setting goals

Re: Sharpening skills

pete (Stafford, VA)

>Thanks Bob. I'm hoping to get some help once I start going to more of the woodturners meetings in my area! Up until now, I've just been doing things the way I thought they should be done (which doesn't always work!). It will be nice to know the right way...

Pete

Re: setting goals

Ronny Eelen

>I tend to look at it from a different angle. Setting goals can be a burden as well. I don't set goals. Just doing what I like doing is how I would want to get along, in life, in work, in woodturning. Setting a goal can put, I say can not will, pressure on you. This pressure can be of whatever small or big magnitude. Life throws pressures on you just as it is already. So why put yourself under additional pressure. Setting a goal means that you want to achieve something, at a certain place, at a certain point in time. Not meeting that goal can cause disappointment. And disappointment will happen anyway, when you don't make into a team, or a show, or a competition, or whatever. It will happen anyway, even without having set a goal for it. Having set the goal and not achieving it just makes that disappointment bigger.

(reading this in the preview it does seem to sound more dark and negative than it is intended...)

When I started working in my current job, there was this other guy as well. A year or so later I met him again. He said, "are you still doing the same? don't you want to improve on yourself? I do." And he did, he went up and up and up. And got fired because he didn't achieve the goals he was given by the even upperer (or something) management. And I am still doing what I like doing. Not exactly the same, but still something I like. I am not a career hunter.

Woodturning, now that is something that I like as well. And I do want to be good at it... some day. I even would like it to be really good at it. Some day.

If I ever have to change jobs, out of this line of work, I have always said that I would like to be either working at an airport ( I like the atmosphere, the crowds,...) or as a professional woodturning demonstrator (you have to read this with a certain irony (?)). So yes, I really would like to be very good. But, it is not a goal of mine. And not having turned in the last year or even longer would not help in trying to achieve that either.... :-)

What I would like is.... to finally get that workshop in my garden so I can start turning again, to do a lot of that turning, to make some nice pieces that I can put on my website, to get going with building that website, to finish turning all the ideas that I have drawn in my 'book of ideas',....

When I am lying on my death bed (do they say it like that?) you will not hear me saying "Damn, I didn't achieve all of my goals, aaarrrrgghgghh, sigh... ". It would be more like "ok, so I didn't get to do all the things I would have like to do, but hey, that's life..." or was...

It's a good thing I am kind of at the far end of the chain of replies... the number of readers grows lower and lower further down.

Enjoy!

Re: setting goals

Mike Rubes, Apex, NC

>Hi Keith,

Interesting topic. I'm not a very goal oriented sort of person when it comes to woodworking. Well, it is always my goal to finish the piece I am working on because there always seems to be more to do!! I turn because I love to do it and hopefully my work is getting better, but if it doesn't get better, but I am still having fun, then well, that's OK too! For some one who makes their living doing this (or aspires to do so) then I could see that constantly pushing the envelope and striving to increase your level (and speed?) of turning would be essential. Not that I wouldn't like to do those things as well, but again, this is just for fun for me :) If I push the envelope a bit more slowly than a pro turner, that's fine with me. I'm still at the point where I give away far more than I sell. It's not that I don't want to make money selling them, I just find that that part of the process is not fun. The turning is what's fun :)

Well, sure I can come up with a few things I'd like to be able to do (or do better) like : I'd like to be able to turn hollowforms to consistent 1/16" thickness, I'd like to cut really well fitting dovetails by hand and better understand (and use properly) my old #4 smoother, I'd like to get my inside profiles to better match my outside profiles, you get the idea. I don't aspire to have a piece in this gallery or that or to be in a juried show or anything like that. I really just apsire to feel good about the pieces that I've made and enjoy the process.

I don't mean to imply that I'm not looking to improve as I certainly am. I feel like the work I do now is far superior to what I was doing 12 months ago and hope that the work 12 months from now is even better than today's stuff.

Like many of the others have said, the really important goals I have involve raising my two little boys, being a good husband for my lovely wife, a good son for my parents, a positive contribution to my neighborhood, etc.

There have been some good responses to your post, thanks for getting this going.

Mike

Re: setting goals

Mike Rubes, Apex, NC

>Hi Steve,

I'm with you on this. I've incorporated quite a few of Wally's techniques in my turning. There is no better teacher, to me, than experience and I daresay Wally has more experience than most of us ever will!

As to meeting the "Big Time Turners" I had the privilege of meeting Wally and his wife in Portland during the Summer of 2003. As nice as he is on the boards, he's even nicer in person.

Like you, I'm looking forward to Wally's demo when he is 101!!

Mike

Re: setting goals

Wally Dickerman at Green Valley, Az.

>I'll be there, with all of the newest turning bells and whistles!!! You may have to help me up to the lathe, or maybe they'll have a remote control by then.

Wally

Re: setting goals *LINK*

David Hammond, in Powder Springs GA

>This has become quite an interesting thread Keith, sorry for catching it late. There's quite a disparity here really: some of you sound extremely goal oriented, and some of you would rather not even discuss specific goals - And I guess I don't fit in with most of you here, in a lot of ways. I agree with you Mike, this is rather personal for me. I guess I see most of "you" as professionals in some other money-making field, who reside as hobbiest woodturners, just for the fun of it - and even though the other extreme is present (those seeking turning as a profession in and of itself), even you guys seem to be older folks who have had other careers along the way. But, I'm in a different place. I'm only twenty-one, and one of my dreams, or goals, is to seek woodturning as a large part of what I do to make a living. My father is a remodeling contractor, so I've been working with him for years now, and will continue to do so, but hopefully transitioning, with him, from most of my income coming from the remodeling, to most of it coming from woodturning. Don't misunderstand me though, I count it a privaledge to work with my father every day, and am not looking to move from that, but I love working in a shop - I truly enjoy managing myself and the wood there in my shop, stuyding and workin with the incredible material we call wood - I enjoy working with odd bits of wood with long stories behind them, trying to find a balance in art and craft, the utilitarian and the utterly useless. I don't quite see myself seeking the woodturning fame, to be a Jack Vessery or someone like that, hob-knobbing with the right people, talking that artsy languauge, but neither do I want to be a production turner of bowls or spindles. Really? My dream right now would be to get in contact with a group of interior decorators and architechs, residential and even commercial, that could draw on my personal gallery - that I hope to fill with everything from the simple, 16" bowls to monster bowls, to huge hollow forms, delicate vases, and some carved work. I also hope to do some teaching, when I've learned enough worth teaching that is.

So, that's some of my huge, not really specific goals - specifically? I want to learn to turn like Stewart Batty. I've seen the video he put on with Mike Mahoney, and really gained some insight into different turning styles. I started out pulling the gouge around a bowl, finishing with a variety of shearing, scraping style pulling cuts. I've adapted to a VB36, and now can push a tool, I'd say pretty well, but I still push the tool in a series of shearing type cuts, to finish turn a curve just right. I want to be able to walk a gouge, pushing it, around a bowl in one smooth motion, never going back to touch up high or low spots in the curve.

I could go on and on with my specifics I guess, becuase I feel like even after almost 4 years, I'm just barely getting started: I've got eons to go in learning about different finishes. Watco couldn't be a better starting place, but there's tons of stuff I want to experiment with.

Other than woodturning? I've been absent somewhat from the turning board lately, because I've become quite caught up in hand tools - not enough to move me from my goals in woodturning, just enough to get me sidetracked to study workbenches for the past few months - I hope to build a bench in the next few months, and learn to build some furniture mostly with hand tools. And, Windsor Chairs are on my list as well...

Well, you asked... :o) Thanks for the topic Keith, it's been interesting.

David Hammond

My Dad & Me, Inc.


My Dad & Me, Inc.

Re: setting goals

Russ Fairfield

>Success is not the key to happiness.

Happiness is the key to success.

If you love what you are doing,

you will be successful.