Substack: 1 monthiversary – hip hip hooray!

How to get stuff done, one Micro Goal at a time and full stats revealed...

My 16th attempt to get a single cupcake with just one candle out of the AI image generator Gencraft. Had I required a unicorn jumping out of it, I’m sure it would have got there in one go, but one candle in one cupcake proved very tricky… and yes, I’m just going to let the blue icing go.

Congratulations time!

Pour some champagne and let’s all cheer! Off on a Tangent is now 10 posts deep and one month old, YAY!

Now I’m sure some of you will be thinking, one month? That’s no big deal, I have cheese older than that, but bear with me…

Let me introduce you to the Micro Goal:

With each project that passes, we learn what we’d like to do differently on the next one, and one thing that I’ve always been rubbish at, is celebrating the wins.

My mum tells an unbelievably dull story about how I tried and tried and tried to get to the other side of some monkey bars a million times when I was about 6, and when I finally succeeded, I just calmly went on to the next obstacle.

I didn’t punch the air, look round for validation or do a one-girl-mexican-wave, nothing, I just moved on to the next thing.

To be honest not much changed in the 40+ years that followed, but now I want to run up to that little girl, give her a high-five and force a brownie down her neck.

So this time we’re doing things differently.

We’re going to toast every milestone, cheer for every first, and usher in the era of the Micro Goal! Oooooohhhhh. Please reread that last ‘Oooooohhhhh’ in the voices of the little green men from Toy Story, if you didn’t instinctively do that the first time.

Be micro ambitious.

This phrase is stolen from the awesome Tim Minchin’s UWA Address, who firmly believes that instead of setting long term goals, like ‘get 1,000 subscribers’, it’s a far happier way to live by setting Micro Goals, like ‘get 10’.

Not only do you then get to celebrate as each Micro Goal is hit, but it means that you will remain open to new opportunities appearing in your peripheral vision along the way. Which in turn, could land you on a far more enjoyable path than the original blinkered long-term goal.

And so this is the way I’m going to move forward with this project. 🙌

My Micro Goals, as set out pre-launch:

Obviously there’s some basic pre-launch box ticking up top before the fun starts south of the blue line, but it’s good to have them on the same sheet.

I’m sure this table will change as it progresses. More lines added to the bottom to include things like Recommendations, Guest Posts and Collabs.

Also some trimming will take place, even now ‘Number of Followers’ seems a bit pointless, as most people just go for the ‘Free Subscribe’ option rather than the ‘Follow’ first, as do I.

But hey ho, it doesn’t matter, it’s all a moveable feast, very much subject to change, and that’s the beauty of it.

As the numbers get achieved, the cells will be coloured green and the progress numbers added for those not yet attained.

Some of these I can control by just putting the effort in, and others rely on you, my lovely readers, to click a button here, or leave a comment there.

Mr.D has a similar Micro Goal list for his new project and so we have agreed that each time we achieve one, the person who’s project it is will take the other one out for a slap-up meal to celebrate.

If all goes according to plan we should be knee-deep in naan bread by Christmas.

So how’s it going so far?

Here are the current numbers, just for my inner-circle…