Little known (and completely useless) fact about me: I write myself emails all day, every day. I guess I … talk to myself?
Version 2.0 does as well. When he was little little, I’d send him outside where he would spend hours digging holes in our backyard. I would watch him from the kitchen window, and catch him having full-on animated conversations with himself. Apparently, this is normal – and dare I say – a sign of high intelligence? (But of course, a Google search of the topic will tell you otherwise, and literally make you question your sanity.)
(So Google schmoogle, we’ll stick with the former in that Version 2.0 and I are just exceptional, I guess, and not insane. 🤣)
Anywho.
I like to write things down. Depending on the day, my musings may simply be an effort to understand something, to write about it and revisit it later, or to work through thoughts/feelings/emotions that I’d rather be intentional in dealing with rather than reactive in response to. I’m fairly contemplative, sometimes angry, but always introspective. Always.
There’s a lot to unpack here – and yes, just a little teaser, I have a third Midlife Crisis post coming up where I’ll get into more detail (remember Parts 1 & 2 here), but there has been a shift in … me. I’m prioritizing myself (please don’t think I’m selfish). I’m setting goals, and more importantly, I’m putting them out there, making myself accountable, and being just a little bit … vulnerable? Because for the first time in my life, my goals are about what I want. Not about what is expected of me, not about what I should be doing, not about what makes sense, not about the rational next step, not about any of that.
(Post-secret: I didn’t get my PhD because I loved Biomedical Engineering. 🙄 But I bet you probably get that by now.)
“It is when things go hardest, when life becomes most trying, that there is a greatest need for having a fixed goal.”
B.C. Forbes
As silly as it sounds, my goals at this point are about things that make me happy; things that have nothing to do with anything other than making me happy (as an aside, the anxiety in typing this – and the guilt I feel for doing something for me and only me – is real, and something I’m working on).
I wrote myself some goals recently, and like I said, I put them out there on Instagram. One of the few times my musings saw the light of day.
Why? Well, I’m honestly not sure. Maybe to make myself accountable? I’m now forced to go after my goals. (What if someone asks me about them in a week, month, or year? What have I done to work towards making them happen?) Maybe a subliminal outreach looking for reassurance that I can achieve them? Maybe a subconscious ask for support in going after them? … Or maybe, a momentary lapse in judgment?
Probably a little bit of all of the above, to be honest. The beauty in not overthinking something (for once!), is that, before I could even question myself and remove my story, I already had someone reaching out, setting up a time when we could work together on the short- and medium-term goals above. Nearly instantaneous. SMART goals need action, right?
And you know what happened then? Instead of playing defense, I started playing offense. There were no excuses, and I didn’t want to make any. In the game of life – in the game of going after your goals – you can’t sit around and wait for things to happen to you.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
Barack Obama
And here we are, just over a week into the month, and I’ve already got some updates:
- I have gone to Open Gym twice this month (I’ll probably end up going more!). ✅
- You’re reading my first blog post for the month (and first in a long time). One left to go! ✅
- I ran a sub 7:00 minute mile with the help of a coach pacing me!!! ✅ <– THIS!!! ❤
So what’s next?
- More writing – writing feeds my soul. (Maybe with enough writing, I can get some work published, and my long-term goal can become a reality? I’ve got ideas. I’ve got chapters written. I’ve got books started. I just need to write.more.)
- More time in the gym – working out feeds my soul too. I’m going to be intentional in using the time I have to practice things like bar muscle ups (and now, legless rope climbs!).
- More goal setting – you just wait until September. I’m ready to put some numbers to my lifts, and see what I can get to in the gym. Lift heavy sh*t, as one of my favorite influencers likes to say. That is going to be my motto this fall and beyond.
- And as for the speed workouts noted above? Those were originally there to help support my mile efforts. I’d still like to incorporate intervals into my training, but I am also okay with goals evolving. We will see on this one.
Goals aren’t always met though. And incidentally, I have also written about not achieving goals, because that is very real – and okay – but I’ll only share a snippet here.
“You must accept that you might fail; then, if you do your best and still don’t win, at least you can be satisfied that you’ve tried. If you don’t accept failure as a possibility, you don’t set high goals, you don’t branch out, you don’t try – you don’t take the risk.”
Rosalynn Carter
I wrote the above to myself after months of training for a local half-marathon. I hadn’t raced 13.1 in a minute, but I knew I wanted to get back into it; running is, after all, my (free) therapy. 🤪 I had spent countless hours training, with dark, early morning runs (in single-digit temperatures!), double-sessions, weightlifting, an accountability running group – you name it, I did it. And all during the long winter months when I’m usually held in the tight grip of seasonal affective disorder. Through it all though, I really thought I could break 1:50:00.00. (Note, I hadn’t run that pace since training for the NYC marathon … 18 years before!). That was my goal, and I put it out there to anyone who would listen; I was on a runner’s high [read: momentary lapse(s) in judgment].
But the last run before the half when we were tapering? It was a disaster. My legs felt heavy. I was dragging. The idea of running twice that distance the following week seemed physically impossible. I wanted to walk back my goal, and it would have been easy to do so if I hadn’t actually verbalized it. Easy though, doesn’t make you better.
There are days when your body just isn’t feeling it. We’ve all heard people say to honor the way you feel. But for me? I had put in so.much.time – there was no option. So I did what I know how to do. I wrote (at least to myself). We are our own worst critics, and our own best advocates. I talked through the worst case scenario of not meeting my goal, and realized that a missed goal is merely another opportunity in the future. And you know what? Regardless of my time, it all worked out – it always does. More goals? Yes, please.
I can’t imagine a life without goals, a next thing to work on, something to strive for, or work to achieve. I also can’t imagine a life without writing. To myself mostly, but lately? I’m more willing to put things out there. Because I’ve got goals. And sometimes … it takes a village.
Go find yours. I dare you.
❤
_______
And just a little call-out to that long-term goal above? A number of years ago I spent some time in Epernay, France, visiting various champagne houses. I bought the bottle below, to open when I finally become a published author. It will happen. And when I make the career change to do something I’ve dreamed about my entire life? It will have been worth the wait.
I’ll get there.
❤