When you fail at your goals
When 2019 began, I set a lot of goals for myself (as usual). I wanted to go on a hike every month, finish and publish a book, and triple the profits from my business. Now that the year is wrapping up, I’m realizing that I didn’t complete a lot of the things I wanted to check off the list. That’s upsetting, and at first it made me not want to set goals for 2020—but then I realized I was forgetting some things.
While I may not have hiked every month of 2019, I also was active. I lost ten pounds and completed two long-distance hikes—a cumulative distance of over 25 miles in a two-month span. Though I didn’t publish a new book this year, I did become more grounded in my writing, more at peace about my words and my work. And even if I didn’t pull in triple the profits from my business, I doubled them.
It’s so easy to get down about the things we didn’t do, but what if we thought about goals in a different way?
What if we thought of them simply as something we’re aiming for? If we attain them, hell yes! But if we don’t? Then maybe we can remind ourselves there’s always tomorrow, always another chance to try harder.
I am a goal-oriented person and always have been, but that doesn’t mean I was ever a straight-A student or the best athlete on the swim team. It does mean I showed up every day. I went to practice religiously and did my homework every night. I finished things I set out to complete and did the best that I could. My best will never be perfect, and I’m learning to be okay with that.
Maybe 2019 was an “A for effort” type of year. Maybe all years are.
After thinking about all of this, I pushed the writing group I lead to set some writing goals for 2020. Even if their goal was as simple as coming to the meeting once a month, just thinking about writing for the 90 minutes we share together each month could ignite that tiny flicker inside of them into a full blaze.
