At the beginning of this year, I set out to chart a course for myself that would take me closer to my dreams and what I deemed to be success. I got my SelfJournal and wrote down not only my goals, but also the small, individual steps that I needed to get myself there.
January was great. I checked in weekly and added new steps for each goal with the hopes of getting me closer to each. And for a time I felt great. I was making progress, too. Then February came. After a few weeks, I hit a wall. I started to feel meh and while overall, I was still hitting those individual steps, I started to question some of goals that I’d been moving toward. Then, I became disillusioned with it all and stopped. Cold.
A few days ago, I read a post that made me rethink my approach. The post was about changing your goals when they no longer serve you. What I realized, was that I was forcing the proverbial square peg into a round hole. My goals were not longer serving me. It was time to reassess. I was feeling like a failure, but I wasn’t one. I just needed to re-examine my goals. Things change from month to month and even day to day. It’s important to be flexible when they do and here I was, clinging to this idea of success, when it just wasn’t going to work out for me this way. But, I was so reluctant to let go of it. I clung to it until it made me unhappy. Sometimes, it is necessary to change plans mid-stream. I thought to myself, “Clients do this all the time, why not me”?
So, I said down that began to think through each goal. What it meant to me and why I was pursuing them. Sure enough, the things that I thought were so important to me just two months ago, no longer seemed that important while others had moved up. And so, I moved things around. After sleeping on it for a day and revisiting the list, I made a few more tweaks and now, I feel better than ever about my new list of goals.
It’s possible for anyone to do. Even Type-A perfectionists like us!
If your list of goals, are no longer appealing to you, you’re the only one who can change it. And until you do, you won’t feel that drive to succeed. In the words of Marshawn Lynch, you won’t feel that drive to run through a motherfucker over and over and over and over again. Despite the strong language, he has a point, doesn’t he? I sure think so.
