my life in which I took a serious risk; the risk paid off, but it did not encourage me to be less cautious in my choices). That being said, I feel I do push myself, particularly professionally and with goals relating to exercise — it's just that even in these areas, I still really know my limits: doing a humanities PhD was doable, but I would never have been capable of doing one in the sciences. I also tend to build up gradually to certain goals: when I decided I wanted to present at an academic conference, the first conference I picked was one hosted by my department, open only to postgraduate students — I didn't plunge into a massive international conference (or the smaller specialist conference that is really prestigious in my field) first thing, but now presenting at that kind of conference doesn't phase me (I gave a paper last year at a massive European librarian conference in a huge conference centre lecture theatre in front of hundreds of people and it was as easy as just talking to a handful of friends).
I take the same approach to all goals — if you aim for something wildly ambitious at the start, you're likely to fail. But if you aim incrementally for smaller things which will ultimately teach you how to do the big ambitious thing, you'll get there in the end.
I think this ties back to the incredibly Guess Culture family that I was raised in: you never asked for something unless you were close to 100 per cent certain it would be given (and in fact in most cases it would be offered without asking), and asking for something that people were unlikely to give was considered to be a very unreasonable way to behave, and likely to cause upset for both the asker and the askee. (Guess Culture is in some ways a very passive aggressive way of interacting; it works — and worked in my family — only if everyone is really clear on certain unspoken rules and assumptions about what is 'reasonable,' it doesn't work if you don't know the unspoken rules. Certainly the few times I asked for something as a child that I knew was unlikely to be granted, it went really badly.)
So I feel that I somehow ended up translating this Guess Culture way of being into the kind of things I asked of myself. Basically, I wound up in a situation where setting a goal that I knew I was likely to fail would be completely demoralising if I failed to meet it, whereas setting a less ambitious goal and achieving it would give me the momentum to continue on, possibly building up to more ambitious goals at a later point.
I don't know if that makes sense. Ultimately, I don't want to try anything too unattainable in a fannish context, because that would take the fun out of what is meant to be a fun hobby. This approach isn't going to work for everyone.
Anyway, all that to say: I admire your straightforward and list-driven approach to goals!!!
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This is a very good question, and you're probably right that it holds me back a bit. I am very much not a risk-taker (I can think of only one time in my life in which I took a serious risk; the risk paid off, but it did not encourage me to be less cautious in my choices). That being said, I feel I do push myself, particularly professionally and with goals relating to exercise — it's just that even in these areas, I still really know my limits: doing a humanities PhD was doable, but I would never have been capable of doing one in the sciences. I also tend to build up gradually to certain goals: when I decided I wanted to present at an academic conference, the first conference I picked was one hosted by my department, open only to postgraduate students — I didn't plunge into a massive international conference (or the smaller specialist conference that is really prestigious in my field) first thing, but now presenting at that kind of conference doesn't phase me (I gave a paper last year at a massive European librarian conference in a huge conference centre lecture theatre in front of hundreds of people and it was as easy as just talking to a handful of friends).
I take the same approach to all goals — if you aim for something wildly ambitious at the start, you're likely to fail. But if you aim incrementally for smaller things which will ultimately teach you how to do the big ambitious thing, you'll get there in the end.
I think this ties back to the incredibly Guess Culture family that I was raised in: you never asked for something unless you were close to 100 per cent certain it would be given (and in fact in most cases it would be offered without asking), and asking for something that people were unlikely to give was considered to be a very unreasonable way to behave, and likely to cause upset for both the asker and the askee. (Guess Culture is in some ways a very passive aggressive way of interacting; it works — and worked in my family — only if everyone is really clear on certain unspoken rules and assumptions about what is 'reasonable,' it doesn't work if you don't know the unspoken rules. Certainly the few times I asked for something as a child that I knew was unlikely to be granted, it went really badly.)
So I feel that I somehow ended up translating this Guess Culture way of being into the kind of things I asked of myself. Basically, I wound up in a situation where setting a goal that I knew I was likely to fail would be completely demoralising if I failed to meet it, whereas setting a less ambitious goal and achieving it would give me the momentum to continue on, possibly building up to more ambitious goals at a later point.
I don't know if that makes sense. Ultimately, I don't want to try anything too unattainable in a fannish context, because that would take the fun out of what is meant to be a fun hobby. This approach isn't going to work for everyone.
Anyway, all that to say: I admire your straightforward and list-driven approach to goals!!!
That's very kind of you to say!