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Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Y: Yardstick



As the A to Z Challenge nears its finish, we'll all start thinking of what we've accomplished this past frantic month of blogging. Some people may have doubled their number of followers. Some will share the number of blogs they managed to visit each day or over the course of the Challenge. You may feel like you've done less or accomplished less than others.

Yardsticks are used for all kinds of things in the writing world. Certain writers' groups require that you've earned a set amount of money selling books before you can apply for membership. Others writers group have within them different levels of membership, published and unpublished, voting or associate members, and other divisions unique to their organization. The conferences and events for such groups may have different tracts for the various levels of membership.

It's human to compare ourselves or our achievements to others and it might motivate some people to strive harder. But for others it can be discouraging and frustrating. It is one of the reasons that's it's important to set personal goals. Those goals should be ones that are within your control and that you can measure. The only yardstick you should use is the one measuring your accomplishments against the goals you've set for yourself.

We all had reasons for being part of the A to Z Blogging Challenge. Did you network with others? Meet interesting people? Learn new things? Find you could follow a schedule of regular blogging? Whatever your goals were, don't measure them against others, only against what you wanted.

Do you design your own yardstick? (Or meter stick?) Do you have to remind yourself not compare yourself to others? Are you aware of a writers' group with different levels of membership or restrictions on who can join?

19 comments:

  1. So much of the success of the challenge is measured by personal objectives. I am probably going to post on Friday, May 1 a post of "what I learned from participating in the A-Z Challenge."

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  2. Success is different for each person. We need to stick to our own yardstick.

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  3. I fell short with the Challenge, but I always set my goals too high for it.

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  4. Indeed, so many ways to measure success. As long as we stick with it, we'll find success.

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  5. We definitely need to personalize our own yardsticks. Sometimes it is frustrating, though, and I have to remind myself not to compare myself to others.

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  6. The cat always gets done what he wants to get done, May 11th I'll prove that one

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  7. Thanks for the reminder that we need to design our own yardstick!
    It's personal.

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  8. I also fell short of my goals in the challenge, Thought I would get to visit more than I did. Did manage my writing goals just barely.

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  9. with too much focus on destination we often fail to enjoy the pleasure of leisurely walk

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  10. I didn't visit enough posts during the challenge. I think I expect too much from myself most days. Sadly, I seldom seem to deliver.

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  11. I work on my own yardstick a lot. Still, I often see someone who has it so much more together and I can't stop thinking, "Now why couldn't I be more like them?" Human nature, I guess.

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  12. Yeah, I have a yardstick...which I frequently use to rap my knuckles. :) It's been a great challenge. I met some people (one in person!) and read some wonderful content. Well worth the effort!

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  13. Fell a long way short of my own yardstick/goal. Struggled to get posts down well ahead of the days they appeared. Failed to visit as many fellow A to Z bloggers as I intended. Now going to do some catchup manana.

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  14. If I have 5 bullet points on my to do list, I'm doing alright.

    Its been an awesome challenge.

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  16. We have a mixed bag of meeting our goals and not. I started out on fire but slowed down in the last week as my writing work took me away from the challenge.

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  17. I try to keep my yardstick on myself. If I start comparing to others, then I get discouraged quickly because I'm always looking at someone who is doing better than I am.

    ~Patricia Lynne aka Patricia Josephine~
    Member of C. Lee's Muffin Commando Squad
    Story Dam
    Patricia Lynne, Indie Author

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  18. As soon as I saw the title 'Yardstick', I thought of the old short story by Tolstoy. 'Yardstick, the Story of a Horse.'...at least that's what it's called in the translation I have...I did not participate in the challenge this year..too much crap going on, but I have enjoyed it in the past and there's always next year.

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  19. Hi human, Susan,

    Sorry, my human doesn't compare himself to others. In fact, he revels in embracing his independence and not needing to join some group like the A to Z which has merits and also shows the more cynical side of humans.

    Pawsitive wishes,

    Penny :)

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