Goal Setting...

I think that it is fair to say that I have always been quite driven... Driven to be the best that I can be and to make the people in my life proud of me.  Good enough has never been good enough for me...  So, you would think that goal setting would come naturally, right?  To be the best, you set a goal for yourself, and then you achieve it.  If you never set the goal, how do you know that you have accomplished what you set out to do?  How would you know what that even was?

I recently read the book "Eat That Frog" (Brian Tracy) as part of a self development challenge that I was part of... One of the chapters in the book talks about goal setting... we had an assignment to write down one goal and then make a list of the steps necessary to accomplish it.  So, I started to think about goals... what are my goals?  Really... what ARE my goals?  And it actually surprised me to realize that I sort of don't have any that I can clearly articulate to anyone and then say, there... those are my goals.

This whole no goals situation sent me down the path toward figuring out why I don't seem to have any... I think that I used to set goals.  I had ideas about what my life should be, and what I should achieve.  I set college graduation as a goal, and hoped that if I worked hard there, it would lead to a good job.  I fell in love when I was young and saw a life before me that included husband, home, kids, work.  All of those things were goals that I set for myself in my twenties... they made sense to me and were all things that I believed I was suppose to want for myself.

And then I turned thirty... and got divorced, and got remarried, and had a baby, and got divorced again.  Huh... None of those things were "goals" that I set (well, the baby was definitely on my most wanted list).  So I find myself at thirty-nine finally realizing that instead of goal-setting I have spent the last ten years in survival mode.  I think survival has actually been my goal... and it has been the goal for such a long time that I can't seem to remember how I ever set goals for myself that were actually meaningful.

This is not all bad.  The reality is that when you go through hard times, or even a crisis in your life, sometimes getting through the day-to-day is a legitimate goal to have.  You need to put one foot in front of the other one and let tomorrow come to you.  The problem for me?  I have been through the hard times, I have come out the other side, and done the surviving.  So, what is my excuse now for not moving ahead?

Failure is not something that I am very comfortable with.  That may come as a surprise knowing that I have two failed marriages to account for.  The harsh truth is that those failures haunt me on a daily basis.  They undermine my self confidence and make me fearful of taking chances... on both people and new things.  I am constantly working on proving to MYSELF that I am good enough, strong enough, smart enough, attractive enough, etc.

Part of my goal-setting phobia, I believe, is fear... fear that I will set myself up for more failure.  Because here is the thing... if I am truly setting goals for myself today... I don't believe in setting goals that are the ones that someone else (family, friends, society, whoever) thinks that I should achieve.  That may have worked in my twenties, but in my forties I want them to be true and meaningful and challenging.  The problem?  I don't know if I really, truly, want to take the risks that I have to take, to make some of them come true.  I am not sure I want to be disciplined enough to achieve others.  So, I don't set the goals... because it seems silly to set goals I have no intention of really trying to achieve, and then recognizing more failure when I have plenty to live with already.

Where does that leave me?  Ironically, I am setting as a goal for myself to work at figuring out some real goals for myself.  So here goes...  My first one... "be a good mom".  I know... vague and obvious.  But I am working on making it real... because being a good mom does take work and discipline and confidence.  And because it is the most important thing I do, I know this is one I need to focus on and achieve.  The rest will come...