Yes, I know, I’ve been gone for weeks! Sorry about that. When you’re writing a blog about setting goals, getting motivated and moving your life forward but you’re not really walking the walk, it seems like a sham to write about it. But I’m back. (Deep sigh of relief.)
I’ve talked a lot about my aspirations as a writer, and one of my dreams was realized during that down period. Sort of. I wrote a book, but it was for someone else. My family can’t understand the concept of ghost writing, but in a nutshell, he tells me the gist of what he wants to say, I write it out, we go through a few revisions, and he sends me a check. It’s been an interesting project, and I dearly loved the writing portion. But I’m glad it’s almost over so I can take a breather. I have literally spent 15 hour days glued to the computer.
But going back to goals…my daughter is applying for the talented and gifted “leadership” program, and the application asked what goals she has set in life. She’s only 11, so her goals are things like performing on Broadway. Pretty nice goal, right?
After much thought, I realized she just doesn’t sit there an write out her goals. She just does it intuitively. She sees something she wants and she jumps in and goes after it. She doesn’t worry about exactly how she wants to word her goal, if that’s the right goal, what strategies she’s going to employ to get there.
I think as adults, we may be making this too complicated. If you want to be a writer, start writing and look for every opportunity you can find to get paid for it. If you want to stay home with your kids instead of working full-time, save up your money, trim some expenses and just do it. Want to retire at 50? Quit buying fancy cars and expensive clothes and invest your money instead.
I guess as humans, we’re always looking for shortcuts. And we really hate failure. So we try to devise a plan to reach our goal that will be the quickest and most efficient route. But sometimes we’re just wasting time with all of this planning.
In the immortal words of some Nike copywriter: Just Do It!