Goals

I never thought very highly of goal-setting. Yes, I know, they are supposed to be a way of focusing your life and staying motivated and there are these bogus "statistics" that say people who set goals are more likely to achieve them...or something. But I'm one of those people who re-evaluates my life constantly, so setting S.M.A.R.T goals was really just a lot of extra work that I didn't (don't) have time for.

However, I took a class this semester where we did goal setting at the beginning and end of the semester and then compared them. We had to write 1-year and 5-year personal goals and professional goals. At the end of the semester, I felt rather justified in my lack of goal-setting practice, because my goals 1) hadn't changed drastically from beginning to end of the semester and 2) the only one that had, I could have totally told you that my thoughts had changed, without comparing the written down goals - I know myself pretty well, thank you very much!

During this process, though, I realized that the professional goals were easy - those are the things that I have been generally working towards my whole life, if not at least the past 8 years. The personal ones though, now those were hard. (Partly because I didn't feel like "get married" was an appropriate long-term personal goal to write down for a leadership class. Not to mention, it's nearly impossible to predict and plan for something like that.) But I was driving home from yoga tonight (yes, yoga, I had to swallow whatever pride I carry around and tell my mom that she "won" and yoga actually made my back feel better - I've been fighting her on this for...'round about 13 years) but I was driving home from yoga and realized that I do have a goal - to feel better about my life. This has been my goal for the last 2 years - as I'm sure if you've read much of this blog, you probably could have guessed. But to get a grip, grow up, and be content and happy.

Now, I am naturally an extremely patient person, but when it comes to myself, I think I can get things done quickly and get very frustrated when I can't. That is also part of this goal. My goal is:

Be completely healthy in mind, body, and spirit, in one year.

That is my true "1-year personal goal" Dr. Robinson, I hope you are happy. So here is my explanation:

- One year because, as much as I hate to admit it, these things take time and I have to accept that. My previous attempts that amounted to "next month," "when school starts," and various versions of "tomorrow" have not worked and were a result of me wanting to force my emotions into submission which is not really very healthy overall. One year will make it so I do not try to rush this process because, after all, you can't rush perfection. :)

- Mind, body, and spirit - because all good things come in threes, and "three is a magic number," but also because these three aspects of a person are so intertwined that they really can't be distinguished, and because if I want to be the best Me that I can be, all three of these need to be in one-piece.

So here is to a journey, and may the journey be as valuable as the destination.