Misty

Thanks for coming back to Tea with Liya! Today's song is a ballad called "Misty," composed by jazz pianist Erroll Garner in 1954. Considering his recording, I thought that it might work well as a solo piano song, so I decided to record it. I hope you enjoy listening!


Listen to the song here
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Perhaps you started the year with the intention to change something. You want to save 20% of your income, lose 20 pounds, or read 20 books by the end of this year. (I didn't pick those 20s intentionally, but it's the perfect number to use - it's 2020! In fact, I wrote this on February 2nd, 2020, which is a palindromic date - 02/02/2020.)

Can't read this? Right click it and click "open in new tab." You should see a higher resolution image.

But, a few days later, things started to change. You realized that you didn't leave yourself enough time to do all the tasks necessary to accomplish your goal. Or, you didn't make it clear exactly what you wanted to do or what you would achieve, so you were left confused about what to do.

Or, perhaps a situation like this happened.


You realized that although your overall goal seemed like a good use of time, you actually didn't want to do it. You already have to force yourself to do some things you don't want to, so why create more?

It's actually quite unclear how your project is going to turn out until you actually start it.

Actually, it isn't. If you want to avoid collapsing in a wall of mist, you can use SMART goals, MAGIC goals, or as I recently discovered that I could label them, MISTY goals!

Here's what it looks like:

• Measurable. First and foremost, set a goal that you can clearly define. You'll be able to clear up a lot of mist on your path through time if you do this. Not only should you specify your final goal and know what success looks like, but it's also helpful to set out smaller stepping-stones along the way, like checkpoints that will lead you along the right track.
• Interesting. If you deliberately choose boring or frustrating tasks because you feel like you should, your face will soon look like one of the bottom images on my motivation graph. As I read in a book called Do Hard Things, "don't do stupid hard things just because they're hard."
• Sensible. This was the best S synonym for "realistic" that I could find. You should set goals that you have the resources to achieve. Another reason why I lost motivation on my chart is that I gave myself more work than I could handle at the time.
• Time-oriented. Give yourself enough time to achieve the goal, but don't let yourself procrastinate.
• Yielding. The goal you're setting should have a purpose in your life, contributing to other long-term goals you may have. If you want to save 20% of your income, how will that money help you? If you want to read 20 books, what will you learn from them?

If you have measurable goals, you won't fall into the problem of feeling like you're not "successful." What's the definition of successful? Go and look it up.

For some reason, the word "success" looks like it should be green, perhaps because of the checkmarks that are always green.

"Successful. Achieving or having achieved success."

"Success. Favorable outcome of attempts or endeavors; the accomplishment of one's goals."

"Succeed. To prosper and grow; to accomplish what is intended."

It's only after these definitions that the accumulation of money, power, and popularity is mentioned, because they are the world's popular definition of success.

Also, your goals are allowed to change sometimes. You're changing, too. Are you the same person that you were yesterday? No. About 432 billion of your cells have died. Some of those are brain cells, being replaced by new ones that are ready to absorb new information.

Your thought process is changing, whether you know it or not. You won't be the same 10 years from now as you were 10 years ago. (Or maybe you're 9 - so you didn't exist 10 years ago!) So, the long term goals you have for yourself can change, too.

So, success isn't determined by how many books you read or how many pounds you lost. It isn't determined by the modern standard of money. It isn't even determined by the fact that you've "changed too much." Change should be a part of making successful goals.

Success is doing what you set out to accomplish. In a way, success is.....

Misty.

And as always, keep filling your teacup with music!

~Liya