I’m now about a week away from returning to work so naturally tonight I have all sorts of browser windows open, trying to salvage something resembling a complete goal (or a substantial step toward a complete goal).
My problem now is that this is where I start spinning in circles because I know my goal and I know where I am at, but there are so many paths from A to B that I have no idea which to take. Instead, I thought “I’ll create a circle on Google+ of people I want to ask for input” but stalled in forming a question. Then I opened SurveyMonkey and started trying to build a survey to post here but it was three pages long and not likely to get me closer to a result. Then I thought, “C’mon Cheryl, just DO IT. You’re STALLING.”
My goal: to teach — I’ve discussed this before, that teaching (or similar) is something I enjoy doing. A sub-goal, something I thought was do-able, was to just set up one session and put it out there for people to register. The problem is, I have no idea what to offer. Let me re-phrase that: I have a long list of possible topics but no idea whether I need to do market research or just pick one, put it out there, and see who signs up.
My usual approach is to get bogged down in the research (I do have a document full of links and overviews to what sort of workshops and classes are being offered around the region but I haven’t gone so far as to find out which ones are actually successful) and get stalled at that point… which is why there is a little voice yelling at me to move ahead. This is probably the point where I admit I am afraid of success as much as failure because it means change, yadda yadda yadda….
Alright, fine. I went back to SurveyMonkey and abandoned the complex survey I was building and instead put together a brief “what do I do next?” survey. There’s three questions (really two plus a text box) At this point it’s either this or I start calling psychic hotlines…
[Note: I tried to embed the survey but for some reason WordPress stripped it out… so, please click to take the survey.]
I don’t know if you are stalled or stalling. I do know, that for myself, clearing my desk both physically and mentally, makes me feel much more in control. Can you sift through the research and clear out any dead wood. Perhaps that will make your path clearer.