goal-mania

Recently I had a phone call from a subscriber of the online newsletter newsletter about goal setting and frustration. She gave me permission to tell her story, because I think that she is not alone in her feelings.

She told me that a year ago she had gone through the Goal Setting Workshop on Tera's Wish and set some very serious goals for herself. She was, in her words, "fired up and committed" to accomplishing what she set out to do. She made lists, she made calls, she wrote letters, and she got results. Unfortunately, she didn't get the happiness she thought would come with those results.

I have mentioned in the newsletter before that I do my Goal Setting Workshop four times a year. I think perhaps I have not explained why this is important. A goal is just an idea. You shouldn't gold plate it and put it up on your mantle. That isn't to say that it isn't important, but a goal should be flexible. There is a really good reason for this - every day we learn and grow - and our goals need to grow with us.

Think back to when you were sixteen. When I was sixteen, my goal in life was to be the next Marilyn Monroe (sans the death at 36). I was sure I was meant to be a BIG STAR. So I set a goal for myself. I went to college. I majored in theater. I HATED IT. I was not meant to be an actress, but at 16 years old I didn't have enough life experience to know that.

When you set a goal, it is like setting off on a trip. Some of the most fun memories from a trip can be when you get lost and take a side road that leads you to a great discovery.

If you know anything about aviation and instrument flying, you know that pilots may have an ultimate destination of Los Angeles, but they set their instruments for the next VFR point. They get to LA by going from point to point along the way. Goals are a bit like that. We set a major goal and then we make some short-term plans about steps we could take right now that would bring us closer to where we want to be. For example, if you had a "thing" goal to own a Mercedes, a good first step would be to go to a dealership, sit in a few, maybe take a test drive and find out how much they are. You might find that there is a lower priced version that you didn't know about, or you might find that Mercedes aren't as wonderful as you thought they were. Either way, you are getting closer to your goal.

It is OKAY to discard goals. The subscriber that I referred to earlier told me that now that she was close to having "everything she wanted", she found that she didn't want it at all. I asked her why she kept at it and she said, "Because it is my goal and if I don't do it, I will have failed!" My response was to tell her that she was talking to the world's biggest failure if that was true!

We all have our own definitions of failure. To me, I can only fail if I give up on something I really want, or if I don't learn something. Guess what, I can learn from almost any situation, and I am very tenacious . . . so I don't feel like I fail much!

You cannot live and die by your goals. They are there to serve you, not visa versa. It is important to reassess based upon what you know now. I find that every three months I can review what I've learned, where I am going and each time I do the workshop I find that things that seemed important to me before fall away in importance, or don't get listed at all. Not because I am not driven or committed, but because I learned and ruled those things out. Hallelujah!

There is a song that goes "Pick yourself up, Dust yourself off, and Start all over again." In some cases, that might be excellent advice. When it comes to goals, I would recommend, Picking up, dusting off, and then sitting back down to think! What have you learned? What works about the situation? What isn't working? Why did you think you wanted that thing or accomplishment? Why have you decided you don't? What is more appealing now?

Follow your instinct and heart. Don't let yourself get so bogged down in the pursuit of your goal that you forget to look around to find out if it is bringing you what you thought it would do - happiness, satisfaction, love - whatever you needed from it. Give yourself a break. Yes, some people decide to be doctors when they are four years old and grow up to do it. 99.9% of us have 3 - 10 careers during our lives. Personally, I think that's a more interesting way to live your life.

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