The daruma

Almost 20 years ago I went on a vacation to Japan (it was Y2K, remember that?) where I bought – among other things – a daruma doll. This is a three-inch-tall round, painted object made of paper mache meant to represent the Buddhist figure of Bodhidharma.

I’m not a Buddhist, or a person who puts particular emphasis on spiritual things, but this daruma has stuck with me through many ups and downs. The folk concept is this: when you buy the doll, it has two blank white eyes. You draw one pupil in and set a goal. When you’ve achieved this goal, you draw in the second eyeball. When I acquired the daruma in the year 2000, after we realized that planes were not going to fall out of the sky and the planet’s electrical grid wouldn’t wink out at the stroke of midnight, I decided my goal would be to write a book.

At that time, getting a book published was not part of the goal-setting exercise, so in a couple of months when I finally finish writing, I will be filling in that second eyeball even if I still have work to do in finding a publisher (and an agent, for that matter). Though it’s taken me a very long time to get here (I’ve only been actively working on this book since 2013, but had been thinking about it much longer) I think this is a key to goal setting.

While writing the book is something I have full control over, I don’t have full control over the odds of getting it published. I can do many things to improve those odds – writing a good book (duh), paying attention to the marketplace, thinking at all times about potential readers – but the outcome is ultimately out of my control, and out of the control of my one-eyed friend.