Do you have goals for your future?
I’m not talking about a few New Years resolutions that may be made and forgotten in a matter of the first few weeks of the year. Nor am I talking about looking one or two years out as I referenced in this post. I’m talking REAL. CONCRETE. LONG-TERM. GOALS. I’m thinking more along the lines of 10+ year goals. Goals that may not seem logical but that encompass all that you want to be and accomplish. Goals that may be hard to imagine how you could ever get from here to there, but it’s something you desire and if there were no obstacles it’s totally what you’d want for yourself.
To those of you familiar with Rachel Hollis, her peppy and motivational platform includes a powerful exercise of walking you through where you see your ideal self and circumstances ten years in the future. The whole premise of such thinking is that if you can dream it, you can see it and work for it and, on the flip side of the same coin, you can’t strive toward goals you have never even thought of or explored.
[short segue that will come full circle in a paragraph]
This morning is day 1 of waking up early for me. I have slipped into a habit of staying up to awful hours and waking up later than is to my benefit to throw myself together and get to work. In doing this, I’ve found myself in a vicious cycle of sleeping late, seeing my patients later, charting into the evening, having little time with my kids, staying up late to be with my kids and get stuff done, rinse repeat. The whole objective for me in waking up early is to be able to get a grasp on the day ahead and to improve my life in even small ways.
I’ve been up less than an hour and a half on this my first day of early to rise. Already I’ve fed and peed my dogs. I’ve enjoyed a quiet cup of coffee while spending some time praying and getting the laundry going. I even coordinated my day’s visits for work which usually never happens until 8am or after. After watching an encouraging Financial Independence video put out by Brad at Choose FI, I suspended my Y membership I haven’t used in far too long.
I had planned to enter a journal entry in my gratitude journal when I ran across my “In 10 years, I will be…” I wrote this entry only a short 15 months ago, and so much has changed already. Feeling inspired, I began to write this blog post and left my house and got an early start on my visits.
[segue complete]
Now back to that “In 10 years, I will be…” goal-focused entry that I wrote a short 15 months back…
I remember thinking when I wrote those paragraphs that my dreams were deep and out of reach. But now that I reread it, it feels very basic and too shallow. Requiring more depth to take me in the direction that I’m actually headed. It’s crazy how things can change in 15 months! At that time I was dreaming of a house with granite countertops and a backsplash. Just a few months after I wrote that, I got those and a refinished kitchen. I got them through some focused saving and lots of sweat equity in the home I already live in.
And I’ve gotten the ball rolling to exceed the financial goals that I had set in that initial 10 year outlook. So it seems that even that goal will need to be reexamined. As will my career goals that included getting my wound certification, another goal that I have already accomplished over this last year during a pandemic.
Are your goals too small?
At the time that I wrote those goals, I had just been to Paris and London. I was scratching the surface on what my life could be. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get more stamps in my passport since those words were written (thanks Covid-19). But the bar has clearly been raised on my goals and dreams in my head.
You see… I thought I was dreaming BIG at the time. I thought I was really setting stretch goals for what I could be. That it was a semi-farfetched set of goals that I had dreamed up. But time and circumstances showed that my dreams were TOO SMALL!!
If your dreams don’t contain a bit of Pixie Dust, rethink them.
Dreams may be made of a bit of pixie dust and lots of hail Maryesque prayers, but they’re also built on a lot of sweat and tears. It’s no accident that my dreams for 10 years down the road now look like rubble in comparison to the golden path I’m working to pave. When you start to look at your goals and focus on what you can achieve, it’s only natural for some to start reaching for the end game sooner than later.
Long-term goals call for long-term work and tweaks along the way
Sweat equity, reevaluating, and tweaking the big and little things you do on a daily basis are necessary. They help get you from where you are now to where you want to be: to your goal. As you set out to reach those long-term goals, expect hard work as you reach for milestones along the way. Don’t forget to have fun! This time of focused goal-setting and daily steps often involves fighting like crazy to get back on the path when you lose your way. Don’t take for granted the years spent actively working towards your goals. Every day, every moment should matter.
It’s important that you realize your cup still needs to be full and your heart still satisfied amidst the grind of life. You will need to reevaluate your timeline if your life is stripped of joy as you’re reaching for your goals.
Don’t rush through your journey
Let me share an example: it’s like taking my kids down to Orlando to experience Disney World. We only have 1 day to see it all. My kids can’t ride the rides. The kids could watch Nemo and Beauty and the Beast, but only for one act. Knowing better, the kids knew better than to even ask to wait to see Frozen when they saw the length of the line. “Disney is what we are here to see! And we will see Disney!!”
We bounce from one corner of the park to the next and do manage to run into a couple of characters to take pictures with. We fall into a heap on the grass as the sun goes down. We’ve hopped from park to park all day. Consequently, we are more than tuckered out! The fireworks begin amidst lots of ooohs and aaaahs. But as the fireworks were still mid-show, I told my kids we’ve got to go. We can’t be fighting all the crowds leaving the park. Let’s hurry to the car! We have to get out of the park before everyone else. We can’t go missing our flight back home to Iowa!
Don’t lose sight of your happiness
Obviously, I would never do this, and it feels extreme. But I think so many of us go through life this way. Following strict rules of “I can’t spend my money on this or experience that because I have goals.” We are so busy living for your future self that we strip yourselves of the joy truly experiencing life brings. We become so goal-driven that we lose sight of the day-to-day things that bring us happiness and give us a reason to live. Don’t forget your goals but never lose sight of the moments that fill every day with your WHY! It’s like gaining the status you want but losing your soul along the way. (Scrooge comes to mind)
Please don’t misunderstand me. To have drive is a great thing! It’s okay to make short-term sacrifices for long-term goals. Just don’t sacrifice everything today for future, unseen gains that may never come to fruition. Losing relationships and happiness isn’t worth it. If the life you wanted to live no longer exists, a 10 year goal is worthless.
In Building Long-term Goals:
Be specific.
Be larger than life.
Live your best life.
Nothing is holding you back in your long-term goals building, don’t hold yourself back with self-doubt!
You’ve got this!
Do you want to be a millionaire by 45? Where do you want to be? What do you want to be doing? Who are you spending your time with? Do you have any favorite hobbies? Where do you take vacations? Do you live a modest or abundant life? Do you have a maid to clean for you? What does your car and house look like? Do you live in an RV roaming the country or have a YouTube channel teaching gardening? Did you retire at age 50 and start traveling the world? This is the time to explore what you want your life to look like in the next decade or two. In doing so, also start to ponder what you can start doing today to work towards that goal in small increments.
As I finish typing these thoughts out, I’m still working on reestablishing my new 10 year long-term goals. I have a pretty darn good idea where I want to be in 15-20 years but 10 years is a bit harder. I’ll ponder it this week, and I hope that you will too. Put them in a notebook somewhere and visit that entry periodically to see how you’re doing. Tweak it every so often. Work weekly in little steps to head in the direction the goals are located. Don’t allow limiting beliefs to put a stopper on your pixie dust. And never forget how far your own sweat equity will take you as you live and work towards your long-term goals. Life, like Disney World, exists to be pondered and explored. Don’t rush through and miss it all!💛