Making Goals a Reality by Wendy Schuman
Is there a long-term goal you haven’t yet achieved? There still may be time to make it a reality.
When I was 12 years old, I decided to write a book. It would be a mashup of my favorite stories at the time-- “Cherry Ames Student Nurse,” Nancy Drew mysteries, and “Maida’s Little House” (a series written in the 1920’s about a wealthy orphan, which almost no one read but me). After writing a couple of chapters featuring a detective-nurse-orphan, I gave up. Writing turned out to be harder than I thought.
It’s now 60 years later. Although I spent my career as a magazine writer and editor, I never succeeded in writing a work of fiction. I’ve edited a dozen nonfiction books, but only one bore my name on the cover.
After my husband and I retired, we took a trip across Canada. While zooming along the Trans-Canada Highway, I was captivated by several beautiful stone bridges with trailing vines that had been built over the road. What were they?
It turns out that this highway, the longest in the world, cut through the national parks of Canada, separating migrating animals from their habitats, interfering with their mating, and resulting in thousands of vehicle-animal collisions and deaths.
Someone in the Canadian government had the brilliant idea of creating special animal crossings to allow the park’s wildlife to transit safely. I learned that these have reduced moose collisions by as much as 80 percent.
The animal bridges gave me an idea for a children’s book, and the Covid epidemic gave the story its shape. Separated from our children and grandchildren for more than a year, I was inspired to tell the story of a family of moose, cut off from their relatives by a dangerous highway, who find their way across an animal bridge.
Even with a literary agent, I couldn’t find a publisher. Two years passed. With a sigh, I tucked the manuscript away into a folder with my many other unsuccessful ideas. I was terribly discouraged, for I had grown to love the Moose family and the whole concept of animal crossings, which was gaining traction in the U.S.
Fortunately, I live with someone who has both energy and optimism, and loves—actually needs--projects. My husband has written several books, one of which was published by McGraw-Hill. The other three he published himself, using Amazon’s self-publishing tool.
“Give me your manuscript,” he said. “I want to try something out.” That night he showed me a series of illustrations generated by AI. The Moose family was live and in color! We spent more time fixing the content and tweaking the pictures. We hit “publish,” and a few weeks later copies of my book “How Do We Get There Now?” arrived in the mail. I felt a satisfying sense of completion. A long-held goal had been met, and I had something to pass on to my grandchildren.
My next “chapter” will be to market the book online and in bookstores. I created a website and look forward to introducing more children to the concept of wildlife crossings. Wendy Schuman | Author and journalist
As I looked for lessons from this experience, I turned to my favorite author on goal-setting, Dr. Christine Carter of the Greater Good Foundation. Here are some of her steps for accomplishing goals and dreams. I hope to use them more intentionally while there’s still time.
1. Identify your deepest values and passions. What’s most important to you?
2. State the big goal. What would you like to accomplish in the next three months or so?
3. Break your big goal down again into short-term goals, which take one to three weeks to accomplish.
4. Break your goals down even further into specific, easy baby steps. What can you do today?
5. Involve other people, even if you are an introvert.
6. Identify why your goal is important to you. This will motivate you over the long haul.
