Goals.
I don’t care what anyone says – they’re important.
It’s not to say that it’s the end of the World if you don’t achieve them, or you get thrown off course.
They also don’t need to be fanfare-heralded, World title ones, but I do think they have to make you uncomfortable.
Celebrate the little steps along the way, definitely,
burning yourself out in the process – ABSOLUTELY NOT,
but you have to aim high.
It’s easy, when you’re busy and tired, to let yourself off the hook a bit.
To put things off.
Do do it after _________ < fill in the blank.
Especially when you’re looking after everyone else.
How can I possibly; get fit,
eat well, stop the bad thing,
learn a new thing,
put myself forward,
spend time with good humans,
take on a new role,
sort out the house…
when I’m maxed out as it is?
Everyone relies on me, and if I don’t devote my entire existence to everyone else’s needs –
then the world will collapse around me.
Look how much I do for everyone!!! EH!!!!!
“No one likes the smell of burning martyr” is a mean/funny… but useful thing to check your reasoning against.
Working yourself to a standstill doesn’t help anyone in anything but the very short term.
While I’m being mean – it’s highly unlikely that Jason Momoa or The Doctor in his Tardis is coming to save you.
Or Knight/Lady/Non-binary hero in shining armour of your choice.
You’ll have to roll up your sleeves and do that for yourself.
But people will help you if you let them.
You’d be surprised how much people like doing that if you choose the right ones.
On that note – it’s important to be a full grown-up and not throw your toys out of the pram if you are let down.
Taking a moral absolutist approach of
“Never trusting anyone again”, and “Everyone’s out for themselves”
isn’t true, isn’t helpful, and is a bit histrionic, poppet.
Plenty more fish in the sea applies to friends as well – just sometimes it might be worth taking yourself to better waters.
Those things you’ve decided CAN’T do … well it’s really worth examining how true that is.
I didn’t always realise that.
Turns out I could do MUCH more than I thought.
There is no special rule that applies to me on that one – the same goes for you.
The end of a year is an obvious time to set goals – and it’s almost accepted that most of them don’t last.
We joke about it.
They are set, start with a flurry, abandoned, and then set again the following year.
Most people meander, to be honest.
Those people with the lives, relationships, achievements, ‘stuff’, that you admire – probably set goals to get there.
But those are their goals.
More important even than setting goals – is to work out if they are the right ones in the first place.
Just because you CAN do something – doesn’t mean you should.
Accruing the most money, the biggest house, the hottest partner, the perfect body.
Are they actually your goals?
Or the ones the world told you they should be.
Or even – are you just being competitive…
Is it jealousy.
Nose put-outedness.
Or is what you are trying so hard to achieve is ultimately rooted in worry about what people think of you.
Maybe your goal is actually being happy and surrounded by happy people?
Maybe waking up without a worry in the world.
Maybe laughing a lot.
Maybe the ability to decide how every day goes.
Maybe making your mark on history?
Maybe none of the above?
I was at a funeral yesterday and the celebrant talked about the fact that the way we celebrate a person’s life is by writing their birth year…then a dash (-)…then the year they died.
She said the important part is the (-) dash.
What you do in the years in between.
None of us know how long that might be;
deciding what you are going to do in the time we’ve got left,
surely has to be the most important bit of thinking we can do?
Once you work that shit out – achieving it feels natural.
Reverse-engineering happiness becomes much less of a struggle and much more a cheeky adventure.
A square peg in a square hole.
So as we get to resolution season, I invite you to take the internet, all the media, even well-meaning real-life people – and sod the lot of them, including me, when it comes to your goals.
Definitely set them or you’ll end up staying where you are.
But before you launch yourself down a road –
it’s worth doing some important thinking – to check you’re on the right one.
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