I’ve been contemplating my goal making.
Around the new year a bunch of people start talking resolutions, how to successfully make and keep goals, and the best approach.
Last year my list of 2016 things had nearly 70 items. That list was incomplete. I had my goals I didn’t put on that list but that lived on another list and the goals I keep in my head that don’t go on any list ever.
With so many goals that are neither measurable or achievable, how can I possibly succeed?
There were a few years where I listened to these naysayers that are doing their best to help. It never worked. Ever.
This is why: I don’t want to be better in one or two or five ways. I want to be better in every way possible.
When I am faced with a choice in this life, I want to make the choice to be better, to be my best, in fact. Every single time. Each moment is an opportunity to be better.
And so I have endless goals. Endless, endless, endless. Will I ever achieve them all? Never. Not if I had 100 lifetimes to work on it.
I am not discouraged. I am a person in progress, which is exactly what I should be. I cannot think of anything more depressing than only wanting to be better in a few ways, to doing everything exactly the same except this thing and that thing. This will never be me. It’s inconsistent with the truths written on my heart of who I want to be.
This year I have a list of my most important goals. I keep this list in my journal. It covers things from financial to physical to emotional. I have month specific goals. One of my goals of January is to put one thing in it’s place every day. I might move this into February; I might not. I have the goals that don’t get written down anywhere. These are things that I would very much like to accomplish but that have zero standing in my list of things that I should be spending my time on. Like reading a classic each month. I would love to read a classic each month but there are so many things that are so much more important. I’ll probably put together an all-the-2017-things list that has dozens of items on it. All the little ways that I want to be better.
Some things I’ll improve in. Some things I’ll rock like there’s no tomorrow. Other things I’ll improve not at all. And that’s okay because I am doing my very best to be my best in each moment, to pick the better thing with each choice I’m given.
I will always want to be better in all the ways. I can’t imagine feeling any other way.